Becoming a freelancer is a true life change, especially if you're planning on doing it full time. When I was contemplating the move from full time employment to launching my own freelance business I put down a list of pros and cons. This may seem like a tired approach, there are other things we could do, such as building a priority matrix or some other type of decision system. However I like to keep things as simple as possible whenever I can, so let's start with listing out each of the potential benefits for starting a freelance business.

These benefits will be the same whether you are looking to launch a full time freelance endeavor or simply to get some side work on some part time projects. They will only vary in degree.

Freedom

Ah, freedom. The goal that everyone tried to achieve but few people every actually achieve. Many freelance businesses have started by individuals who couldn't stand the traditional 9 to 5 workday.

Personally, the fact that I'm able to work from:

• An office
• A coffee shop
• A library
• Or my home

Makes me smile throughout the day. This type of freedom lets freelancers express their creativity based on their surroundings. My Dad is a Major League baseball coach, so I love the fact that it's easy for me to pack up my laptop and work from whatever city he's at when I want to catch a game. The freedom provided by having a freelance business has also allowed me to setup my schedule each day. A number of my clients are in the Central and East coast time zones. I've configured my schedule so that I can be done with work at 3pm each day. That way I can make sure that I'm available if any emergency pops up for a client and I have the rest of my day to spend with my family.

Income Source Flexibility

Closely related to freedom, being a freelancer will allow for you to vary your streams of income. As Warren Buffet famously said:

"Never depend on a single income."

Buffett was speaking to investing. However not all investments are comprised of a stock portfolio. Becoming a freelancer has allowed me to segment my time so that each day I dedicate time to building additional income sources, such as building courses like this or any of my devCamp development books and tutorials.

Working a traditional 9 to 5 job wouldn't allow me to dedicate the time required to build multiple income streams, but freelancing allows for it.

Revenue

Obviously you wouldn't be interested in launching a freelance business if there wasn't a tremendous upside financially. Freedom and time only goes so far, at some point the mortgage and car payment have to get paid. Thankfully, if you build your freelance business properly you'll have the potential to make a great salary.

The amount you can make will be dictated by a number of criteria, including:

• Your level of experience - a more senior developer typically can charge higher hourly or project rates than a junior dev.
• The industry - if you're targeting local mom and pop shops you'll most likely make less per project compared with working for Fortune 500 enterprises.
• Your location - the market sets different rates based on location. For example, US or UK based freelancers can typically demand a higher hourly rate than offshore developers.
• Your time - the amount you make will be driven by how many hours you're prepared to dedicate to clients each day.

New Projects

The last benefit we'll discuss in this guide will be the ability to start new projects. If you're like me, the idea of building a new project gives you a jolt of energy. There's something very exciting when it comes to generating a new application and watching it be created from scratch.

When you're a freelancer you'll have the ability to launch new projects on a regular basis. This will also help you learn about a wide variety of industries and will help you learn a wide variety of new skills since each project will have its own set of new requirements.

Summary

When discussing the benefits of becoming a freelancer it was pretty hard to limit the list to 4 components. The benefits of freelancing could be a book all to themselves. However I wanted to stay focused and discuss the benefits that are the most important to me. And most importantly, these are benefits based on my own experience through the years. So these are real, tangible benefits.

What's Next

As you may expect, now that we have gone through the benefits to freelancing, in the next guide we are going to walk through the various challenges to help you make up your mind on if freelancing if right for you.