🗞 What's New: Choosing the right freelance clients

What do you look for in freelance clients?

• When freelancing, choosing the wrong client can cost you valuable time and money. Here's how to choose clients that are a good fit, and how to stand up for yourself if you need to.
• Is your content outdated or in need of a fresh take? This guide can help you repurpose your old content, preserve the goodwill it has built up over the years, and revamp it to improve its search rankings.
• Founder Nico Jeannen built an MVP for MakeLogoAI in 48 hours, and later, launched on Product Hunt. Here's how he built his MVP so quickly, and why he doesn't worry about whether the app can scale.

Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🔎 Choosing the Right Freelance Clients

by Amardeep S. Parmar

Few people make enough from their projects in the early days to not have to worry about their finances. It can take significant time to gain enough traction to be self-sufficient. But you don’t have to suffer in the meantime!

Freelancing can be a great way to keep your bank balance healthy while you work on your product. I’ve freelanced for 50+ startups since becoming my own boss. Here's what I've learned about choosing the right clients!

Stand up for yourself

Remember that, by definition, you’re an outsider when contracting for a company.

Companies don’t have to have any loyalty to you at all. You’ll find that some internal employees treat freelancers like dirt because you’re simply a means to an end. They may not respect your time and your effort, or understand how complex your project is, especially if it’s highly technical.

I always have at least one call with a client before I start working with them, in order to gauge their mindset. Negative clients drain your energy and motivation, even if they pay well.

Issues check

Make sure that you set boundaries at the start, and anticipate any issues you think will come up in the build, especially those that the client may not have considered.

A big mistake that newbie freelancers make is pricing their work based on the first iteration, rather than on the final product. If you have to spend hours going back and forth with your client before you’re paid, that time adds up. This also means that you underestimate how much time a project will take, and it will get in the way of your own projects.

The best clients are the ones who give you valid feedback, even if they pay less. Don't take on projects that will give you a headache!

Sound the alarms

Unless you’re a freelance doctor, it’s unlikely that anything you do is truly urgent.

Some companies are in constant high-alert mode. My biggest pet peeve is when a client tells me that a task is needed as soon as possible, then doesn’t look at what I've sent for several days.

If you’re willing to accept the extra anxiety, jack your rates up to compensate you for it.

Warm fuzzy feeling

I’m freelancing for a philanthropic foundation, and it brings me great satisfaction. It's a welcome change from some of my previous organizations.

I dropped my rates significantly to win the project, because I believe in what they are doing. If you're in a similar situation, make sure you're dropping your rates to a level that you can happily sustain.

The freelancing grind can be difficult for many creative people, but it’s a different game if you find a mission that you care about, and can get paid to help.

The tentacles

Some client relationships are as simple as doing the work and getting paid. Others are so much more.

My favorite clients have opened doors for me, and recommended me to their friends. This has won me more projects, and even podcast guests. I’ve chatted with billionaires because they’re friends with a client of mine.

As someone who was just a normal technology consultant three years ago, my network today is ridiculous. I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me I’d have spoken to the people that I have.

I’m loyal to clients who have chosen to help me with my own projects when there are no obvious benefits for them. I will stay with them even if others are offering me more money, because what they’ve given me is priceless.

These are the factors that I consider when choosing which clients to keep!

What are your tips on choosing clients as a freelancer? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

📱 Twitter has shared mockups of longer tweets.

🏛 US lawmakers have unveiled a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok.

💄 Beauty e-commerce continues to boom. Here are the latest trends.

🤳 Instagram has launched Candid Stories, a clone of BeReal.

📈 How to maximize your ad relevance.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

🪄 How to Repurpose Your Content

by Marc Bromhall

Content marketing plays an essential role in almost every company and industry, and there's a ton of material out there. Over time, though, certain content starts to gather dust; it's outdated, and strategies change. It gets buried deep within the archives.

Here's how to save time on content creation and draw new traffic to your site!

1. Update evergreen content with new information

Some material never goes out of style. Many firms have created basic content that explains their industry in great detail, and this information may be useful for years to come. But, just as anything else becomes outdated, it sometimes needs a makeover to recapture some of its former appeal.

Repurposing your old material in this way offers you the opportunity to preserve any goodwill it has built up over the years, while also introducing it to a new audience and improving its search rankings.

2. Convert video content into a blog post

Creating content takes a long time. You'll need to create a thorough plan, then establish your content calendar around it. Next, there's the matter of actually producing the material itself. Blogging necessitates study and editing. Video and podcasting demand production abilities, as well as the ability to edit video and audio.

Let’s say you own a landscaping business. Years ago, you posted a video showing viewers how to create and manage a succulent garden in an arid climatic zone. This video gets a lot of views and drives traffic to your website. You're confident that the material is useful to your target audience, and helps you gain attention for your company.

Don't stop there, though! Get the video transcribed so you can easily convert it into a blog post. You could also create a podcast episode from the audio. Suddenly, your one piece of content has grown to three components. This opens up more possibilities for connecting with your audience using the medium that suits them best.

3. Use media in existing blog posts

If your existing content is in written form, add media to it. Videos, short clips, and other elements can help breath new life into your content.

Try incorporating infographics or illustrations. Get creative here!

4. Make existing content social media friendly

Pull bits and pieces from your existing content, and tailor them to various platforms. A frame from a long video could be captured, superimposed with text, and added to Pinterest. An important piece of documentation could be broken down into a Twitter thread, or vice versa; take a Twitter thread that did well, add to it, and post it on Indie Hackers or Medium.

To make eye-catching graphics, use quotes from your podcast episode, videos, or TikToks to create stunning designs.

You could also transcribe your podcast episodes and repurpose them for various platforms.

5. Create hub pages

Most businesses have their content scattered here, there, and everywhere. There are videos and podcast episodes on various pages on their websites, and hosted on external platforms.

Think of hub pages as your own mini Wikipedia on your website. You'll begin by selecting a broad topic that is of interest to your visitors. Then, build out the storyboard so that it's easy to follow along.

For small business owners, this database of information is a treasure trove. The most relevant articles are neatly sorted in the hub page's table of contents, and this helps build out your backlinks as well.

Hub pages are one of the most successful methods for local businesses to get their products and services in front of potential consumers. Using this method, you can also get your company on the first page of Google search results for relevant keywords.

Will you use these tips to repurpose your content? Share your thoughts below!

Discuss this story.

🚀 The Spector Report

by Josh Spector

I'm sharing growth tips for creative founders! Here's this week's:

Your target audience is likely the person you were a couple years ago.

You had a problem or a dream. You learned how to solve or accomplish it. That transformed you.

Your creations can now help others make that same transformation.

That creates value.

Subscribe to Josh's For The Interested newsletter or I Want To Know podcast for more.

⏳ Nico Jeannen Built His MVP in 48 Hours

by Nico Jeannen

Hey, indie hackers! I'm Nico Jeannen, and I built an MVP in 48 hours. It crossed $180 in sales just six days later. I've done this before; I previously posted about building an MVP in three hours, so this is round two!

The idea

On May 12th, I got an idea, and I challenged myself to build it in 48 hours.

I started by running technical tests to see if what I wanted to do was doable. After a lot of iterations, I started to get consistent results. I wasted lots of time trying to build a user interface, so honestly, I could have built in 24 hours instead of 48. Don't waste your time making anything that your product doesn't absolutely require.

My goal with the MVP was to have something that allowed me to test interest and receive payment. Since I didn't have time to finish the user interface, I made a quick landing page in plain HTML. I also set up a Typeform linked to Stripe to collect payment.

I spent lots of time on Twitter interacting with amazing new people, so I had ~700 people following me at the time. I posted frequently, asking for feedback, which created some enthusiasm for the idea.

I also frequently posed questions on Twitter to conduct some basic market research.

I published the landing page for MakeLogoAI, tweeted about it exactly 48 hours (to the minute) after my announcement tweet, and went to sleep.

The next day

My app allows people to generate unique logos made by AI specifically trained to design logos.

When I woke up the next day, I discovered that I'd made five sales! That was idea validation for me.

It meant that I had proved my two hypotheses:

1. "I can build this product."
2. "People will pay for it."

It was now time to build a proper interface, and manually handle orders.

When starting out, don't think about whether your app can scale or not. Think about this, instead: Try to make at least one sale, no matter how crappy your code is. Customers don't care about your backend, and you can always improve it later.

I built proper backend that allowed me to handle the orders automatically on my side, then started to think about building a full user interface and launching on Product Hunt.

I finished the backend a few days ago, and launched on Product Hunt on December 11th. In the meantime, I've made a total of $180 in sales, both from people I knew thanks to my recent activity on Twitter, and from people I didn't know.

Advice for founders

I believe that an MVP shouldn’t take more than 48 hours to build. If your product requires a full interface, make a technical demo, record a video of it using Loom, and just build a landing page showcasing the demo. Ask people to join a waitlist or preorder the product.

It's okay to ignore all of the common best practices and find duct tape solutions for your code. I think a real dev would cry over seeing what I wrote; my whole app runs on Node.js, plus plain HTML for the frontend. I don't use any framework or anything. I come from a marketing background, and I only just started to code in May!

As cliche as it sounds, building an audience is an amazing way to get started quickly. If I didn't have people supporting me on Twitter, I would have posted on Reddit and run ads. That's actually what I plan to do next.

I would also suggest creating a pre-made landing page design that you can copy and paste, and easily adapt for new products. That will allow you to launch at lightning speed!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

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Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Amardeep S. Parmar, Darko, Marc Bromhall, Josh Spector, and Nico Jeannen for contributing posts. —Channing