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When building a freelance business, building a portfolio is one of the most important steps that you will take in order to be successful. One of the first things that clients do when they're deciding to hire you or not is look at your portfolio of projects. So let's be very strategic at this stage.
Before deciding on the types of projects you want to include in your portfolio it’s important to answer a few key questions:
- Who will I be showing this portfolio to?
- What type of features do I love developing?
The first question is pretty standard, you need to know you your audience to ensure that your work will have its greatest impact. For example, if you want to attract small mom and pop businesses it wouldn’t make much sense to fill your portfolio with 3D Unity zombie game renderings.
The second question speaks to your passions as a developer. Too many coders create a portfolio full of generic projects that they don’t truly love and it’s apparent to potential employers and clients. Make sure that the projects you build fit your personality as a developer and that you are happy with the end result. Portfolio projects are not an item meant to be simply crossed off your developer checklist, they should be projects that you’re personally proud of and enjoyed building.
Examples of Freelance Portfolios
The following examples of freelance portfolio projects entail a comprehensive feature set and should impress a wide variety of clients. However they are simply starting points, not hard and fast rules.
Social Network Utility
This is where you build a basic social network with a clean design and features such as having:
- Posts
- Followers
- Comments
- Integrate at least one unique/advanced feature, such as giving users the ability to edit each other’s posts.
When I’m looking to hire a new developer I like to see that they know how to work comfortably with complex data models such as the ones required by a social networking application and being able to work with advanced permissions structures is very important, so this makes a good portfolio project.
API tool
An example would be to develop a search engine for StackOverflow that enables more advanced features than the main web application. A project like this would show that you can work with APIs and can implement a search engine feature.
For my API project I showcased a number of applications, both web and mobile that were API based. Before I got actual clients I built a simple StackOverflow data based app but I eventually swapped it out for real world apps.
Accounting application
You don’t have to re-build quickbooks, however an accounting project can illustrate that you know how to work with financial calculations, callbacks, advanced database queries, and information security.
Scheduling application
I’ve built several scheduling applications, this type of app will show that you know how to work with dates and times (which is no easy task for any dev), along with complex validations.
Front End application
Create an app using a front end framework such as AngularJS or React and integrate it with a server side backend such as Ruby on Rails, this will show that you know how to work with service based architecture and design, which is a prerequisite by my clients.
If you build these apps (or apps that contain the same level of sophistication), and you will be able to clearly showcase your expertise to potential clients, colleagues, and future employers. These projects will also give you a great code library that you can reference for future projects. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve reviewed past portfolio projects to see how I implemented a specific feature so I could use it on an app I was working on at the moment.
I hope this list has inspired you to build out your own portfolio of projects and feel free to message me when you’ve finished your set of projects, I’d love to see them and possibly showcase them in future episodes.
Examples of Freelance Portfolios
What's Next?
In the next guide we'll walk through how to create a list of services so you can have a focused target market for your freelance business