why being a freelance designer sucks

The freelance designer, a.k.a. the one who escaped the 9-to-5 job to be their own boss, only to find out they have 10 bosses now called clients, which are even more demanding and struggle to pay your invoices on time. But don't worry, it's all worth it because you get to wear a t-shirt with your own logo on it. I've been freelancing as a UX designer, web designer, logo designer, design anything you want me to design designer, a.k.a. Batman, since 2020 when I decided to quit my 9-to-5 job and start my own design agency. And it completely changed my life. I went from being miserable working my very corporate consulting job, looking at Excel sheets all day, thinking that I must Stash was a good idea— and completely questioning my existence on this earth to then helping clients launch their app ideas, creating really cool websites, and making over $366,000 in real client projects all while setting my own hours traveling to places like Bali, Rome, Madrid, Germany, Playa del Carmen, and yes sometimes even without wearing any pants! Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa but while these perks sound amazing they don't tell the full story of what it's actually like to be a freelance designer so in this video I'm going to share 7 100% undeniable true facts about my subjective personal experience as a freelance designer. Note that this video isn't meant to discourage anyone from trying to become a freelance designer, but instead this video is actually meant to guide and prepare you from some of the like not so sexy aspects about being a freelance designer. One job? Nah, take 10. So when I decided I was gonna quit my job and start my design agency, I don't think I was fully prepared for all the different jobs I would have to do. You'd think that starting a design agency, you'd mostly be designing. Right? Nope, not really. At least it wasn't for me. Very early on when I started freelancing, I had to think about marketing, how I would actually get clients, which then led me into learning Google Ads, then sales, setting up contracts, figuring out an email list, trying to figure out a CRM, also figuring out what a CRM is, accounting, how to open up a business bank account, and a whole bunch of other non-design related things. Even learning how to use a camera, learning Premiere Pro to edit videos, and all the steps that it takes to create a YouTube or Instagram reel was something that I never expected. So now Not only did I have to be a designer, I had to be a marketer, a video editor, a salesperson, an accountant, and the one and only true Batman. By contrast, if you're a designer working at a different company, that's all you really have to worry about. There's a whole set of operations and roles that, that a company has to be able to do all the other stuff. But when you're a freelancer, you are the business. But even though it was incredibly challenging and time-consuming to learn all these different skills, I actually am really grateful that I did because now I feel that I have like superpowers. I'm able to to understand all these different areas of a business. And now I feel like if I ever start a new project or a new business, that I'm so much better prepared than I ever was before. You're rich. Psych. Haha. Imagine this. You've broken a record. You just hit $30K in one month. You feel on top of the world. You feel like you could do anything. You feel like you're literally Batman. Then a couple months later, no clients, no sales. And it's April, which means that it's tax season and Big Uncle Sam wants you to pay $27,000 that you might not have been prepared for. Now you feel depressed, you feel anxious. You're thinking about potentially moving to Mexico. Is this based on a true story? Uh, that's what I'm saying. Maybe. But then you remember that that's not very Batman of you. So then you decide to lock in. So that's another difficult, challenging harsh truth about freelancing is that the income instability can be incredibly unstable. Like, were there times when I wanted to go back to a corporate job for that stable paycheck, for health insurance, for dental? Absolutely, yeah. Like, I'd be lying if I say I didn't. But the crazy thing is that although this was challenging and although this was difficult, I don't think I would have had it any other way. And I think that's the theme of this video, actually. Without the income instability, I don't think I would have learned the lessons or invested the time into creating my YouTube channel, creating other forms of income. It's a way for me to kind of stabilize the income that I'm creating. And it's really cool to have like 7 sources of income. I mean, that's awesome. Even if it's not a lot of money, that's still something that like really excites me. And the cool thing is I also stumbled across Framer, which allows you to create like really cool templates. And I'm actually working on a portfolio template that is inspired by Batman, which I'm super excited for. And I'm getting to design things that I want to design and potentially people people want to buy. Also, another reason I'm a big fan, they have a pretty sick creator program where you earn 50% of any referral for 12 months and you keep 100% of all template sales, which is actually unheard of among website builders. They also just released some new AI features like Wireframer, where it creates wireframes for you in seconds so you don't have to struggle with creating layouts on an empty canvas. You can also animate vector graphics, which is pretty cool. and they got another super slick way of creating custom code components using AI, unlocking a whole new set of possibilities. Yeah, they're sponsoring this video, but I actually use them for like 90% of my client and personal projects. So I'm just, I'm keeping it 100 with you. Sell me this pen that I don't have. I should probably have a pen. To say that you have to learn to sell as a freelance designer is like saying that you need to breathe as a human or saying that Batman wears all black. So first I would have to sell myself, my my services, my skills to potential clients on sales calls. Right. But then once you earn the sale and they pay the invoice and you have a project now, then you have to sell the work in a presentation, whether that's a website redesign or whether that's a logo. It doesn't matter what you're doing. If there's a client at the end of it, you have to basically sell your thinking, sell the layout, the typography, the color choices, everything that you've decided in the design. You have to sell to the client. Which if you don't like communicating or selling it can be really, really challenging. Selling is not about convincing. It's not about influencing anyone. It's actually about helping someone make a decision. And once I learned that all of my sales calls went wildly differently. So yeah, learning to sell has been a skill set that I've truly appreciated and I wouldn't have had it any other way even though it was really challenging and very cringy in the beginning. Final final final final final final final final actual final design file. Yeah, yeah. You know, if you're, if you're a freelance designer, you know exactly where I'm going with this. When I first started working on design projects, no one told me no matter how good of a job that I did, clients would always want to make changes or some sort of update literally all the time. And you know what? As an amateur, I didn't even limit the number of revisions on my contracts. And so it was basically unlimited revisions for each client project, which is Really, really bad idea, by the way. Like, I literally remember working on a website that was supposed to take me 6 weeks that ended up taking me 6 months because the client kept coming back with change after change after change after change, always saying, oh, we're so close. Yeah, thank you so much, but it's not exactly right. It was like insane. 6 months instead of 6 weeks. And then even after we finished the website, he paid the final invoice because I do 50% upfront and then 50% at the end. Even after he paid the last final payment and I delivered the site to him 2 whole months later, he decided to freaking send me an email saying that he was going to sue me and he wanted his money back. Like that to me was absolutely insane. Like worst client ever. But now I always put the number of revisions in my contracts, 2 to 3 revisions, and any extra revisions will cost you. Being a freelance designer can lead you into a place called revision hell. Be prepared. When you don't have any clients, you don't make any money. So naturally you're stressed. Reasonable. Well, get this. When you finally get that client and you make some money, you think you wouldn't be stressed, right? No, but now you're stressed on getting the project done on time, making the client happy, and juggling all other sorts of clients as well. So basically you're stressed if you have clients and you're stressed if you don't. Sounds like a great deal. But actually I've changed my perspective on this and here's why. I've actually learned to be grateful when I have clients and when I don't. Specifically when I don't have any clients, I get to work on YouTube videos like this. I get to work on my portfolio website. I get to work on other forms of income like courses or digital products. I get to learn new things. And when I do have clients, I'm grateful too, because then I get to work on really cool projects. I get to invest in my crypto portfolio. You know, there's a whole bunch of things that are good about both sides. So yeah, I think this one's more about perspective than anything else. Go big or go home. What I've learned in the 4+ years that I've been freelancing is that there's not a lot of great options to scale as a freelancer. Either you do more projects for about the same or less amount of money, or you do less projects for more money. And that doesn't really sound exciting to me. You know, to be honest, I just haven't figured out a lot of great ways to scale as a freelancer. So like the true nonconformist that I am, what I've actually decided to do is focus on building digital products like courses and templates and work on more YouTube videos. This way, when I create templates, it's like I'm designing things that I want to design with my own specific taste, with the fonts that I like, with the colors that I want. And then I can actually make money that way as well. Like currently I'm actually working on a Batman-inspired portfolio template. If you want to get notified when that's out, because it's going to be amazing, link is going to be down in the description as well. But we'll see how this scaling with digital products actually works out for me. You'll have to stay tuned. Why have one boss when you can have ten? So I think a common misconception about freelancing is that you're your own boss, which actually isn't true because as a freelancer you have clients and they pay you money and tell you what to do. And now you have more than one. So actually you've upgraded to have more bosses instead of just one. And the thing is, all of these clients have different communication styles, different expectations, and want you to do different things. And you have to all juggle them at the same time because if you don't, No, you don't get paid, and it's that simple. So yes, this can be very challenging, but the thing is, I'm actually kind of grateful for this too, because out of necessity, this challenge has actually made me really organized and helped me manage my projects on Notion. And so I've actually become way more productive out of necessity because I've needed to manage all these different projects, which is a positive thing that came out of this. I've actually followed time blocking, which has completely changed my productivity. Which means I basically dedicate to like one client project 4 hours at a time of uninterrupted work. So if you made it this far into the video, first off, I love you. You complete me. Thank you so much for making it this far into the video. Click on my face.