Full instructions "how to become a freelancer" or the history of our compatriot

Today, the word "freelance" is very common in modern society. This word can be heard in almost all groups, especially young ones, as well as in companies, organizations, and even among the crowd of schoolchildren or students walking through the transition during rush hour.

For those who do not know, freelancing is a kind of platform for online work, which does not limit a person to any limits, both physical and psychological. A freelancer is a free professional who can be a programmer, copywriter, designer, or even a lawyer.

There are many websites and platforms for freelancers and those who need their services. Explaining in simple terms, the employer offers a job, the freelancer decides whether to take it or not. Either the freelancer offers his own services, and the employer decides whether to take his services or not. Often freelance activities take place at a distance, thus making life easier for many, because you do not need to sit in the office every day from 09:00 to 18:00 and spend a lot of money on the road and lunch. Work anywhere and at any time, complete tasks efficiently and on time, and get paid for it.

Freelancing is developing rapidly in Uzbekistan. Of course, so far, freelancing is not so popular among the population of our country, but still, we also have professional freelancers.

And one of those who belong to such a narrow circle agreed to give us an interview and reveal the topic of freelancing in more detail.

Shadravan Shakirov, 25, a freelancer with 10 years experience. Specializes in programming and everything related to it. Today, Saidravshan has its own programming school-Monday Academy and its own company-Monday Labs.

- What do You do and what do you specialize in?

- I am a Fullstack developer with a 10-year background in IT. I currently speak several programming languages, such as: php, java, python, ruby, go, C Sharp, java script.

- How Did you come to freelancing?

- Initially, I was interested in photoshop. When I was 14 years old, I bought photoshop lessons and after taking this course, I began to miss new experience and new knowledge. I wanted to learn something new. And then I decided to find courses more difficult than just photoshop. Then I came across HTML and CSS courses. After training, I just went outside and started going to hotels, offering them site development services. It was about 10-11 years ago, when I was 14. Then I received my first order for$ 250, and about a month later I received another order for$400. All these bookings were hotel websites. From that moment on, I started looking for clients. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to find orders for websites in Bukhara. at that time, no one even knew what a website was, everyone thought that a website was a Odnoklassniki account. So I had to start looking for orders online. That's how I came to freelancing.

What did you do before freelancing?

- I was 14 years old, I just started doing web development. Before that, I worked as a waiter, and before working as a waiter, I was an apprentice in a furniture workshop. My uncle and I made furniture products together. And by the way, when I was at school, I still worked as a shoemaker.

- Why did you choose freelance instead of the usual work in the state?

"I didn't choose. Since I am in Bukhara, when I started studying programming, there was no demand for developers in Bukhara at all. And I just had to find clients on freelance exchanges. So I started working as a freelancer. Then, I found a job in the state and after a while left the job, as everything was monotonous, there was no development. I got a job at another company, then a third, and so on, but in the end I kept going back to freelancing.

- How much time per day does it take to work as a freelancer?

- In different ways, sometimes I worked for 10-12 hours a day, sometimes a little more, sometimes I did not sleep at night, and sometimes even 30 minutes – 1 hour a day. Working hours vary greatly, it all depends on the order.

- How much do you earn on freelancing?

- This is confidential information. At the moment, I only work with large companies and customers, with whom you always need to enter into non-disclosure agreements, so I can't voice my income. But at the same time, I can say that freelance programmers, on average, can earn from $200 to $4,000 a month. Earnings depend on the level of professionalism of the person and how much this person is willing to work hard. There are many freelancers I know in Uzbekistan who earn $3,000-$4,000 a month, but you need to be the best at what you do. And this requires years of experience, years of work.

- What are the advantages of a freelancer?

"The advantage is that you have complete freedom. When you want to work, when you want to relax, watch movies. But from complete freedom there are also disadvantages, that is, if you are an undisciplined person and can not force yourself to work and work well, then you will not succeed, and you will simply become an outsider. You will not succeed in this field. There is freedom, but it must be borne in mind that it cannot be abused too much. You need to work constantly.

- What do you need to know, be able and have to become a freelancer?

- First of all, you need to decide what you are better at than others, what you know better. For example, someone is a good frontend developer, someone is a backend developer. You don't have to be a developer, you can be a product Manager or a financier.lawyers can also work as freelancers, journalists, copywriters, designers, and many others. First, you need to decide what field you want to grow in. And after you choose your direction, you must become the best in this field. Only then can you engage in freelancing. Of course, you can do this in parallel, work as a freelancer, and at the same time work on improving your skills.

- What qualities should a freelancer have?

- Persistence. The most important thing is not to give up and constantly work on yourself. Be able to continuously grow and develop.

- Have you ever met fraudsters while working as a freelancer?

- Yes, there were a lot of scammers who disappeared after you did your job. These situations happen, but you need to treat them normally, because such moments are found everywhere. When you work, you will not work for 4-5 months without receiving a cent from the client. Even if a fraudster deceives you, you will spend at most 4-5 days, so do not be afraid, you need to constantly take risks and work. And I assure you, there are a lot of good and responsible people in the world who are ready to pay for your work with dignity. And even if you often meet scammers, it will pay off over time. There are a lot of scammers, but you don't need to be afraid of them.

- How do I know that the employer will not disappear after the order is completed? And what should I do to avoid this?

- First, you need to get an advance. I do this myself: first I evaluate the project, let's say the project costs 10 soums. I tell the client that this project will cost 20 soums, but at the same time, he must give me an advance of 10 soums. It turns out that even if the client disappears and does not pay the remaining 50%, I do not lose anything from this. But to do this, you must be able to present yourself beautifully, to "sell"yourself beautifully.

- What advice would you give to budding freelancers?

- Do not think about money, but think about how to gain experience, knowledge, skills and create a positive reputation. The money will come later. Better take the time to become the best at something.

- How to make a lot of money on freelancing?

— It is a myth to earn steadily on freelancing. You will not be able to consistently earn money on a freelance basis. When there are orders - you earn, when there are no orders - you just sit and look for them. There is no guarantee of stability, it happens that two months you earn well, and one month - you do not earn at all. But everything usually pays off, even if you were out of work for one month, other months of work pay for everything.

- Where can I find orders?

- There are a lot of freelance exchanges in the world, but I mainly focused only on the premium segment. At the moment I am working on freelance exchange under the name toptal.com. It is not easy to get there, but when you can do it, you will stop thinking that you have to find the customer, whether they will disappear or not. Takes care of all this toptal.com.

- What is your most successful case in freelancing?

- As I said, I recently worked on a freelance exchange toptal.com. In September of 2019 I got accepted into the Coreteam, that is, in the company itself toptal.com. I worked there as a frontend developer. This is one of the biggest projects I've ever been involved in. I will tell you briefly about toptal.com – this is an elite freelance exchange. The annual turnover of this company is about 200 million US dollars. In this company (Coreteam) I worked and developed the platform itself (toptal.com). In addition, I have worked in CRM systems, ERP systems, and other very interesting projects. I also participated in the development of the site, at that time the largest marketplace for renting boats, yachts, boats, etc.

- What is your most unsuccessful case in freelancing?

- There were a lot of failures. Once we started developing a mobile app, I worked as a mobile developer myself, and the client didn't want us to write native code, he wanted us to write cross-platform code using ionic. The advantage of ionic is that it allows you to write an application very quickly and launch it immediately, but the disadvantage is that this platform is very slow. We spent 3-4 months writing this mobile app and after we finished it, the client looked at it and said that the program is terribly slow. This happened due to the fact that we chose the wrong technology. The client asked us to optimize this code. We worked on this for 2-3 weeks, but in the end we didn't manage to fully optimize the platform. The client spent a lot of time and money, and at the same time got a bad result. This is the fault of the client, who thought that by using a cross-platform solution, he would save money on development. But I ended up with a program that was awfully slow.

- Is freelance for everyone?

- Freelancing is not for everyone. If you have any financial responsibilities, if you have a family, fixed expenses and at the same time, you have no experience in anything, I would not advise you to do this. But if you are good at any of the skills that are in demand, then you can do freelance work and moreover, you can quickly find a place for yourself. But if you have no experience, you are a young person and you have the time and opportunity to work on yourself, in this case, I would recommend freelancing.

When I started freelancing, I was 14-15 years old, at that time I was fed by my parents. I started earning money, buying cool phones, headphones, accessories, and various trinkets to stand out in front of my friends. And somewhere from the age of 17, I stopped taking money from my parents and began to fully support myself. And at the age of 18, I was already providing for my parents. I am very grateful to my parents for supporting me.

- How do you know that freelancing is not for you?

- If you are a person who likes consistency, stability, if you are not an adventurer, then you should not engage in freelancing at all. Because there is no stability, there is no consistency, here you will not do the same thing every day. If you are a programmer, then working in an office, you do not have to constantly adapt to new technologies, architecture, and so on. If you need stability, you should not even look at freelance exchanges. If you are an adventurer and you are interested in growth opportunities and opportunities in General, then freelancing is for you.

- Is a freelancer an IT specialist?

"No, not necessarily. There are freelancers-designers, journalists, copywriters, marketers, lawyers. This is not necessarily an IT. But mostly, the most common freelancers, I think, are IT specialists. I am an IT specialist myself, which is probably why I constantly see other "it specialists", I am surrounded by IT freelancers.

- What is the difference between a good freelancer and a bad one?

- A good freelancer is a person who solves people's problems, so to speak, "problem-solver". People order some services to solve the problem. The freelancer, in turn, must solve the problem of this person and get a reward for it-money. Many freelancers get paid, but they don't do everything neatly, culturally, and in the best possible way. When a person expects something, you have to exceed these expectations, only in this way you will get good reviews, good connections and only in this way you will develop. There are a lot of freelancers who do not have certain skills, but at the same time take orders and in the end can not provide a good result. You don't have to be like that. If you have taken a task, you need to do it in the best possible way.

- Will you ever leave freelancing completely and permanently?

- Yes, I've already quit freelancing. At the moment, I have a school of programmers. Here we train developers, front-end, back-end developers, etc. In our courses, we also show students how to engage in freelancing, what are the pros and cons, how to get a job, how to write a resume, how to find a job, etc. We help our students find employment and find themselves in this field. By the way, speaking of Monday Academy, we are currently training specialists in the following areas:

- Python (5 months for 400 thousand soums); http://macademy.uz/python/ru -Frontend / React.js (4 months for 400 thousand soums); http://macademy.uz/frontend/uz -Computer graphics (3 months for 400 thousand soums). http://macademy.uz/design/ru at our Academy, you can become a programmer or UI / UX designer.   I also founded a company called Monday Labs, which we currently outsource. I don't work alone, I have a team that we work with to develop custom software. And in parallel, we are engaged in training at the Monday Academy school.

- How much does the competition in the freelance world differ from the "in-state" world?

- There is a difference. Getting a full-time job is a bit more difficult than finding a freelance client. When you work in the state and find a client , you don't think about anything, but just work and earn money. And in the case of freelancing, you constantly need to work on finding new customers, convince them that you will make the product cheaper and better, or perhaps more expensive, but definitely better. If you do more expensive and better than others, then you need to convince the client that no one can do it as well as you can. In the freelance market, I think the competition is a little higher. In freelancing, you constantly need to work on your reputation, constantly increase your portfolio, and look for new clients. If you don't look for new clients, you won't have a job.

- What are the prospects for a freelancer in Uzbekistan?

- No matter where you live, you can be a freelancer. It seems to me that it is more profitable to work as a freelancer while living in Uzbekistan than from Russia, Europe, or America. Because everyone earns the same amount. Earnings depend only on your level and experience, not on geolocation. But at the same time, your costs depend on where you live. Everything is cheap in Uzbekistan, and living here is much cheaper. For the money you earn on freelancing, you will live in prosperity in Uzbekistan. If you earn the same amount of money freelancing in America or Europe, you will live more modestly. In this regard, in my opinion, Uzbekistan is a good place to engage in freelancing.

Freelancing is not for everyone, but it's definitely worth a try! This conclusion can be made based on this article. Freelancing can become a kind of support that can support, bring income and diversify the gray everyday life. But freelancing is fickle, and you can make good money on freelancing or not at all. In Uzbekistan, this trend is just gaining momentum and is waking up from a long sleep. In any case, freelancing should be, it should develop if we want to have a technologically developed country with all its IT components.   Take a chance, try, breathe deeply and don't be afraid of this no longer terrible word - "freelance".  
Monday Academy website: http://macademy.uz
Instagram of Saidravshan Shakirov: said. ravshan
Phone number for registration for courses: +99893 622 40 20