#56 Freelancing as a UX Designer
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As designers, having side gigs and doing like maybe two design projects in parallel is very, very interesting because it sort of informs the other project. And you always get a break from the mental space where you're thinking about the same problem and then you get to think about a different problem. And it's refreshing.

Hi everyone and welcome to a new episode of Honest UX Talks. I'm super happy to be joined by Anfisa and today we're going to be tackling a topic that's very juicy for many of us out there, even for designers that have a full-time job and that topic is freelancing as a UX designer. We're going to try to unpack some opportunities for different platforms where you can go to freelance on. We're going to explore our own experiences around how to find freelancing clients

and just some tips and tricks and our personal experience around freelancing. So that's what we're in for today. But before we do that, I just want to ask Anvisa how she's been and how our sponsor is doing. Hello, everybody. Nice to meet you in the next episode. And yes, you're right. We have a sponsor. And our sponsor for today is Figura.digital, which is probably the most UX friendly network.

and freelancing platform for designers. The great thing about this freelancing platform is that you don't have to search for a job. You don't have to go through rounds of interviews, do the homework challenge all the time, and just spend a lot of time and energy on applying. With Figura Agency, you just apply once and the process is very design focused. In some other platforms, you would see a lot of those hard-coded engineering-like processes, whereas with Figura, you go through the design evaluation process, you do it once,

And then the whole magic about it is about matchmaking between you and the companies that fit your profile best. So somebody is taking care of making this perfect matchmaking and for you, you just have to apply once and then most likely you will be connected with the company that is very common to your profile or who is looking for a designer exactly like you. Since our topic is freelancing today, I think we'll talk a little bit more about Figura throughout this episode. Anyways, I'm going fine. How about you? I'll be super brief this time.

I'm good as well. Nothing spectacular, nothing new. So let's jump straight into the topic for today. My first question would be, I would say let's start from a more personal level and then towards the end, we can discuss different options for freelancing. But what has been your own experience with freelancing so far? Okay, let's try to quickly recap it because honestly, I think there's a lot to talk about, but my personal experience will start from the fact that I was doing it for a while. I honestly started building my career from freelancing.

My first design project was because I found a freelancing client. I was doing it throughout the next six years on and off. So I think my very first client I found after the hackathon. Literally, at that point, I didn't even know what is UX design. I was really, really blind into what's happening. I think I shared the story in one of the first episodes that I was accidentally enrolled in the product design curriculum in university.

for master degree. Literally one of the first weeks when I was in Estonia, my friend is pulling me over to hackathon. And at that point, I still have no idea what is UX design and what is hackathon. So I'm like, okay, let's do it.

I'm already here not knowing what I'm doing here. So my friend is pulling me to hackathon. It's really fun. It's really cool. I'm really like, I guess, eliminated by all the energy from the people, from creativity and connections I'm doing there. It was really, really fun event. After that, I guess I was just proactive. I was pitching the idea. I was presenting it after we build it.

I was really going to all the sessions with mentors, was just talking to people over coffee. I think I made a lot of great connections and literally after the hackathon a lot of people started reaching me out like "we're looking for a yoga designer" while I'm in my bubble still not even sure what is yoga design. Anyways, that's how it all started and luckily the Estonian community is super small and so you know if you know one person that person knows another person and then

If you worked with one person, then it's very easy to spread that networking effect and find the next client. So for the while I was doing my master degree, for the whole of my studying period, freelancing was sort of my side gig. I was doing a lot of side projects with the freelancing, starting from

logos and branding for those startups who were reaching me out, page decks, presentations, investment decks. Of course, some UIs with Illustrator back then, because I mean, I think there was no sketch and I didn't like Photoshop. So it was just messy. The thing is, it was just working, right? There were people always reaching me out. And I, as a student who didn't have, you know, much money to live from, I think I was really happy to have this networking effect.

So that's how it started. I was doing it for about three years from that offline network. And then I moved to online network. This is me like already recapping experience, but after three years of doing it from basically Estonian clients, I then, I think registered on one platform called People Per Hour. I don't even know if it exists yet, but it was really good because there was not so many creatives there. And then there were a lot of clients there. I don't even know why and how. Oh, by the way, at that point, I also tried Elance. It was like 2014 probably.

And Ellens today is Upwork, so everybody is probably aware of Upwork. And Ellens looked differently, but yet back then it was already huge competition. I registered there. I found probably one project. I felt like, oh, I have to fight for every project. I just don't want to do that. And then I found another platform, People.com.

per hour where I found another client, only one client, and it was really long-term partnership with that client. So we worked together for like one and a half years and it was like monthly retainer project. So it was almost like full-time for me and I didn't need more clients. Moving forward, then another factor that helped me a lot with freelancing was me sitting in a coworking. So back then already in 2016, I'm sitting in coworking doing my own startup.

And in co-working, people are very proactive and talking to each other. And somebody is talking to me and again, asking what I'm doing. I'm sure I'm in my project. They're like, oh, you're a designer. We need a designer. Here we go. And it was just, again, offline network spreading. So for a while, I was working with Ukrainian startups from that co-working. And then another client that I was working with for like one and a half years started bringing me more clients. And so I would rather say that most of my networking was out of the social capitalization

capital out of me knowing people who know other people and returning clients, bringing more work. And only later, maybe like three, four years ago when I started doing Instagram, I started receiving more and more requests through DM for work, for designs and also from YouTube, by the way, a few times. And yes, I think the last few years it was really more about online network and it's not targeted network. It's not that I received a lot of those requests, but for a while they were happening, maybe once a month or so.

I did not take many freelancing work because I started doing more of the employment and I didn't have much time to do freelancing. But yet there were quite some incoming messages around we need a designer for that and that project. And my latest experience, super last experience was with TopTal where I applied there in the beginning of coronavirus.

pandemic beginning of 2020. And I will talk about it a bit more. So that's about it. That's I hope it was not too long recap. How about you tell me more of your experience, how it started, how it went, how it's going. It's really hard to turn everything into like a nutshell kind of story.

But thank you for sharing it with us. I feel that the points about how the social aspect is essential in finding freelancing work. We're talking about from your own experience, hackathon, going to coworking spaces and having an online presence. So it's always about knowing people, meeting people, putting yourself out there in one way or another. So this is, I think a key takeaway maybe that I was,

I will even repeat in our top three findings. So it was pretty much the same for me. I always had a full-time job because I'm like that. I like to spend a lot of time on one thing, doing it deeply and just understand how a company works and everything. So freelancing will not give you that.

Or it can if you have like a long term project with the same client and you're in a sort of a way an employee. But I always felt the need of having a full time job for psychological stability, if you want. But then at some point in my career, I discovered TopTal from a friend and I applied. It was a very cumbersome process. It took a long time. I think it took three months to get approved. I went through a lot of stages.

different interviews there was this english skills interviews then there was an interview with a designer and then there was a challenge that i took home and they said it's going to be like i don't know 20 hours of work or 10 hours of work but it ended up being 30 40 hours of work because you can't really do it superficially and so i did this challenge and then i did i think another interview or it was just never ending it took a very long time to get on the platform

But eventually I got in and the funniest part is that I never got one client from Teltal, not because they don't have opportunities and everything. There were some interesting jobs over there, but immediately after getting in the platform and getting approved, I had to

remain inactive on the platform because somehow the magic of even being on platforms or even like letting the world and if you want to be more spiritual, letting the universe know that, okay, now I'm doing freelancing is that somebody saw me on TopTal, but they reached out on LinkedIn and

And we were talking about more of a part-time gig, freelancing kind of project, but for one year. And so we wanted to have a more deeper conversation with me and everything outside and probably just not be fair in a way, if you want.

But we started talking, we had a couple of interviews and then I started working as a freelancer for this project that it was a startup based in the US and we worked for one year. I completely redesigned our product. So it was, let's say like a freelance kind of employee deal. And that was how it started. And it actually started through TopTal, but not directly. It's really interesting. So in a way I'm really grateful to TopTal because it kind of opened.

this world. And then what happened exactly like you said, in the meantime, so like a parallel line dream, I was building a personal brand with UX goodies, when the local scene going to events, serving even as a mentor to some startups, that's what really, really got things moving. And so now I do get like last week, I think I have four invitations from different startups to join them as a consultant or as a designer. It's insane.

And it's all because I've been doing a lot of networking and now people, I'm pretty visible. But also, like you said, there's the word of mouth kind of effect. So if you work with one startup, then at some point somebody will talk to that startup and ask them, oh, but who did the design for you? And then they will say, oh, you know, Ioana. And then they will reach out.

You can imagine that if you do more projects, then there are more opportunities for those startups to have conversations about you. So it keeps happening. It keeps growing. So I think the hardest part is actually starting as a freelancing your first one, two, three projects. But then if you do a good job, you're going to have a pool of opportunities.

probably not constantly, but you can definitely find client work. And just like you said, I think if you don't have the network, if you're not really passionate about doing online posts and everything, which is totally fine. I don't think that every designer needs to have an online presence. You can do it offline. Maybe just go in your coworking spaces in the, in your city, reach out to different startups or companies that are just

I don't know, assembling their design team, starting to build a product, whatever, you know, you learn from the people you might know. And if you have absolutely no social network, absolutely no opportunity for that, then you can definitely consider the platforms. So now that we're here,

Let's see Anfisa, what might be some platforms that people can go and explore if they're looking for freelancing work? Just to your point, because you were just talking about offline networking, maybe I just wanted to add a little thing there that I know that some people would say, oh, but I'm not feeling well about networking. And I don't think that, you know, it's very easy for everyone, especially for people introverted. One little life hack I can think about right now is to find a mentor maybe.

Maybe a mentor is also a network already in the professional area and in professional pool. So sometimes mentor could help you land in your first job as well. And that is why I think networking could be not just, you know, classic events and hackathons and I don't know, conferences, but also through, through the network, you don't have to necessarily talk.

to people on the events. Anyways, coming back to the question with the platforms. That's true. Like there is a lot of platforms today, which is good and bad. The good thing is that, okay, so there is a demand for freelancing. I can see that, especially for the last two, three years, since the beginning of lockdown, there was more and more need for freelancers instead

Some areas, you know, there were layoffs and in some areas there were more need because, you know, the internet became more IT and many, many companies and brands needed designers. And so the demand was kind of growing, I would say the last two, three years. I even know a lot of people who maybe lost jobs over the last two, three years and they started freelancing. The top mind firms everybody would immediately think of would be TopTal.

and Appwork, right? And I guess the main difference here, and I just want to start from those two kind of most common platforms and then dive deeper into what they are doing and what's the difference, and then maybe talk about other less famous platforms and the benefits of them. So the main difference between Upwork and TopTal, I guess, is the fact that with TopTal, you would have to apply before being able to access their clients' pool. I think the promising tag from the TopTal is that we are only selecting top 3% of the talent,

Top talent is basically a top talent. And once you're selected, there's this rigorous process that you're on. I talked about a little bit that you go through like, I don't know, eight steps of interviewing. Well, by the way, I want to talk to you about this process. What do you think about it? I'm really wondering whether it's effective at all. But anyways, you go through this rigorous process.

Finally, after two, three months, you get access to this platform and to the clients there. And boom, guess what happens? What happens is that you get exactly the same experience as you have in the app work. You still have to compete for the clients. You still have to apply. You still have to build your portfolio presence and good reputation. The only difference you have to build a relationship with HRs that could

then connect you to their clients. But it doesn't mean that it's no work and once you're there, you made a cut and you will be given clients. It's not the case. And that's the key problem that nobody is talking about, I think. And people are forgetting that it's still a freelancing platform and it's still that you need to be much mic'd with the platforms and not always you'll get

actually you will not get the perfect matching to your DM and you can immediately start working. So that's a little bit of reality check here. But with Upwork, I think the difference is that you never know what clients do you get. And sometimes those clients are not sort of preselected, not vetted for you. Some of those clients have

very, very small budgets and you would have a huge competition anyway, right? With MaybeTopTel you have smaller competition, potentially bigger checks, yet it's still an application you have to go through every single time you apply for a new project. Or with the Upwork, in the beginning it's probably harder since you have to build a reputation working for not the best clients, I would say. I don't know. I know that there are some different life hacks some of my friends designers shared. I know people who would

build a client profile to give you a fake rating like yes you did a project i love those so like i i've seen different schemes happen in there but yes the first time would be harder because you have to build a reputation because nobody wants to work with a profile that has zero writing or no reputation at all but once you get it then you can probably get a job faster but still you never know what client you get and there is a bigger risk that this client will not be the best client for you and the process will not be as smooth the

communication won't be as smooth, you'll be overworking and all of that. At least that's what I've heard. The biggest problem is really to get started with Upwork and build that first strong profile. I even know that people are buying profiles with reputation for huge money. Like, you know, some people are buying Instagram profiles with followers. It's kind of the same as Upwork. And some people will buy the profiles with a lot of client work there. Like not their work, but who cares? You have great profiles.

And so this is what I see happens with those platforms. The bigger demand, the bigger the competition, the harder it gets to stand out. And it's almost as equal as an effort as to find a job that is more stable and you don't have to fight for every single project. So if the goal for you is to just build your portfolio with real life business cases and to prove that you have an actual experience with freelancing, applying to TopTal or just finding jobs through Upwork could be a very tough place to start from.

I would say. And that is why I don't think that's the best choice and my life hack, and that's what I did basically, as you've heard from my story, I basically decided that you don't have to go through those most common platforms. And instead you can think about platforms

that has less competition. That's why I chose People Per Hour back then. But today, back to our sponsor, I'm really happy to hear that there are more and more specialist initiatives that are start happening, right? So Figura, the sponsor of our episode today, is actually a pretty new platform. And the really great thing about it is that, hey,

It's not just a platform where you go through rigorous process. It's a shorter process and it's a design focused process because for example, with TopTile, you go through like this unified one size fits all process, both for engineers and for designers. And mainly from what I remember, there were also a lot of engineers who were interviewing me in the first stages. Like, you know, later it was more designers,

But still, you're not necessarily being evaluated by designers. And then sometimes I could imagine there could be mistakes in terms of if you're a good fit or not. Whereas with Figura, it's more specialized. The pool is smaller and you don't have to apply to then get the job. So you basically get match-matched with the companies. I know the founder of it and I talked to him and he's really an amazing person who always cares about designers.

He has his courses, he's doing a lot of educational projects, and he's not creating just yet another platform, but he's trying to understand the designers and their speciality and their passions to then match it to the companies who have similar profiles. So he's really doing this heavy lifting of matchmaking, which for you reduces a lot of work. The only thing you have to do is still apply

apply there and get approved there. Because I think he's looking for middle level designers plus. And another good thing about it is that actually they don't have commissions in comparison to other platforms. I think that Upwork has 20% cut and TopTal, if I'm not mistaken, they don't have the visible cut, but they have another cut, which you don't know about.

And so what I'm happy and excited about today is that if you're looking for remote clients and you know, your offline real life network is not as active, then the good news is that there are more and more specialized networks that help you to be much make with the companies for you. So like I said, for designers, there's Figura. And I also have seen that for developers, there is another specialized platform called lemon.io, which is doing something similar, much making you for with the companies based on your experience.

So yeah, and of course, like we discussed already with Joanna, in terms of the platforms, it's one thing, but then never underestimate the value of the real life personal network, right? So either it is offline from events or even from mentors or online from social media, if you do it. Like I said, I did receive quite some projects

from YouTube and from Instagram. What would you add about the platforms? And would you want to talk a bit more about your experience also with TopTal if we're talking about platforms? Sure. My experience with TopTal was just getting in the platform. So the process of getting vetted that I'm in top 3%, top talent and everything. But I didn't get the chance to work on projects with them because I started having at the same time, coincidentally or not,

not really coincidentally, I started having a pool of freelancing projects that I could choose from. And then there never was a need for me to go on a platform and look for clients because somehow opportunities started just coming my way. Now you had a question about the process. I think the process is really, really long and at times cumbersome, and they require a portfolio with four projects. Many designers have two projects in their portfolio. I think they asked me six when I was applying in 2022.

wow so somehow the number is growing or maybe it was always six sorry for some you know nuances we might not remember i remember it was four minimum when i applied it so this was 2018. a year later and yet the number of projects grew oh okay my portfolio now has two case studies so i work probably on 15 products but i have two things in my portfolio because i don't see a need

to show all the work that you've done, so much work, or really, really try to convince people that you've done good work.

pick your best two, three projects, and then that's it. But for TopTal in a way, most people have to build a different portfolio or rebuild their portfolio to feature for in the new case six. So you're doing a lot of work building the portfolio, and then you're doing a lot of work doing the design challenge, which if you want to get in, you really can't treat it superficially. I mean, you have to treat it like a small design project. Then

You could do the bare minimum, but that will not guarantee that you're in. So that's also a lot of time. So my point is that you're in a way applying for a job and even beyond applying for a normal job. So it takes a lot of time and it's a lot of investment. Now, some people were angry with that. I know a very, very senior designer. I think he has 20 years of experience who was rejected by the process because

I don't know what thing he didn't do. So the thing is that the process is not perfect. I think sometimes they might even lose very good people because most talented designers aren't in the mood of building a portfolio with six case studies and doing design challenges and everything. They have already proven themselves. So their work speaks for themselves.

their cv if you want so i don't think the process is attracting the best people i think it's mostly for mid designers sometimes senior designers but mostly mid designers so if you're a junior you probably don't have many chances of getting on the platform because you're not gonna pass the portfolio thing and everything but if you're a mid designer and if you're just getting started with freelancing i think this would be an ideal platform for you the last point i want to make

on the process is that in a way i understand them very well because they are recruiting heavily i mean that they are about recruiting so they have to create a process that sort of increases their chances of finding good people as much as possible and sometimes that process will be cumbersome because

If you have just a conversation with a hiring manager, it's mostly subjective. Some people are very good at interviewing, but there's nothing behind that. So you really need to go through different kind of explorations to make sure that you're really bringing in the top 3% of the world's talent. So the process in a way is necessary. Now, if they found ideal recipe, I'm not sure. I think they could experiment more with it.

decrease the number of projects and look at more at the quality than at the number in the portfolio, for example. But I think it's needed. So they're a factory. They need numbers. They need to see thousands of people and then bring in the best. So it's just, I think, optimized for volumes. And to speak about other freelancing platforms, I haven't tried any other. I haven't been on Fiverr or Upwork. I don't have any information about that. There are also some opportunities on

99designs, which is mostly about logo and branding and everything. But I saw at some point that some people were finding UX opportunities on 99designs. It's true that mostly they were very, very minor projects like redesign two or three screens or something along those lines. But I think that if you're interested in exploring this field, you can just

get started with looking at different platforms, maybe reaching out to people who are on that platform and pick their brains as to what helped them succeed. I know at some point there was a UI Helen, I think now she changed her handle to her real name. She was talking a lot about how to succeed on Upwork and how to become, I think they have this badge that you get at some point where your record- It's a badge that makes it YouTube 3%.

I think that's something that, yeah. - Okay, so that's it. The last point I wanna make, and maybe then we move into our top three findings. I love your point about networking. I think we should make it again and again. I think that's the most valuable, the most interesting freelancing projects obviously came from my network.

And I've been doing a lot of freelancing ever since. I've always had a side gig where I was working with a small company, an early stage startup or even sometimes bigger companies. But I always had something on the side doing design work. And the point I want to make is that I really

feel that as designers having side gigs and doing like maybe two design projects in parallel is very, very interesting because it sort of informs the other project. And you always get a break from the mental space where you're thinking about the same problem. And then you get to think about a different problem and it's refreshing. And for me,

some people might not like that because they want more personal time or they have clearer boundaries or they don't want to risk getting burned out but I always had two projects my full-time job and a side gig doing design work and that really helped me become better at both of them so it's interesting that you can choose to have like a hybrid kind of career like

have a full time role, but also do freelancing work as opposed to being just a freelancer or just an employee and making this a big choice and getting stressed over it. What's the best option? Maybe you can find something that's in the middle. That has been my personal experience. So with that, I would say let's move into our top three findings. So I guess Mike is mine.

All right. So my top three takeaways would be today picking up from where you left. Don't underestimate the personal projects. I think it's a very common case. It happened with me, right? I was an experienced designer, did not even know what is UX design, yet I found the first lines through the personal networking. For me, it was a real life experience that helped me to build a portfolio, build in the credibility, then of course finding employment jobs later on. But it

all started from personal life networking. And maybe if I were to apply to Upwork or even TopTel in the beginning, I completely will be rejected. It's 100% so. And so personal networking helped a lot with it.

That is why I would emphasize that for the beginner stages, more like junior stages, the better choice would be to probably kind of build your network, either through online or offline, or find a mentor, or maybe even, you know, go and sort of join design communities, helping each other, supporting each other, shouting out each other, given, for example, one designer would have more and more requests coming in, and they would start saying, oh, you know, I have projects I cannot take, can you maybe work on this project? So sort of sharing the

projects. This is really helpful for many people who are starting out and just looking for work. But that does mean that you should sit and wait for people to sort of share the projects with you. You can also be proactive. I don't know, start screaming on social media that you're open to projects, maybe reach out to local businesses.

be passive, but also proactive, right? I mean, proactive with that work and proactive with your own outreach. That's the first takeaway. And the second takeaway, or I can say more and more trends towards specialized freelancer platforms. So if in the past, and I guess still we're using TopTal and Upwork, and like you said, maybe Fiverr, it's another very common platform we didn't mention today much. If those were the most common platforms, the competition is really fierce there. It does mean you can find a job there, but

you have to spend more time building your first sort of reputation and career aka profile so i think if you want to sort of shortcut it think about specialized platforms like in our case figura for designers or lemon.eu for developers like i mentioned today it's another great platform i've heard about and i and i'm really happy that this is happening because this helps not to just be on a platform but also help network of designers maybe get access to education programs

maybe get mentoring and all of that. And again, support from the platform, from other designers. That is like an added value that I feel many people are needed on.

And finally, the last takeaway for me would be to maybe think about going outside and not just think about the platforms, but apply to, for example, creative contests for brands. You can think about jovoto.com or yeuka.com. It's where you can participate in the contests and then still find great clients, but really more world-known brands. I'm going to be super brief with my top three takeaways. The first one would be network as much as possible in whichever way you are comfortable.

with. The second one would be try to explore the hybrid idea. I think it's something that's very comfortable in the beginning. So if you don't know what to choose, full-time job or try to like set aside six months of your life to try to see how both worlds work together. And then the last thing would be many people I think are very scared now because of the recession. There are so many layoffs every day on LinkedIn. People are getting fired. What's going on? We won't be able to find jobs as designers and everything. But I think that this is an opportunity for freelancing.

because most companies will not be able to commit so much to hiring large number of people, build big teams because it's very expensive and they're scared and they're stressed out by the recession and everything, but they will have to have design. And many companies will start turning

and looking for freelancers, which are more flexible. And of course, they can end the partnership whenever they want. So freelancing, I think, is in for taking the stage in the next couple of years. I think we'll see a lot of that. That's my final thought. Thank you, everyone, for listening and hope to see you in future episodes. And if you have any questions, send them over. Follow us on all the platforms. Thank you so much for tuning in and check out the links in the show notes. Bye bye. Bye.