Hey just curious what would your advice be to market your skills as a new freelance web developer? I finished your flask series finally ( it was amazing) and now I have a pretty slick website. Next Im going to tackle django since its much shorter, and get that under my belt. Heres a summary of the site features Im going to advertise (though its mostly basic, for static sites, blog etc, later want to add forum and ecommerce features, but also need more web application logic and more complex functions like for user dashboard settings):
FUTURE: messaging/commenting system user forum ecommerce store customized web application
This is a good start but I need to take things to the next level. My other issue is how to start selling my service. I want to directly provide freelance web dev service to clients, but there are certain impediments to free market association. Aka 5-10 layers of bureaucracy and regulations just to provide an online service. I looked into starting an LLC and its like holy shit, have to get lawyers, accountants, jump through all these bureaucratic hoops just to directly provide a service to prospective clients. Its like a middle man getting in between me and a customer which is aggravating. Anyways can you speak from experience in this area and are there any other ways to do this easier? For instance take a donation in return for building someone a website, skipping all the aforementioned bullshit. If I have to Ill start a business but it will cost thousands to start and I dont even know if it will be successful. In a true free market I could start a business for literally 0 dollars and it could not fail because it cost nothing to launch, so I would only have something to gain. Oh if only...
Thanks so much again, your tutorials are gold and have learned so much from you its unbelievable. You are truly generous giving out this knowledge and thats why I donated to you, because you deserve support for how much you give freely.
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You are likely over thinking things here. Starting a business as a sole proprietor is free. You can incorporate, mostly for legal or tax purposes. The two most common reasons would be for personal lawsuit protection or for a way to sell equity to investors. Both of those can be achieved for well under 1,000 USD, and usually under 500. For most people, a Delaware C corp is what they want. I am not a lawyer tho, research more on your own. I just know its not as much as you seem to be thinking.
To market yourself, you simply need to network in some way. Make sure to have example websites in a portfolio either from previous clients or just sample sites of your own. Examples of networking can be word of mouth from clients, a blog of your work, posting on freelance sites, cold calling companies with ugly websites, or meeting people in person who you find out need web dev.
-Harrison 8 years ago
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