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I am a young web designer (20 years old) from Slovenia, I love design and I am passionate about it. I have been designing since I was 14 years old. My boss is happy with my work. I also see that colleagues from college like my designs and frequently reach out to me and or ask me questions. I wouldn't consider myself excellent, but I believe that currently my skill is moderate ( I still have/want much to learn and discover).

I am currently employed and studying part time. I also do freelance work for my colleagues and friends of friends and anyone that reaches out to me basically.

I am wondering how hard it is to start the freelance, how do I know if I am ready for it?

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  • Hi Zan, welcome to Freelancing.SE! I'm glad you wrote all the details you could, but could you try to shorten it up to the details specific to your problem, outline a clear question in your post, and double-check your spelling/grammar? If English isn't your native language, let us know, and someone else may be able to help clean it up a bit. Thanks!
    – Canadian Luke ♦
    Jan 7, 2015 at 18:05
  • Here it's complicated to be self employed, i had a job just like you where i had to work about 8 hours, one great day I've been fired and lost on this same decision, i though i could work for myself during the time until i find something else, then i found freelancer.com and started freelancing to check how things come up. At the start was really complicated, but after some 4 months, it started to come nicely, but as our friend above said, we can't tell you the correct time for transition, you must feel that you can and start things up.
    – William Xavier
    Jan 11, 2015 at 1:34
  • Note: There is no actual question in your question. However this may be a possible duplicate of How to make the jump from normal employee to higher level freelancing
    – Scott
    Jan 11, 2015 at 20:57
  • " i have a really hard time working for someone else, I have no problem freelancing, because at the end of the day I am working on my own brand." This outlook would strike me as very problematic if you want to freelance in a design related field; you're not working on your own brand, you're developing your client's brand. If you're not comfortable with that then you might struggle with client work.
    – Dre
    Jan 20, 2015 at 17:44

2 Answers 2

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What do you need help with? Asking us should you quit your job? We cannot answer that.

A few advises.

If you plan to quit your job and do freelance, take this into consideration:

  1. Do you have enough money to pay bills for 1 year? Yes, 1 year.

  2. Write down all your clients and count how many hours of work they all can bring in 1 month. Be realistic and lead by your current amount of work with them.

  3. Think about how many clients you can surely attract in 1 year. Think about sources you will attract them from.

  4. If you start freelancing, you may have to raise your price. Are your client ready to pay that price? You may lose more than half of them.

  5. Write a note to your clients saying that you plan to do freelance full time and ask them to predict how much work they can give you monthly. You may be surprised.

The 1st year will be tough. Design is usually less paid in freelance world that programming. Thinking "if work 5 hours a day, I can make the same money" is wrong. Can you make 25 hours of work weekly? Each week in a year? We freelancers always think in a way "if I work 40 hours at this rate, I would be rich", but it's hard to find full week of work every week.

Also think of all expenses you may have working freelance: extra office, extra costs on bills, etc.

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  • I didnt ask a question whether i should quit or not, because I will quit eventually. What I hoped to get are tips and tricks that might ease the transition or maybe advice when would be the right time to make the transition. Your advices are great, thank you very much, I believe currently I am not ready yet, but maybe a few months later, if I work hard enough I could be. Thanks again, cheers!
    – user5768
    Jan 7, 2015 at 10:35
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The best and safest way is to start freelancing in free time, while keeping the day job. Once you gain enough experience/clients/jobs and (if) you make enough to buy things you need and make you happy, you can quit your day job and go full time freelancing.

There are many benefits of being freelancer, but note there are many studies concluding that Freelancers often earn less than their employed counterparts.

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