2020enterpreneur: How I booked my next few freelancers
Finally — the 2020enterpreneur animation:
To learn:
For a few weeks after the first story, I tried to get a freelancer a week. And week in, week out I got a few things done. None of the things were really necessary in itself, but I was coming up with them with this premise: “What else can I get done to practice this?”.
My personal assistant
One big topic that seemed to pop up often was that of the personal assistant. Sharing some of my personal / projects workload with someone else sounded like a good way to practice. And so this is how it went:
It was strange to think of someone helping me with my (technological) needs — I could imagine having a cleaner, a nanny, someone making my food or giving my clothes a wash — but I’ve had these done before. However, I haven’t really asked for help with more personal matters, like please write this email for me, or schedule this meeting with a friend of mine.
Why do my personal goals feel different to the goals shared by a workplace? In some way, each person is a bit like a business, you have some resources, you can market yourself, and you can make some profit (of differing kinds), so why not get help with that too. Share some tasks, give opportunities, help turn the economy, and get closer to a me I want and aspire to.
My freelancer allocated day was coming up and I figured I could ask my freelancer to do a mini research + sign up to email newsletters for a few communities. Communities are a great way to get to know about interesting opportunities, events & talks, to hear stories of people at different points of a similar path, and sometimes (esp if one gets involved) also incredibly rewarding and motivating.
I set up a spreadsheet with a few columns of info, and gave the freelancer a list of communities I wanted to be part of, and waited. It was interesting to see the spreadsheet change, and know that a human is there, filling these cells up, just because I came up with this task and I was paying for it. It’s funny that this feeling is not that present at any other time — when people prepare food for me, wash my clothes, or when I assign a task at work.
Even though, thinking about it now, I remember being mesmerized by the pizzaiolo when they’d be making a pizza for me! So maybe, looking at the spreadsheet change, brought the clarity of the transaction to me. Is it, because it’s just that and nothing else? Just me, and that new column, and an hour of someone’s time, and some dollars to make up for it, no employees, restaurants, social interaction.
Maybe it’s like taking all the extras out and saying true this steak was a cow. In this way, I realize, true, this persons time is dedicated to me. They spend their time to give me some benefit.
But do they benefit? How do they benefit? Money is nice and all, but I kept thinking about the benefit to the other person, I wanted them to learn on the way, I was willing to share knowledge and opportunities on top of money. I made a conscious effort to add additional value to this interaction. I got a women freelancer, to research communities dedicated to women, hoping she might see something interesting and sign up for some herself. I seem to always be thinking about the growth/learning/fun one can have during an experience, be it me or others, but when it’s related to interacting with me, it always comes with the afterthought that I do not want it to rely purely on my presence. I feel it’s more rewarding if the person discovers things, learns the mechanisms and does not somehow tie these successes too closely with me. I am on the lookout for ways to include the benefit to another person into my systems while taking my obvious self out of the picture.
I haven’t fully figured it out, as I haven’t the personal assistance bit either, so I’ll jump back in. The quest of learning what can people help me with and asking for it sounds like a good way to go.
2020enterpreneur animation
People per hour kept throwing money at me in their newsletter, and after a big 25£ give away, I figured, man this is my chance to get something a bit more costly. So, I added my budget for a few weeks — and went to post a job.
Animation, door, enter, preneur
Light, fun, entertaining
project, personal, learning
Dropped some keywords and some instructions into the project description page.
The bigger budget brought in more proposals: 34, ranging from 30something$ to 100$ and a bit.
I was overwhelmed at first as I got myself stuck again at thinking about the human story of each of them while reading through what was essentially many job applications. I figured I need a better way in the long run — one to filter quickly, and without looking into each application very carefully. After a week or two, I went in with a new method.
A quick sweep through all the proposals, with a decision to reject or send out a shoutout. I would do a couple a session if I had a moment to spare — it didn’t need to be a project taking hours. This way their answer would open up an opportunity to look into their offer more in-depth. However this time I still found myself quite studious, but by the end, I had figured out these elements:
- relevant experience: animations dictated by their content — i.e. if they came out of a poooof cloud, they would pretty much disqualify themselves
- similar style: if some of their previous worked looked like stuff I like that was a +
- communication: how they shared their portfolio (if even sometimes), how they set their profile up & how they asked and answered questions. During my last few logo and business card tries, I’ve seen some pretty portfolios, but we didn’t get very far when I tried communicating my specific ideas. I also don’t want people to spend too much crafting their answer to my proposal given the fact that there are 30 other people signed up, but there are some simple signals (like sharing relevant portfolio examples, having a nicely crafted general (I hope reused) “I want to work for you” and adding one relevant sentence that ties the general message to my example)
- price range: I was willing to look into the higher part of my budget if the examples and communication were really awesome, and simpler examples could sneak through if they were cheaper.
This made me go through the messages pretty quickly, I would either reject them or send a message back — writing a few words asking mostly how they see my project align with their style. I got a few responses, but the choice was pretty clear — I went with the best communicator: eager, positive, eloquent and most importantly seemed to understand what I wanted to say and had the best questions to try to understand what I had in mind.
And then it started! He sent me some stills and ideas, then he sent me a few versions, and patiently accepted my feedback and changes.
And I got my first video. It was awesome! After a few relatively negative experiences where I didn’t feel like my insight/guidelines/feedback brought in any change, this was amazing. It was like I was waiting for a present after each iteration : D
Sure, there ware some time when I opened the present and went all 😢 this is not the present I wanted, but I was inspired to give corrections and directions, as things made a difference. And now I have an animation, an intro to my project and a bit more experience: D
So yeah, if you need a freelancer to do a little something Callum was awesome for me. Feel free to get my referral code for 30£ with it too.
A few links:
- 🌍 2020enterpreneur website,
- 💰 gimme Patreon.com or Paypal,
- 💸 referral code People per Hour and Fiverr,
- 🎁 submit a entrepreneur project idea here.
