1 Year of Working for Myself

February 19, 2024, the day I had my first client meeting and landed the job. At the time, I was still finishing my master’s degree. Before that, I’ve only been building things for myself or the community (São Miguel Bus), and funnily enough, I’ve never actually been paid for developing software. Until that day.

I worked 10-hour days effortlessly. I was so excited that someone actually agreed to pay me (very little, to be honest lol) for my software development. But I didn’t care about the money. I was just happy to build something for a real use case and not just for fun.

My Background & Decision to Go Solo

The path was clear: study → finish the master’s degree → get a job. But nah, that’s boring af, I want to build cool stuff, not just follow orders... I’ve been building since I first started programming, way before university. 80% of what I know about it, I learned on my own, at home. The other 20% came from university, which, to be fair, helped me stay disciplined in my learning (something I lacked before going there). No regrets about taking both my degrees. I grew a lot mentally and it made me realize what I really want for my life (spoiler alert: i don’t want to follow the usual path).

A year has passed and I don’t regret a single second of rejecting the usual path, but I still got a long way to go before I achieve what I really want, and I am loving the journey! I work way more than I would in a 9-5 and probably I get less income at the end of the month, and I know that! But I fucking love what I do. I wake up everyday excited to build the next feature, for real! So I have to pursue this!!

The Ultimate Goal

Freelance gigs have been stable, and things are looking good for the next few months. I actually still work with the client I closed 1 year ago, I have developed four additional modules to the original software and I am starting to build a completely new software for other matter on their company. It’s crazy to see the impact my software has had on that company! I wish I could share more details with you.

At the moment I have 3 clients, which are about to turn into 4. That’s amazing!! But my time has been almost null for my side projects and, to be honest, my ultimate goal in all of this journey is not to be a freelancer for the rest of my life… I want to build a (or multiple) SaaS (or whatever) that generates enough passive income so I can wake up every day and build whatever the fuck I feel like! I’m working to get there 💪🏼

Key Takeaways from 1 Year of Freelancing to Sustain My Indie Hacking Passion:

• If you want the freedom to take a random Wednesday off, you need the discipline to wake up early and work on a Sunday.

• You are alone in this. Failures and Successes are yours to own. That’s both very good and very bad, you have to learn to embrace your failures and learn from each of them! I learned much more by failing than succeeding.

• You will fail. You will get rejected. You will get ghosted. Just make sure that when you land a client, you deliver such great work that they have no choice but to come back to you if they ever need anything else.

• Save up when you win big. Next month, you might make nothing. It happens, but if you save, you’ll be fine. It also gives you time to strategize or focus on side projects.

• If you dream of a similar career (and are financially stable or have enough savings for some time)… just do it! What’s the worst that could happen? You go back to a 9-5? So what? You’ll still have learned, grown, and built a better portfolio that will make other candidates jealous. GO GET IT. 🚀

This is just the beginning of my journey. Thank you for following along so early!