If I had to give you one piece of advice for freelancing in India (and only one), then it would be DON'T. But since I have brought it upon myself to present five of these, guess we need to talk a bit in-depth and talk you out of making one of the worst decisions of your career/life.
My thoughts on freelancing in India
Generally as I sit to write down a blog post I have clarity on the beginning, the middle and the end. But when it comes to writing about my freelancing experiences in India, I need to take a few minutes, flow those terrible memories in, punch a wall and then come back to my laptop.
Freelancing in India is a battle to the bottom and you will be stuck there for a while.
If you are a nobody trying to make it as a freelancer, good luck and take some of mine too.
For any project that you are trying to get, you will have hundreds more in that same industry who will be willing to do it for much cheaper and for more quantity too (ever heard of those ₹10K social media packages? Yeah that).
Not a lot of people will respect you, dating will be hard, conversations will be difficult.
Look, it's as simple as this: freelancing is not a lucrative career choice, at least to most people in India.
There's discourse over government jobs versus private sector jobs with regard to which gives the most stability.
And if you walk in to that room telling people that you are a freelancer, life will get much more difficult.
- People will assume you have free time: clients will use it to get some extra work done; friends will think you have time to run their errands.
- In the dating scene, many will look at you and think you are not ready to commit to a long term plan or you cannot provide stability given the nature of your job.
- Conversations will be odd when you tell people that you work from home; things have eased up post pandemic but I bet a lot of people will doubt the nature of your work and its authenticity behind closed doors.
Post retirement plans will be chaotic or nonexistent
I ask freelancers if they want to continue doing this forever or if they will steadily pick up a job. Those that stick to the former always have no retirement plans.
In India, you will face a lot of issues when it comes to building healthy finances and your pathways are blocked by how most systems operate.
Here are my 5 advices on freelancing in India
After careful consideration, here are the top 5 things I would tell my former self when I started as a freelancer.
These can be highly situational of course but I still encourage you to find reason rather than battling the "I can do better" sensation.
#1 Don't believe the voices of other freelancers in India
You will often come across people on social media claiming to be freelancers making ₹70K to ₹5L per month.
It's crazy, right? Damn nice, imagine earning that much per month - I could get a PS5, a used Mercedes maybe a home- STFU, that's not the whole picture.
Wake up lil bro, if someone is openly stating they make X amount of money then they have an incentive to do so. Here are some reasons:
- They will try to sell you a course or a paid call where they will pretend to give away their secrets and help you make as much.
- Such freelancers love to fake screenshots and garner impressions on social media; this in turn can help them get deals, sponsorships and land projects. This is literally the concept of fake it until you make it.
- They may have had one good month and feel obliged to showcase it as a monthly occurrence.
#2 Network effects play a huge role for freelancers
There are some freelancers in India that actually do make a lot of money, but let's take Pareto's Principle and networking effects into the picture.
Pareto's Principle aka the 80-20 rule would say that 20% of freelancers make 80% of the money available in freelancing in India and 80% of freelancers make 20% of the money left.
As it stands, you are facing competition as a newcomer in the freelancing market. Then, you are not able to land clients but some influencer freelancer easily makes in a month what you might not in a lifetime.
Why is that so? It's because of networking effects.
Being talented is good but if you don't have people who support, leverage and value your work it is of no financial benefit.
Only with good networks can you get clients consistently who want your work to be a part of their brand; otherwise it is not worth the effort.
Most successful agency owners and freelancers I know in India are doing well because they have contacts who support them; this is not suited for a freelancer until there's a network built - this can mean working for free, building a proof work, building reputation over the years and then hoping it pays off.
#3 It is not your money until it hits your bank account.
As a freelancer in India, 50% of your job is to provide value and 50% of your job is chasing clients to pay you.
Please do not plan vacations and things you will buy unless the client has sent the money through and you can see it in your bank account.
And to be on the safer side, do not buy something on your credit card in the hopes that you will pay for it once the money from a freelancing project arrives.
Often times you will see that the 30 day payment period has gone up to 45 days, 4 months, 6 months or even a year.
Some of the funniest excuses:
- Our CA was sick.
- We were all on a vacation.
The first thing is to always take an advance before work starts and the other is to not spend what you don't have.
As a freelancer in India, you will need to be a miser and save.
#4 Moonlight as long as you can
If it is possible, then definitely work a full time job in the mornings and freelance late at night. Even better if you can find clients outside of India that can operate well within hours you wish to stay awake.
The revenue from your full time job will support you and your family whereas the extras from freelancing can be invested, saved, added to an emergency fund, used to buy replacement tools or just lead a better standard of life.
#5 Think of MMR as a freelancer in India
MMR or monthly recurring revenue is a commonly used term among indie hackers who build SaaS products. This is how much you make monthly of course.
It makes sense to track your MRR and then profitability each month that is MRR minus costs for running your freelancing dream.
A 5-10% increase each month is healthy and hope for a 25-35% increase on a yearly basis.
A freelancer has to do marketing, sales, accounting for themselves so this is also a part of the journey.
Other banal tips that weren't good enough for honourable mentions:
- Start a medical fund and an emergency fund; this is sound advice for all professionals yet I don't see many people follow it.
- If you can afford an accountant's services, please make sure it's the first thing you do.
- Do not go for a client who lowballs you with the promise of more work in the future.
- Notice client behaviour before and after the work is approved. Bad clients will start to get distant the moment you ask for what's due.
- Don't go around calling yourself an entrepreneur; I get the gist behind it but when they find out that you are a freelancer, they will have plenty of reasons to mock you or disregard your efforts.
- Never reveal how much you make as a freelancer; if it is perceived to be low then some will pity you and if it's a lot then they will envy you - both are not good in the Indian community where there are micro-aggressions around such things.
- Supportive parents and a supportive partner will go a long way in helping you do well as a freelancer in India; return the favours and treat them well!
- Always focus on getting more clients and retaining their services; a one-off project does you more harm than good.
You can read my blog posts here and reach out to me on X with any questions that you may have.
