Freelancing Career Paths

Paritosh Anand, Anik Jain, & Vedika Bhaia open up about their freelancing journeys. And it’s pure gold ✨ Ayush Shukla brings these experts together in an insightful conversation about: • Finding your first client. • Turning freelancing into a full-time career. • Building and scaling your own agency, etc. Packed with actionable tips, this interview is a must-watch for anyone looking to dive into freelancing. Here are the key takeaways and lessons I learned 👇 📌 Who should start freelancing? • If you want to play the long-term entrepreneurship game, freelancing is step one. • If you have decent knowledge of a skill & want to work on your own terms. 📌 How to pick the right skill? • Experiment with different things to discover what you’re good at & passionate about. • Use the hit-and-trial method to find your niche. 📌 How to master a skill? • Learn from YouTube, blogs, and books. • Consume content from experts and recognize patterns. • Take online courses on platforms like Udemy or Coursera. • Build proof of work through passion projects to test & showcase your skills. 📌 How to get your first client? • Start by working for free to build case studies & gather testimonials. • Use cold emails to reach out to anyone directly. • Build a personal brand. Put yourself out there, & clients will come to you. 📌 How to build a core team? • Hire for intent and values. • Skills can be taught, but attitude can’t. • Spend time with your team and build a strong culture. 📌 How to keep clients happy? • Overcommunicate: Provide regular updates to make clients feel heard & important. • Overdeliver: Exceed expectations to make clients happy & ensure they return. ------------ If you found this helpful, share it with someone who’s starting their freelancing journey ♻️

My latest in Forbes, How Freelancing Is Becoming The New Leadership Path: https://lnkd.in/eqCiWDCU Nothing makes me happier than remembering whose most valuable in our space - freelancers. This piece highlights an incredible freelancer while showing an important problem we all need to solve for - enabling a full career lifecycle for freelancers. There’s a beautiful thing about the career path from entry, to management, to executive. Riley Kaminer shows that freelance can have this career progression while staying a freelancer. In Riley's case, he does this through ClearCritical, a freelance network that enables him the execution, leadership, and scale that Executives or Agencies produce at. In his case, rather than individual articles, and rather than doing all the work himself, his freelance network enables him to provide clients a full content department while maintaining the benefits of speed and flexibility that freelancers provide. We’re seeing incredible solutions for this level of freelancing throughout the industry. Platforms like Wripple, CodeMonk, and We Are Rosie are just a few that can spin up freelance teams. Fast growing startups like Upside are monetizing peer to peer referrals. And established startups like Wethos enable freelancers to scale freelance studios, while financial platforms like Collective automate the back office finance and accounting functions that bog down freelancing at scale. We're also seeing companies lean in. Microsoft’s freelance leader Nuri Demirci Lopez recently published the book Leading The Unknown: Strategies for Leading Remote or GIG Teams. Unilever launched an Open2U Talent Community. Salesforce uses a Culture in a Box Process that onboards both employees and freelancers together. Johnson & Johnson has a freelancer portal in their Careers Page, along with "Sponsors" who have a supervisory relationship with freelancers. According to Peter Fasolo, Ph.D., chief human resources officer (CHRO) at Johnson & Johnson, having roles that build a bond between freelancers and J&J prioritizes broader professional development. It’s an exciting time to be building in the freelance economy!

I earned ₹35 Lakhs in over 12 months freelancing alongside my MBA. Here’s the exact breakdown of how I got clients, delivered work, and built systems. I didn’t have a personal brand. I didn’t post daily on LinkedIn. I didn’t pitch “content strategy” or growth hacks. What I did have - was clarity on the value I could offer. I worked with founders, funds, and early-stage ventures across the US, UAE, and India. Helping them with pitch decks, founder stories, research reports, ghostwriting, and financial models. I didn’t chase 10 skills - I picked 3-4 that solved real problems. Then I built strong, specific offerings around them. Most of my clients were in that messy middle - Post-ideation, pre-scale. Not ready to hire full-time, but needing fast, sharp support. I reached out after startup pitch days, fundraises, or founder podcasts. Tracked warm leads in a simple Excel sheet. Sent personalized cold DMs. No spam. No fluff. I learned fast that delivery matters more than outreach. So I built clear scope of work docs, streamlined SOPs, and onboarding templates. No back-and-forth confusion. Just clarity, timelines, and outcomes. By Month 3, I wasn’t selling. I was just sending links and letting the work speak. And yes - I charged what I knew I was worth. Because I had done the research, benchmarked my pricing, and stuck to my lane. This isn’t some overnight success story. But it’s proof that freelancing isn’t just “extra income” - it can be real work, if you treat it like one. Comment your email ID and I’ll send you: - My actual lead gen Excel tracker - Cold DM templates that worked - My service breakdown sheet (what I offered, how I priced it) If you’re in B-school or just figuring your way around freelancing, this will help you start smarter. No gas. Just real systems that worked. #FreelancingJourney #SPJIMR #SideHustle #MBAAndBeyond #Ghostwriting #StartupSupport #FounderOps #PitchDecks #FinanceFreelancer #WorkSmart #LinkedIn #LinkedInCreator