Being Freelance

Anna had built a career across corporate and government comms in Melbourne. But if she wanted to move her family out of the city and that meant first meant transforming the way she worked. Anna set out to prove she could match her past income, now as a freelance copywriter.  The seeds she planted in the city are now bearing fruit. From a farm in rural Victoria she’s reaping the rewards - a busines...

Alex trained as a musician. He followed a drumming dream to Nashville along with an internship at a 'mom & pop' business. There, they had him creating graphics and videos - those two things came together when Alex discovered motion graphics. He took to studying and developing as a motion designer. Self taught, he’s always been constantly trying to learn and improve. He didn't wa...

Spring 2020. A pandemic lockdown. Doesn’t sound like the ideal time to build a business, but Ayo had 20 years of marketing experience as her foundations. And a love of marketing that she’d put to good use on herself. Specialising in the ‘built environment’ - think construction, engineers, architects - Ayo launched a podcast that raised her profile and brought her clients. Repurposing content acros...

Brazilian creative Victoria was working in advertising in London when in 2013 she fancied a change. A change of pace, country and language, and to help her do that she figured she’d go freelance in Spain. After 3 years she took a job in an agency. Four years on she felt ready to freelance again. A pandemic and motherhood making the flexibility of working from home even more appealing. Second time...

It’s quite a winding route that’s taken Marcelle to be known as a fashion photographer. But from working in shops on London’s Oxford Street as a teenager, now her photos can be seen in those windows instead. Marcelle did lots of work for free early on but it built a network, a portfolio and a reputation that has since served her well. Whilst her training as a graphic designer has kept her working...

Kyle left agency life and started his self-employed journey working with friends as a collective. 8 years on though, he’d built his own name through hosting meet-ups and speaking at events to the point where it made sense to go solo. From small meet-ups he ended up speaking on some of the biggest stages with the likes of Adobe as clients. Yet in 2020 decided to switch from being a freelancer to be...

When Korean Hyunjin, or ‘Jenna’ as she’s also known, met her American husband, she moved to be with him and needed to find work in small town USA. Whilst blogging tips about international relationships, Jenna found readers started to approach her for help with their own written English requirements like cover letters and applications. Her freelance journey had begun. Years later she joined Elance,...

Luke needn’t have been scared of going freelance. He’d spent 10 years of agency life making great work and making a name for himself. Through writing, speaking and community, people knew he’d be a great freelancer even if he didn’t. And whilst all of his income is derived from client work, that’s definitely not where all his time is spent Luke devotes huge amounts of energy to Birmingham Design. J...

When Australian Robyn quit her job working in comms for a French yacht company, she wasn’t expecting her boss to be so keen to keep her that he’d offer her a 2-day-a-week retainer if she went freelance. So she did. Finding work through her network and referrals along the way. 6 years later Robyn still has no website. But working solo also gradually sent Robyn into her shell. So now, she’s proactiv...

While working in his first job at a small agency, Ryan started a website. He didn’t think much of it. Until its local SEO started bringing him leads and the chance to do extra work on the side. A year on, working evenings and weekends, he’d reached capacity. This was it. Time to go full time freelance. With no network of his own, he needed his site to continue to bring him clients. And it really d...

Already established in her marketing career, Nadine went freelance in order to ‘stretch’ herself professionally. And stretch she has! Her natural networking style served her well. Nadine has been freelancing for 10 years with big name clients and still doesn’t have a website of her own. LinkedIn and her trusty Rolodex of business cards keep her ‘booked and busy’. And in the past couple of years, s...

Momina realised traditional office life didn’t fit with taking care of her mental health. Sh'e’d go freelance and be a better boss to herself. Having quickly built up a personal brand and relationships on Twitter, work soon came her way. This was in January 2022. So when she spoke for the podcast in July of that year, she’d really not been freelancing long. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t ha...

Stephen wasn’t looking to go freelance, but when redundancy came 10 years ago, he took on a contract for a few months. And here is all those years later saying he’d never go back. In between he’s evolved specialisms, written a book that became a course and started working remotely. Stephen takes time out on side projects and courses to always stay on top of trends, tech and skills - thinking about...

In 2011, taking a family holiday from his job as a Ford engineer, changed David’s life forever.  An accident on the beach left him paralysed from the chest down. Quadriplegic. When David was ready to work again, an old friend remembered their shared love of music. He suggested David create audio tracks for the animated videos his company were creating. His freelance business ‘Quadriphonic Sound’ w...

The small agency Nick had joined had become a big agency. He’d become part of the leadership team. HR. Management. Meetings. He missed doing the ‘work’. He did know how much big clients were willing to pay for that work though. So Nick set out as a high-billing tone-of-voice specialist. A company of one.  With various side projects, Nick embraces the freedom of freelance life - allowing moments of...

Fungi left university as a scientist. But it was her experiments with Photoshop that had unexpected results. She now wanted to be a designer. Whilst working full-time in science, she designed on the side. By changing her entire persona online, she began to turn what started as a passion project, into a full-time freelance career. Fungi’s focus is in lifting African culture and narratives to the fo...

Levi left art school with no job, but worse, no love of art. Eventually he started creating and experimenting. Finding his style, he also found an art director and his lucky break. Going from flipping burgers to turning over big meaty clients. Still Levi has worked hard to keep the ‘play’ of art in his life. Joining a studio and forming a collective. He’s not going to let getting paid to create de...

Over 10 years ago Frankie crowd funded her training as a graphic designer. It’s fair to say she doesn’t look at problems the same way everyone does. And when pregnancy took her flourishing freelance career a few steps back, when she felt isolated amongst parents with full-time jobs, she didn’t settle. She searched. She got creative. As her first child was born, so was ‘Doing It For The Kids’. Thro...

Bal loved his job in advertising, but posting on Instagram as ‘Mr Whisper’ changed the course of his career, leading him to work not only for himself, but with some insanely high profile brands from the off. As an early ‘creator’, Bal has had to adapt as social media has evolved, to make sure the brands and the full-time rates kept coming. But despite the competition, he has his blinkers on. He’s...

Although Michelle had a brief fling living the nine to five life in Silicon Valley, there was no chance of her resisting being her own boss. Starting out as a freelancer 20 years ago, Michelle could never have predicted that social media would become such a big part of her freelancing life - with a huge Twitter chat, community and Space that she hosts. In two decades she’s grown a successful busin...

After graduating with a degree in illustration, Andi moved back to his hometown. Renting an odd-shaped office with no windows might not have given him great views. But it did give him amazing business connections. Resources and referrals that would set the first of many freelance plates spinning. With a varied career, Andi is also enjoying the challenge of mastering freelancing with his latest cli...

After being made redundant from her New York agency job, Nikki thought she’d go to Israel for a year and freelance as a copywriter. If it didn’t work out, she’d come back and get another agency job. 7.5 years later her family has grown up in Israel. Their mum is very much still freelance. But she’s not a general copywriter anymore, she’s since found her niche in email strategy. Building authority...

Ryan started freelancing still in his teens, mentored by his first (and only) boss. Intriguingly, for SEO purposes he has both a freelancer website and a local agency site, but doesn’t want to grow bigger than being a solo business. He’s putting work-life balance ahead of profits. Our chat includes putting your worries in perspective, the importance of side projects, worklife balance, adding perso...

Krishna was always freelance on the side of other jobs, eventually going full self-employed in 2019. Now with the support of a mentor, a community and mastermind group she’s growing her business into an agency. A lot going on, a lot happening fast. But then she loves life ‘100 miles per hour’. You'll find full show notes and transcript for this episode at beingfreelance.com   This episode is...

Micah is a pandemic freelancer. A year after losing his job and starting out, he redesigned his ‘OK Micah’ website to be full of his personality and aligned with his values: to help and celebrate queer businesses. Two years in, his ‘work life harmony’ is in place. Ideal clients coming to him. Freelance life is more than just OK for Micah.   This episode is sponsored by Freelancer Magazine . Dedica...