The freedom and responsibility of contracting

I worked for over 5 years in the traditional way as a designer. Which means basic 10-7 in the office, 20 days of paid vacation. Of course it has appeal, you have the security, the monthly secure cashflow and benefits. But overall it something felt a little off and missing for me.

Let me start from the beginning. Growing up in a traditional german family you were thought from early childhood. That you need to get a apprenticeships (that is 3 years of learning in the job for a meager salary) and then continue there for the next 40 years or so. And if you didn’t follow that path, well…then you will not achieve anything in live and end up a bum. At least that was the premise.

Later in my teenage years I was a lot into alternative music and basically questioned everything, the best thing that came out of this phase was that I learned that anything is possible. Still when something is taught to you in your childhood it is quite hard to get out of it and think differently. So I went to Berlin and found myself a job in the startup world. This was a great compromise between freedom and security.

A few years down the road life happened and I needed to move to a different country and where I had not really a lot of job options in the design field. Mostly because lack of the native language. So I finally went ahead and jumped into the freelancing world. With little to no overhead there could have not been a better time.

After only a few weeks in I could already see the benefits, I had more time doing sports, reading and learning new skills, that would get me more clients down the road. More and more I realized that I was in for the long run and I wanted to build myself a good pipeline of clients, while the overhead was still small. Learning about sales, leads and analytics is certainly interesting, but reminds me often why I became a designer in the first place.

Still Being booked is always a two sided sword for someone that is interested in a lot of different things. The bad side of it of course that you still want to help the potential client and direct them to a designer that you know will not disappoint him. This is where I found Toptal. A platform where you can only find the top tier of freelancer around the globe. Great for clients is that they can scan the freelancers easily and can eliminate a lot of the initial risk that comes working with a new team member. While freelancers can make sure that their pipeline is always filled with interesting projects and also trustworthy clients.

I just began the screening process, but of course am full of high hopes and full of confidence in my ability to design and communicate. I can recommend Toptal  for any freelancer that is looking for both top clients and other top designers.