How to become a freelancer in Pakistan
Sometimes, once a while I do receive e-mails or questions from friends as to “How to become a freelancer in Pakistan”. For the last 3-4 years i have been a freelancer, and my freelance carrier have been quite exciting and successful, I got the chance to work on some of very big projects, designed products for clients and made extremely good connections with some of very successful people from the silicon valley.
During this journey i focused my work to work only for international clients & companies. Usually my target market was USA / UK & very few projects from Canada as well. If I take sneak peek back in time I did even build a website for a renowned celebrity from Hollywood.
Freelancing is just like another carrier, you work hard, you grow with time learn allot and of course you do make good money sometimes. But one thing that you need to remember is it’s not a piece of cake, the only benefit of freelancing is that you are your own boss.
Starting freelance can be quite easy or very difficult to do, it’s a sort of setting up your own business and you have to be a designer, a developers, a business developers, a marketer and a manager of your own self. You have to manage your time, learn, market and sell project to clients. If you have made up your mind to do so then yes you can read below as to how to proceed further.
Step 1 – Make your Credentials
If you want to be a freelancer you have to show what you are capable of, you can’t make a pitch and claim that you can get the job done clients who are outside your country will not believe what you say and they do need some proof of your skills so for that you need an online profile / portfolio that means spending Rs 2000 on a domain and hosting account.
Step 2 – What to put in Portfolio/profile
Okay now you are getting to the point show your best work if you are a designer don’t just show all the design’s you have made just show the best you have made if you don’t have them make fake projects but please design them your selves don’t rip off other people’s work. Also remember some work pays the bills while some work hangs on the wall of fame so just show the work that is worth hanging on the wall. If you are a programmer make case studies of the projects you have done previously detailed case studies showing technical knowledge also if you have some small snippets of code that you can give it for free put them online too so a technical client can see your style of code.
Step 3- Where to get clients
I started out from Rentacoder.com, it’s a good place to pitch for clients, oDesk.com is yet another location but it needs patience. I got my first client after bidding for more than three weeks regularly / daily on rentacoder.com and the first client I got was for $4 but also remember when I finally left rentacoder.com the last bill my client paid was $2200. So it’s tough and hardworking part to get to the top so don’t expect too much and don’t bid too high if you are starter climb the ladder don’t make a jump.
Another important thing to note at this point if you are being unlucky in getting any bid try to find out the cause why clients are not choosing you ? the first question lies in the pitch you make is it good English is it exciting is it something that shows the client that you are excited about his product ? if all the answers are yes then the next thing to look for is your credentials is your website or portfolio good enough is it better than the others ?
Its pure hard work so keep on trying and your hard work will pay off.
Step 4 – Give away free work
Yes don’t be mean if you love what you do then do a little extra work and don’t charge for it, if you think the website needs a little ajax add it in though it was not part of the deal but the end benefit goes into your pocket first one your client will be happy and give you good rating second one you have learned how to use Ajax and thus enhanced your skills.
Now i guess you are good to go and i hope this article helps you out in making good freelance money, If you got any question / suggestion drop me a email or comment and i ll try to answer your queries. Happy Freelancing..
Tags: About Us, freelance freedom, Freelance Pakistan, Freelance Work, Make Money Online, Outsource, Pakistan, programming freelancer, web designer, web development
Great post!
Should be of great help for up comming freelancers.
A post on e-markets (such as rentacoder.com), where you evaluate the markets based on type of clients, project types, technologies used etc would be great for up and comming freelancers.
thanks!
Thanks Atif .. will definitely publish on that topic too.
Very interesting and informative article.
I can understand that how much you worked hard to get paid from $4 to $2200. Great achievement… ;)
thats great article. here is little question for you , if you help me that would be great, actually i just start working as freelancer alongside i am working in a comp. The question is that how you can transfer your odesk or rentacoder money to your bank account…
emalik the transactions are easy both of them support western Union for transactions to Pakistan and that is how you get paid. We are unfortunate not to have paypal if that was here things would be really great.
Hello Zeeshan,
very helpful article for starters. i have started as a freelancer a month ago and thanks to Almighty Allah that i got work straight away, i followed the same techniques as you have wrote in your article. i have visited rentacoder.com several times but haven’t payed attention to it but looking at your experience i will definitely look into it now.
thanks.
AOA, i m searching for projects which i can do at my home n in searching i visit ur webisite. It is helpful n no doubt a guideline to new comers. But can u help more to new comers like describing each point with cons n pros , for example, when bidding wat is out bidding n who can outbid u and y, and how can u trust buyers, means which way we should adopt to take payments.
Allah hafiz
Hey Guys,
if you want to be a successfull in the business world then get out of outsource and get the BPO(Business Process Outsource) of Major US software companies for Pakistan e.g Yahoo, Google etc. and make money
Its very interesting post and i really like your blog. Very well designed and maintained.
Good Job.
Interesting post, just wanted to inform other vistors that http://www.getafreelancer.com is also a good site as compared to http://www.rentacoder.com, as it is simple and I won my first project for 90$ without much effort, my experience in getting this project is that you have to bid less to get the project for sure.
Another point, project bidder should use different statements in getting project instead of writing one mater line which works for all.
regards,
kaleemullah khan
Can anyone tell me if the income from these websites tax free in Pakistan or not?
Ahmed, not sure but export of Software from Pakistan is tax free till 2015 the last i heard.
i have read ur articl zeeshan bhai i want to just say ur the great pa jee chuk day phattay kisum day bunday tussi you done well yar aaj kal kay doar main when every person is pulling out dollars from pakistan you just done well for the country.
and apnay baray main batata chlon we have recently finished mcs degree and we are ready to win freelaunce market so please guid us more about how to bring money from america to in your account.
we (matlub pura tola) will be thank full to you.
Thanks Amir & the tola if you guys need any help let me know.
Indeed a good article. I did some stuff for RAC a couple of years back but then I left it cuz I didn’t have the time. At that time I was just working on very small projects like article writing and building a few static web pages.
I have a question for you Mr.Zeeshan and others as well…
Currently I work in Java, only web… Can you please tell me how at the start can I build my portfolio? Do I have to build a few sites and put them on Internet to make some impression ?
Thanks
Assalam-o-Alaikum!
Very informative! I want to add something to this article. If you’re having trouble in getting money from your clients then give AlertPay.com a try. I’ve heared that it is an alternative of PayPal and supports transaction for Pakistan.
And if you want to get a domain easily then register yourself @ http://www.namepros.com. You do work here and get NP$. NP$ is the currency here. After harvesting about 425 NP$, you can get your domain of choice! Yeah I’m true! Just like this: http://www.ahmadmushtaq.com!
Again Thanx for the article!
Thanks, I have been try to get outsourcing work last 3 month. But I couldn’t get success still now. Actually I have a job so I couldn’t get more time. I have account on rentacod and odesk.com. And I don’t get confidence on outsoucing work. But reding those para I got some power, I think I will must get outsourcing work If I try hard. So thanks the author. And Allah Ap ka upra rahmat barsai. If you have any other article and blog and any kinds of help need then let me know.
wow
amazing article zeeshan bhai
i am doing BS in computer science
my ends of 6th semister {2 semisters left)
zeeshan bhai i have good programing concepts specially oop concepts
but i have not command in .net and php
i have starting to learn it
but i not undrstand how i do it easily
kya ap mge batayenge starting tips k mai khakn se start krun php or dot net
i will waiting for ur all reply
uzaircs@gmail.com
thanks
Nice to read this blog.I am UK based Pakistani(ex army officer)and have recently launched my freelancer website exclusively for Pakistani prgrammers but surprisingly i see more registrations from other nationalities even i have not advertised in those countries.
I understand that site is not very busy and there are not many projects left by webmasters because programmers are not reviewed and rated yet and it is hard to give your ftp control to unknown freelancer /programmer without much information present on website.
It really needs a big advertising to give it initial thrust and inshallah i am going to do it in next phase that could be june 2009 but i request you all professionals to register and take respond all projects professionally so we all could make it success.
Hello Zeeshan Bhai,
Nice to read your article. I’ve been working as a freelancer for about 1.5 years. I totally agree with the points you raised for freelancing.
I use to work on oDesk and have gain some good comments from the clients. One surprising thing, I once worked with an American client and he offered me to join his company as IT Coordinator. Now I’m working as a regular employee to his company and am also working as a freelancer.
Can we have a personal contact Zeeshan bhai. My number is 0312-7027779
Hi,
I need to know if money earned from these websites as a freelancer and transactions from moneybookers or alertpay.com directly into personal bank account are white money? What are the tax rules for IT Freelancers in Pakistan?
I know export of softwares is TAX free until 2015 but is this valid for Freelancers as well or its just for registered IT Companies?
Thanks,
Zeeshan
Sir….i want to ask that which method of money transfer is used by pakistani freelancer for odesk website………
I may or may not visit this site please send the response to my email also……….thanks…..
Hi everyone,
Export of Software in Pakistan is tax free only for registered IT Companies and it’s not valid for freelancer. Your Banker will treat your income as foriegn remitence and deduct the tax.
Hi,
Nice guide for to be freelancers like me :)
thanx.
Thanx.
AssalamOalaikum Zeeshan bhai…..i am a student of computer science university of karachi. Currently in my 4th year..i want to be a freelancer can u help me out?? i haven’t done any internship nor i got a job right now…i have worked on c,c++,c#.net,opengl and php is in progress. Problem is that i haven’t got any projects to show :( except for a one which i made in opengl last semester. I am very confused right now as to where should i start from…??//
hello zeeshan bhai ! I am doing software engineering. my 4th semmester is going to be started. what are the basics in ur opinion that i should learn and practice for free lancing. I mean, which technology should i start. .net, php, java etc.
what do you say and tell me what your abilities are ?
regards
i am very poor and i passed XII only i could not continue my study due to money and after that i do jobs data entry and typing in private originations these orignations give me only 6000 per month in these expense days the 6000 thousand cannot enough for me and family and now i want how help more my family i want work of data entry and typing how to i get these work please help me.
this is my ID jalil_ahmedbrohi@yahoo.com
Hi Zeeshan bhai. After a lot searching for help online for Pakistani freelancers, I finally found this article and I must say that it is brilliant. But I have another problem. I am a logo designer and your article precisely addressed software designers. Though your article is very helpful for every freelancer out there but it seems difficult to find good website for me because the websites listed above are for typical software designers. I request guidance from any one out there who has a solution or two about my problem, Regards. serial38@gmail.com
how does rentacoder.com paid you?i want to be paid by western union money transfer.is it possible?plz reply.thanx
AOA,
Artical is very informative and helpfull for
new user. i am very thankfully to you because
number of people have good knowlege but only
few person shear it….
GOD give u more….
HASSAN
Hello zeeshan.
one question about rentacoder.
it looks its a programmers site, is it possible to sale articles on that website also, or any one upload such projects which are about copyscap article writing.