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Gabri Cebria
Gabri Cebria

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How to go from 0 to 100k as a freelancer

Going from 0 to 100K as a freelancer sounds very challenging. Something only the best can do in less than a year. But let me tell you something.

Most successful freelancers have a ton in common, and having your first 100k year is possible once you understand what it is!

It all comes down to your mindset. I had to learn this from experience, so let me spare you the pain and help you out.
The only mindset shift you need is this: You are a company of one person, and everything you do affects your value in the market.

What do I mean and how can you apply this?

This means you should start acting like you are a company and stop thinking of yourself as an employee. A company has different departments, like R&D, PR, and you should take care of all of them.

It also means you should create your unique category of expertise. The market will reward you for it. You don’t have to follow the traditional rat race constraints. Remember, the best companies do very few things, but they do them extremely well.

This might sound abstract but stay with me. Let’s see how you can apply this in real life.

The keys to skyrocket your career

  • You can provide services to others, but you can’t be owned. You are unemployable.

  • No more thinking about job titles. They are designed to keep you in the rat race. You are unique, and you’re not defined by any title. “Senior”, “junior”, and other nonsense titles shouldn’t mean anything to you.

  • You are an expert in what you do. Redefine what you do until this is true (To learn more about this, check out naval)
    Becoming world-class at something is possible if you combine your skills and interests. For example, I am a good programmer and chess lover (average player at best!). But I am amongst the top 1% chess connoisseurs who can create a chess app!

  • You are a creator. We live in an era of infinite leverage, where creators are rewarded disproportionally. In my case, as a developer and creator, I created chesskool, an app that teaches chess, and the market is rewarding me for it!
    You value empathy and communication. As a company of one, your reputation is paramount. You should respect others and treat them with high integrity and professionalism.

When you apply this shift, you'll realize your worth is no longer defined by your hard skills, but rather by the unique combination of your skills, experience, creativity, and reputation.

Remember this

🗃 The education system puts you in a box. It’s designed to create factory workers and will lead you to the rat race. Stay away from that box. Embrace your uniqueness. Explore, play and create and you will be rewarded.

🐄 The 9 to 5 was created for cows. Cows work slow, steady, and “safe”, until one day you get butchered by the system. But you have a choice. You can choose to act like a cow or a lion 🦁! Lions relax, observe, and when they see a prey (a task), they attack!

🔥 There is only one you. What’s the unique combination of your skills, expertise, and curiosity? Don’t underestimate your worth.

✍ Trick: You are not an employee. See yourself as a company of one.

👌 Note: Trash that CV. Your worth is the unique combination of your expertise, personal experiences, reputation, and creativity.

What you can do now.

If you want to read more about the topic, pick up “Skip the line” by James Altucher, one of my favorites.

For more advice, hit me up on twitter. You can also join the list for more weekly freelancing tips. Big news coming up!

Peace,
Gabri

Top comments (28)

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Do you have any other tips for new freelancers?

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cmgustin profile image
Chris Gustin

A couple tips that have helped me grow my business:

  1. Communication and customer service will win you repeat clients, referrals, and new business opportunities. Make this the core focus of your business. If you feel weak in these areas, invest time into skilling up as it will pay off big
  2. Understand your core skill set and don’t be afraid to specialize. Early on, I tried to market myself too broadly (development, content, graphic design, marketing, editing, etc.) Over time, I’ve trimmed the things I don’t enjoy as much and focused instead on doing one thing really well (development)
  3. Know your boundaries and communicate them clearly to clients. For me, I make sure clients know what days and hours I’m available, and my preferred forms of communication. Be careful about answering emails or communicating with clients outside these hours, it can erode these boundaries very quickly
  4. When selling to clients, skip the technical jargon and focus on the value you’re creating for them. There’s a temptation, especially starting out, to throw around a lot of technical terms to prove that you know what you’re talking about. Instead, if possible, use simple language, communicate clearly, and try to explain the value for the client. So instead of “I’m going to use JavaScript and HTML5 data attributes to dynamically track users on the site” it’s better to say “I can add a button that will help us see how many conversions this form is getting, and we can work from there to find ways to make it convert even better”

Hope these are helpful!

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria • Edited

amazing insights Chris, love it.

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Especially the point you made about boundaries, they are so important!

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Anu Altankhuyag

What an inspiring post! Thank you for sharing! I recently got the idea of wanting to try my hand at freelance work while I am still in school and this really helped me feel more better about it. I can say I will choose to be a lion!

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Yes, glad you are choosing yourself! Thanks for the nice words

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schultek profile image
Kilian Schulte

Came with the expectance of some janky money tips.
Left with a great deal of inspiration.

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Haha, thanks Kilian! really appreciate it!

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abhimanyut0800 profile image
Abi

Where should i market myself as a freelancer.......?

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Giving a step by step very soon :)

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abhimanyut0800 profile image
Abi

Thanks Brother ❤️

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ikrssce profile image
ik-rssce

This was so inspiring

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Thanks!!

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canro91 profile image
Cesar Aguirre

I liked the cow and the lion analogy. Totally agree.

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Hehe, that one hits home! Thanks man

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jagedn profile image
Jorge

Ahh 100k per year
I thought was per month

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

That would be sweet :)

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johnxmas profile image
Johnxmas

The way is to be a really good specialist or start hiring people.

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davidbug profile image
davidildefonso

Great post , thanks! 💯

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Cheers david!

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ethand91 profile image
Ethan

Saving for motivation! :)
Hopefully one day I too can make the switch.

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gabrilator profile image
Gabri Cebria

Glad you enjoyed, and yes, hope you soon make the switch!