01
Freelancing Basics
Getting started with the freelance life.
- I'm not a "creator" or "gig-worker" – I'm a freelancer
- The pandemic has torn down the freelance hurdles
- How to Make Money Online With No Skill or Experience
- What kind of freelancer are you?
- The myth of the full-time freelancer
- The right way to start freelancing
- Don’t Become a Freelancer
- There is no life-hack for freelance success
02
Business & Entrepreneurship
Building your full-time freelance career.
- When success makes you lazy, blame your cognitive bias
- The Big Lie of "Good, Fast, Cheap"
- The future of freelancing isn’t better platforms — it’s no platforms
- A Great Design Career Starts with Ignoring Money
- Living the Freelance Dream: Cheap Gigs for Bad Clients?
- Three Simple Questions Hold the Secret to Career Success
- Freelancing Through a Crisis – 8 Rules for Staying Recession-Proof
- Passive Income Is a Lie — Build Passion Income Instead
- Stop Trying to Create the Next Big Thing
- You're an Artist, Not an Entrepreneur
- How I Grew My Freelance Business from $0 to Six Figures
- How to Build a Recession-Proof Design Business
- When they go cheap and global, double-down on premium and local
- Self-Employed Identity Crisis: Freelancer, Contractor, Consultant, Entrepreneur, or Solopreneur?
- Build your freelance business on values
- Are we doing freelance contracts all wrong?
- Professional freelancers don’t do “gigs”
- The freelance business growth dilemma
03
Value & Pricing
Thoughts on money, value, and rates.
- Freelance pricing — in search of the “double thank you”
- Why I never quote a fixed price
- Why is pricing design so hard?
- How I earned $150K last year from freelance design
- You're probably calculating freelance rates all wrong – follow this strategy instead
- Designers who can code are more valuable
- What to charge: does value-based pricing live up to the hype?
- How I earned $15,000 last month from freelance design
04
Clients
Client acquisition, types, and relationships.
- Embracing the big and scary
- Forget nightmare clients — this is what dream clients look like
- How to Make Freelance Clients Come to You
- Get more freelance clients by becoming “referable”
- Are you working for cost-clients or value-clients?
- The perfect marriage of designer & client
- If your ideal clients aren’t coming to you, go to them.
- How to land your dream clients — a step-by-step guide
05
Communication & Professionalism
Learn to think and talk your client's language.
06
Reputation & Marketing
Positioning your personal brand for maximum trust.
- Introvert designers: stop pushing your business uphill
- Person before portfolio
- The "Perfect Triangle" approach to defining your niche
- How Solo Freelancers Can Land Massive Gigs
- You say “NO” but they come back begging for a “YES”
- Chocolate bars taught me how to price my freelance services
- I’m self-employed, but I don’t “freelance”
- “Finding your niche” is bullshit
- I fell off a freelance cliff, but built a parachute before I hit the ground.
- Designers, kill your labels
07
Design & Creativity
Matters of UX/UI design and creative process.
- Standardization doesn’t stifle creativity
- Blitz design — the value of intuition and speed
- Tesler’s law: the conservation of complexity
- Lost your pride? — Why you’re not producing your best design work
- Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work
- To become better designers, we need more time for play
- 9 Ways to Stop Designing the Same Old Stuff
- The Best Designers Are Both Creators and Curators
- Data-Driven Design Is Killing Our Instincts
- How to fend off bad client ideas
- One design concept, infinite revisions?
- The truth about Art vs. Design
- The value of style-agnostic design
- Is Responsive Design Dead?
- How to give and receive great design feedback
- Why good designers can never do their best work
- Brand is king. Respect the king.
- The value of a design education
- Finding offline inspiration
08
Design Process & Strategy
Where design meets business.
- Is design your love or addiction?
- Every design is a system
- Macro/micro vision for coherent design systems
- Designing in a state of flux
- The power of being an external expert
- Designer-PMs Are the Next Unicorns
- Novices Design the Surface; Experts Dive Deep
- Why Compromise Is the Great Design Superpower
- Why Designers Need to Be ‘Specialized Generalists’
- No, not “everyone is a designer”
- R.I.P. – Big Design Up Front
- Design is not a choice
- Fast design vs. quick design
- You pay me, but I don’t work for you
- Designing for your clients, or for likes from your peers?
- The best designers are business strategists
- Designers, get uncomfortable
09
Lifestyle & Productivity
Freelance balance, efficiency, and self-improvement.
- Your schedule needs white space too
- I earned $50K more because of COVID last year
- The Deeper Truths of Working From Home – What All the Tips Aren't Telling You
- The freelancer’s mental load
- Performance = Talent x Effort²
- “First-world” freelance problems: I have too much work
- Smoothing out the freelance rollercoaster
- Digital nomad? Nope. I chose the freelance life so I can stay at home.
10
Future of Work
How do indie workers fit into our evolving economy?
- Working Remotely Isn’t Outsourcing Yourself
- Why Freelancing Became More Stable Than Employment
- Stuff I Thought Was Important Just Isn't Anymore
- The Future of Work is Local-Remote
- “Adulting” and Critical Thinking Are Education for the Future of Work
- The relentless pressure to sell yourself
- Fuck work. Jobs are broken.
- Freelancing ≠ Upwork
- Should work be “fun”?