BEFORE COVID
I started my freelancing career way before getting into permanent employment. I used to love working independently without any supervision. However after getting into permanent employment, things changed and had to juggle between my freelancing and permanent jobs.
Working for 8 hours then find time for my freelancing career was challenge. I had to steal my employer's time and use that to enhance my freelancing career. I used resources from my employer to build a strong career in I.T and eventually found out I can easily create time by utilizing the little time I used to have.
Whereas many will say I was unfair to my employer, the questions that comes in are
- Will you be employed forever? Of course no. Employer has other plans.
- Is this your job or it is something you can lose today? Of course yes.
- Is your salary enough to pay your bills? No, you need a salary increment which employer may not grant you.
Many questions used to come into my mind and I would spend much of my time growing my freelancing career with hope of creating my own studio that can employ people in future. I would spend little time performing my I.T tasks then the rest would be creating products for my studio.
Through my innovations in the office, the employer would grant me opportunity to grow my career by paying for my certificate courses. This enhanced my skills further. The freelancing career used to pay more than my formal employment. Every month I would get payment twice so at no point I would be broke. All this time the employer didn't know I was also a freelancer.
As fate would be, an employee leaked my freelancing side hustle which didn't go well with others. Luckily I was using pseudo name. Being the head of I.T and the only one in I.T department, I quickly blocked access to any of my personal side hustle from anyone in the office. That left me to deal with access from outside. Since I was not targeting my demographic area, I blocked access from anyone within. I also blocked access to my social sites to any of the employees including the trusted special ones.
This saved me a lot and was able to multi-task.
COVID TIMES
While Covid is killer disease that disrupted many life and even jobs, to me it was game changer. Opportunities comes once in a life time they say. We prepared well to work from home. This gave me enough time now to build my own freelancing studio.
With no one supervising what I was doing, I took that opportunity to market and build a brand for myself. I was also able to create more revenue streams to guarantee continuous revenue. The employer was not able to snitch at what I was doing neither were the employee.
I would spend less time on office work and more time on my own studio. setting up goals and achieving them. Anyway, why would I kill myself working fir someone who is seated in his house watching movies while I can set up my own studio?
It is during Covid I knew there was affiliate marketing, YouTube shots, YouTube channels, making games is as easy as 1,2,3, animations is just terminologies and that anything you do qualifies to be a freelancing opportunity.
Just think about it. How much time do you spend with friends? Can you utilize this time to create a freelancing career for yourself?
Just google for people who have made it in freelancing. They all started from somewhere. You cannot wake up and be successful at once. Every career starts from somewhere. You have to know basics. Grow the skills to become better.
LESSONS LEARNT
- It is never late to start. If you have idea on what you want to do, start. Time will pass as you try to set goals.
- Don't be blinded by formal employment. The employer will milk all your skills to their benefit. They can fire you any time. After all, will you still be there in 40 years to come. Your siblings also need to have somewhere they can start from.
- Freelancing money is easy money. Don't be blinded by it. Take every step at a time.
- Growing takes time. Making it in freelancing requires patience.
So what have I been doing all this time?
My story may inspire someone to start but what was I doing all this time?
- Making games for app stores specifically playstore. I would start with UI design, UX design then code and test. it was a one-man show. I love what I was doing. I would spend time trying to recreate a scene until I get results needed.
- Making mobile apps. I usually design UI and prototype the app for coding. After UI elements are ready, I export for coding in android studio or visual studio.. Testing is done for various aspects of the app.
- Developing website. I have done several websites with Wix, WordPress, Joomla and Blogger. I also do coding from scratch using code editors.
- Videos - I create YouTube videos for the channels I manage. I also do animated series for my YouTube channels. I start with story line then story board and finally animate. For general videos, I do script then record voice over then add videos to align them with my script.
- Social media management. I create my own social media sites and for my clients, create content and post. I use various tool for content creation and schedule posting to make it easier for myself and clients.
- Graphic design is also another field I have gained interest in. I use various adobe products to develop eye catching graphics.
Where did I get all these skills?
I learnt most of my skills online. I don't shy away from saying that you need a helping hand to get going. I learnt basic of programming in my college times. After that I started following up tutorials online from YouTube and Udemy. You select the best tutors who from the explanation satisfies your understanding.
It takes time to learn and requires you set time aside for learning.
Your take:
You can check my games and app for inspiration.
Check my YouTube and social media links for details.
You can also support me to grow my skills further by
- Buying my services from various freelancing site.
- Sharing with friends looking for similar services
- Donate using any of the methods below.
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