If knowledge is indeed power, then you have at your disposal the most powerful tool in the history of mankind.
I have heard many writers bemoan the fact that technology has not impacted the world in the ways depicted in so many science fiction films. There are no flying cars and very few silver jump suits.
And yet, in my view, the many ways that technology has actually changed the world are actually even more interesting. For example, the Internet has changed how we communicate with one another, how we entertain ourselves, and how we work. Nobody could have predicted it.
Today, more and more people are working online, and more and more businesses are working remotely. There are more opportunities than ever before for professionals—especially within the technology industry—to further their careers and work how, when, and where they want. The world is just catching up to these new possibilities, but it is safe to say that they are going to fundamentally change our way of life.
In fact, they already can. And if you act fast, you can get a foothold in an emerging marketing and gain a significant advantage over the competition.
This is your chance to become a pioneer. To work in a manner that wasn’t possible even just a few years ago. To design the lifestyle that you want, to create opportunities that you never imagined, and to earn a solid and stable income in the process; all thanks to the transformative power of technology.
By working “gigs” online, you can earn a little side income, or you can completely change your lifestyle and remove the shackles of 9-to-5 office work. You can join the many “digital nomads” who travel the world while working online, or you can elevate your own rising star and design your dream job.
Who needs flying cars?
Whatever your ambition, the Web can make it happen. You’ll discover how in this book.
The Gig Economy
The “gig economy” is one term that can be used to describe the manner of working just introduced. But it is also a rather broad term, so perhaps it would be useful to define precisely what we mean when we use it.
“Gig economy” is broadly used in this book to refer to the abundance of short-term work and contracts. This is driven by companies that hire staff for individual projects and pay them on a per-job or hourly basis, rather than offering them a full-term employment contract. This often applies to food delivery, taxi services, and even skilled labor such as programming and engineering.
Unfortunately, this type of agreement often benefits those companies far more than it benefits the freelancers that work with them. In short, those taxi and food delivery gigs come with all the disadvantages of working for a single organization (it becomes harder to juggle other work, you are given minimal flexibility as to which jobs you take on and when etc.) and all the disadvantages of being self-employed (no contract, no fixed wage, no health insurance, no sick pay).
Thus, the term “gig economy” often comes with negative connotations as a result; similar to “zero-hour contracts.” But the gig economy can also refer to the trend of taking on online gigs. In this context, it refers to freelancers who advertise their skills on sites like Upwork, PeoplePerHour, and Fiverr (indeed, jobs advertised on Fiverr are referred to as “gigs” by the company’s own terminology). The concept is the same: the individual will be paid per job or per fixed, short-term contract.
It can also mean working in an office, but even that has more advantages when it is skilled work that we are talking about. No longer are you an easily replaceable cog in a machine, but a valuable superstar who is choosing where to spend their time.
This is the precise same type of agreement, but now the power lies in the hands of the freelancer. It’s up to you to choose which jobs you take on, the contracts you want to negotiate, and how (and ideally where) you actually complete the work. When you work online it is far easier to juggle multiple clients, and to decide which jobs to take on. This is where freelancing gives you the flexibility and freedom to work how you want, to increase your profits, and to enjoy even greater stability.
Companies are increasingly looking for professionals to complete short jobs for them, and the Web has given us the tools to make that more convenient than ever. The goal is not to let those companies use this to take advantage of us, but rather to use it to our advantage.
Many people will still object to the idea of freelancing, believing that it is inherently less stable and secure. But as you read through this book, you will learn that this doesn’t have to be the case; you can have your cake and eat it too.
So, from this point onward, the “gig economy” refers specifically to online work catering to tech professionals (and others outside the tech industry to a slightly lesser extent) who want to work on a freelance basis with no strings.
The Benefits of Freelancing: Who Is This For?
Freelancing through online gigs in the tech industry (and other fields) brings with it a huge range of different advantages. Of course, it’s not for everyone, though, so it’s best at this point that you understand what you’re getting into . . . before you decide to swallow that red pill and change your perception of reality irrevocably.
Note that the freelancing option doesn’t have to be a binary, either-or kind of thing. You can just as well work online as a freelancer in your spare time to make some money on the side. If you like the sounds of some of these points but are put off by others, then you do have the option to go half in. You can pick and choose. And that’s a big part of the appeal! I’ll be discussing that option more later in this book.
What Freelancing Does for You
So, why freelance? This section describes some of the highly significant ways in which freelancing and entering the gig economy can transform your life for the better.
Time Flexibility
Have a friend who brags that their organization offers them flextime? Ha! Flextime is nothing to you as a freelancer!
If you want to work four-hour days and are willing to take the cut in income that comes with that, then that’s your call. If you want to finish work early one day “just because,” then most of the time you can. If you want to work an extra hour a day and stop working Mondays, then that’s an option too—that’s what I do!
There are limits to this flexibility. of course. If you continually shirk on your deadlines, then people are going to stop working with you. And if your contract requires you to be online during certain hours, then you can’t pack in early without telling anyone. But if you’re smart in your planning (which this book will help you with), then you’ll be able to choose a work schedule that you enjoy.
And, of course, that means you can choose to prioritize other things in your life. I am never more appreciative that I work for myself than when my wife needs me to pick her up from work early because she’s unwell. Being a freelancer lets me be there for the people I love.
Or maybe you just want to spend more time skiing, or working out, or building a side business. Freelancing gives you more freedom, time, and energy to “do you.”
Note
Working gigs is ideal for “bootstrapping” a new business idea, as will be discussed in Chapter 9.
Notice how Bruce Wayne doesn’t have a super-demanding 9-to-5 day job? Or Peter Parker? Or Clark Kent? Do you want to be Batman? Or stressed-out Joe?
Freedom of Location
If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like being micromanaged, who gets frustrated that they have to stick to a certain dress code, and who would much rather take their lunch break when it suits them, then you’ll likely enjoy the gig economy.
By working remotely via the Web, you’ll have the freedom to operate from a home office if you so choose, which means that you can enjoy all of the creature comforts and luxuries of being in your own environment. That also means there’s no need for a commute—the value of which cannot be stressed enough. Imagine your current working day without a 20- to 90-minute slog each way during rush hour. And without the cost of fuel or train tickets!
If you follow this through to its logical conclusion, then it leads you to some exciting possibilities as embodied by “digital nomads” who travel the world while working from a laptop (more on this later). That may not appeal to you, but there are other options. When I lived in Bournemouth, a seaside town on the southern coast of England, I would regularly take a stroll down to the beach and sit with a cocktail (fruit cocktail—I was working!) and watch the world go by. Today I often work in libraries and coffee shops in Oxford and London.
In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel (W.W. Norton, 1997), author Jared Diamond explains how those tribes that were most geographically blessed were eventually the ones able to grow into developed civilizations. With the gig economy, geography need no longer be a limiting factor.
Work You Enjoy
When you work online or work short-term gigs, you’ll gain the flexibility to take on the jobs that you want, to work with the people and organizations you want, and to stop working when you want.
Love coding but not a fan of collaboration? Then just pick and choose those types of jobs.
Enjoy web design but hate marketing and “communication overhead” (I hear you)? Then find an agency.
This is a learning process for sure, and to begin with you won’t be able to afford to be picky. But with time, you’ll be able to pick and choose the kind of work that appeals to you and turn down the rest. That’s the kind of thing that gets you fired in conventional employment.
Set Your Own Fee
When you work gigs, you get to set your own fee, although there is normally a bit of a trade-off here between this point and the others (e.g., do you do work less and earn less, or do you take on more work that you don’t enjoy as much?).
Ultimately, though, you can decide how much money you need to earn and then set that as your target. While it might be hard to negotiate the rate of pay you want at first, you will always have the option to put in more hours, and sometimes that is going to be handy. Boiler broken at a time when you really can’t afford to have it fixed? Then just calculate how many more jobs you need to accept and find a way to make that work around your other commitments.
Want to treat yourself to a meal out guilt-free? Then just do a bit of work one Saturday. The option is always there.
Productivity
Believe it or not, chances are that you can be hugely more productive when you’re self-employed.
When you work for a big organization, you are on their time. They are paying for you to be available between the hours of 9 and 5 (typically). But are they necessarily getting the best work out of you in that time? The answer for many businesses is no: they’ll have you answering the phone, responding to e-mails, attending meetings, doing menial errands, and so forth. All of these little jobs serve predominantly as distractions from the main bulk of your work: the skilled, value-creating work that you were originally hired to do.
Imagine how much more work you could accomplish in eight hours if you didn’t have all those frustrating distractions and if you could work in an uninterrupted state of flow, the psychological state of intense focus, first described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008) and subsequently applied specifically to working productively in Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (Grand Central Publishing, 2016).
You now have two options: do twice the actual work and double your income (and your career progression) OR clock off at 4 p.m. and call it a day. And I’ll talk to you about how to get better at stints of intense concentration later in this book.
Stability
I also believe that, in many ways, being self-employed is actually a more stable and reliable way to earn money versus working for an employer.
Think about it: If you are employed by just one company and that company goes under, you’re out of a job. No more income. The same goes if you get let go.
But if you have ten ongoing clients, what are the chances that all of them are going to up and leave you at the very same time? Very slim, one would hope.
Not only that, but more and more people are going to be turning to freelancers as word gets out. Why would a company limit itself to the local pool of talent when it could go online and find the very best in the business to do the job? Why would a company spend resources and office space on a permanent member of staff when it can get the same work done with no overhead, no administration, and no commitment?
And smaller consumer services will also benefit from the same things. Why would someone choose to get their services from a large, faceless corporation—where they will pay more overhead and struggle to ever get in touch with the top brass—when they could work directly with a more affordable individual, someone who has earned their trust through a blog and who will be ready to answer questions immediately?
This topic is discussed in more detail in the book Race Against the Machine (Digital Frontier Press, 2011), by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, where it is described as the “great restructuring.” Brynjolfsson and McAfee, by the way, suggest that the people who will thrive in this new business economy will be those that are able to work with “intelligent machines.” That’s you!
This is simply future-proofing. More and more jobs will become outsourced. If you’re already a freelancer, then you will be ready, you will have a foothold in the market, and you will have the competitive advantage.
Your Own Business (And Personal Development)
When you work freelance, you run your own business. It might not feel like it, because you’re not the CEO of a big corporation barking out orders and speaking to boards of directors. But nevertheless, you will be a sole proprietor (sole trader), or you will own a limited liability company (limited business). You may have your own company name and trademark, or you might have a “personal brand.”
Either way, thinking about yourself as a “business” not only is crucial to your success, but will also make the entire process all the more rewarding. You’ll be building lists of clients and contacts, managing relationships, developing new skills (R&D), investing in equipment and training courses, and promoting yourself. The only difference is that now all of those things will be benefiting you directly. You won’t get “thank you” and a bigger Christmas bonus when you bring in a massive new job/client: you’ll reap 100% of the profit.
If you’re currently working for an company and feeling underappreciated, then becoming your own business is the perfect tonic.
What Freelancing Isn’t (The Downsides)
While I am always the first to reel off the virtues of freelancing to anyone who asks (and a lot of people who don’t), there are also some important considerations to take into account. It’s not all sunshine and roses, and this section points out some of the things to keep in mind when deciding if this lifestyle is right for you.
You Need Discipline
If you’re going to freelance, then you need to be disciplined. That means you need to be able to shut the world out and go to town on that website backend/search engine optimization (SEO) content. It means you need to be able to avoid the temptation to take breaks whenever you feel like it, and it means you need to be able to stay self-motivated in order to meet deadlines.
If you can’t imagine working from home without being tempted to give up and play computer games, then perhaps this lifestyle isn’t for you. With that said, though, note that this discipline is something that can be practiced and that will improve with time.
What’s just as important in terms of discipline is that you take the time off when you aren’t working. This will ensure you’re at your most productive when you return to work and it will also prevent you from making yourself ill or alienating friends and family!
Other People
This is a vague heading, sure, but other people create all kinds of problems for you as a freelancer.
First off, you will find that you often have a hard time trying to describe to other people what exactly it is you do. When you tell people you’re self-employed, they’ll very often assume what you really mean is that you are unemployed (as does the delivery guy, presumably, after the fourth parcel you accept in your pajamas at 11 a.m.).
I spent the first four years of self-employment being asked when I would “get a real job.” Once people started seeing my name on big websites and learned of my business trips abroad, they finally stopped.
The other problem is that people can’t quite get their head around the fact that you’re not available for calls and to run errands. If you work from home, then you’ll find that people call you during work hours and are offended if you aren’t free to answer or chat.
The problem is that you’ll want to take advantage of your flexibility, and when you do, other people may assume that you have unlimited flexibility. Sometimes you will be free to meet up during the day and work later in the evening instead. But if you do it once, people may not realize you can’t always do it (without getting very behind on sleep or work).
Oh, and the next time that someone asks you “what you do,” expect it to be a long conversation!
Lack of Other People
Now I’m being purposefully contrary. But the point I’m making is that you will be working on your own much of the time. That means a lot of isolation, and for some people, being part of a “team” is one of the big perks of work.
For that reason, this type of career is arguably better suited to introverts. That said, when the time comes to speak with a client in person, it can help to be a bit more extroverted (there is such thing as an ambivert!).
If you feel you will suffer as a result of not being around co-workers, then you need to make sure that you make up for it by jam-packing your free time with social alternatives. I used to work in London sometimes and meet my wife or cousin for lunch, for instance.
Ultimately in my view, I’d rather spend more time with people I care about than people I have been made to work with. But again, this comes down to personal preference.
Admin
There is also a fair amount of admin and “fiddly stuff” to contend with when setting up any business. While a sole proprietor has less to worry about than a limited liability company, you do still need to consider things like filing tax returns, logging your expenses and income, dealing with clients, investing in marketing (maybe including trademarks), and more. You’ll need to sign up to websites, and you may wish to create your own business website.
All this can be a headache and it is often a considerable “barrier to entry.” In other words, if you’re not 100% sure about working as a freelancer, potential admin tasks may be enough to deter you from diving in. The good news is that you can take these responsibilities on slowly and eventually automate or outsource a great deal of them.
Risk
One of my goals in this book is to demonstrate to you that being an online freelancer can be just as stable as being employed. In fact, it can actually be more stable in some cases—as I said earlier. But in the interests of balance, let’s consider risk.
At the end of the day, you won’t be employed. You won’t have a long-term contract. There is no guarantee that the work will keep coming. That’s a shift in the way we have been brought up to view work, and for some, that’s bound to incite just a little anxiety.
All risk can be mitigated, and I do believe you’ll see that as we proceed through this book. BUT you do need just a little courage in order to strike out on your own. Depending on how you’re wired, that risk might be seen as a positive thing.
The game is afoot!
What You Will Learn
If you’ve read all the preceding potential downsides of freelance work and you’re still with me, then congratulations! You may just be cut out for the gig economy after all.
And this book is going to serve as your ignition and your roadmap. The aim is to help you see the possibilities, to help you set up a working business model, and then to navigate the many pitfalls along the way to fulfill your vision.
The types of work you can sell
Where to sell that work
How to promote yourself
How to distinguish a good client from a bad one
How to negotiate the best rates
How to juggle a massive workload
How to manage your money
How to do gigs “on the side” to supplement your income
How to learn online to increase your skill set
How to transition to full-time freelancing
How to set up an online business
How to grow, scale, and develop your business
How to handle admin, taxes, and so on
How to optimize your work/life balance and take full advantage of the flexibility you are now afforded
How the gig economy will grow and develop into the future
Plus, the usual vague “and much more.”
Chapter Summary
So, in this chapter, we explored the compelling reasons to consider entering the gig economy, especially as a tech entrepreneur. I hope it has inspired you while at the same time preparing you for the reality of being self-sufficient in this way.
In the next chapter, we’ll be looking at the steps you need to take to make this lifestyle a reality. You’ll learn where to find clients and how your relationships with them will tend to work. This chapter was the why; next up comes the how.