How to Choose a Freelance Niche - for Coders

hey guys welcome to the video someone answer a couple questions here I believe I've heard you another credible former current freelancer say it's important to find a niche in freelancing here's what I'm thinking mine might be e commerce with UJS laravel do I need to be more specific than that sell a short answer yes there are niches and freelancing you're gonna let the market determine what that niche will be because depending on where you live in the world you may find that laravel view is that maybe WordPress in a bunch of plugins might be c-sharp I don't know it really depends on geographically where you happen to live that will largely determine what your freelancing career will be here's something that I think a lot of people new to software development or new to freelancing they get into this trap where they have this preconceived notion about what things should be what frameworks they should use what languages they should use what nisha they should get into now I can understand the appeal for that but the reality situation in business what are primary skills of anybody in business and in careers is you have to learn to be sensitive to the market forces and be able to pivot to move and shift depending on where you see the demand is now this is commonly known by the way in the startup community they talk about pivoting all the time that's why when investors look at a start-up they're much more concerned about the startup founders than perhaps the product to a certain extent why do I say that because they know experienced investors know but oftentimes the product will have to be pivoted if you will you're gonna have to change depending on what the market tells you so yes there are niches in freelancing 100 percent what this niche might be it may not be technology by the way again developers nerds tend to think in terms of tech and you have to kind of pull yourself out of that you have to look at the tech as a tools as a set of tools rather than the product because a lot of times especially when you're doing freelancing you'll be working for small business the small business owners have no idea about this tech versus that tech they don't know if Ruby or Python or PHP or a piece of cheese they have no idea what the difference is half the time so it's not a question of you going in there selling them on the tech you have to sell them on your credibility as a good developer as a somebody who can get the job done that's why I talk about having a good looking website good social presence you want to build reputation how you build reputation do a couple freebie projects maybe some certifications etc Excel Excel this is what's going to separate you from other people out there is your ability to communicate and to show a quality and reputation what you do that will get you to contracts not whether or not you know laravel or you know django or you know whatever second question I've searched around for answers but couldn't find what I was looking for my question is why build websites with code for example an e-commerce site with you and laravel when you can build them with content management systems like WordPress or Joomla Drupal Shopify etc and our aspiring web programmers like myself in danger of B CMS's nullifying the need for websites built from scratch the short answer is no these tools these CMS's etc Shopify they're just tools and for certain types of projects you leverage these for other types of projects you won't you won't be able to leverage them because you're gonna need to customize to a great extent don't feel disenfranchised don't be worried about these technologies that come up these turnkey solutions because always turnkey solutions some better than others they will replace the need for certain type structures of coating but at the end of the day there's gonna be so much work encoding and I actually welcome something like a CMS you know if a CMS is out there if a library is out there for framework is out there I'm going to use them as a developer because I know from 25 years experience there is plenty of code you have to write so yes V I've talked about this before the role of a developer does change over time in terms of the particular task which you would do but that does not mean there's gonna be no development work out there there's plenty there's plenty so if I can find a library it takes away the drudgery of me having to write a shopping cart object again or having to create a database layer or having to create an authentication layer if I can find framework so I can do this so I don't have to do bad anymore all the better because I don't want to write that code a big part of being a successful developer or web design or even is the ability to carry of a project from start to finish so for example I'm getting involved in another business and I have a demand I try to find the time where I'm coming in as a CTO and because the the founders in a success it's a successful business they do a lot of money and they just they realize that they need somebody like me to become an owner because they just can't get the software out the door and it's not like I'm gonna be sitting there writing code all day it's just even just understanding the landscape being able to make the decisions what libraries what stocks to use if you will you know do we go PHP laravel or do we go flutter brainy maybe flutter that's something we're actually looking at etc etcetera etcetera one thing for sure you never want to use Ruby on Rails that's like a given you know I'm just tell people that for years you know that was just a ruby joke for or the Ruby guys out there it's been a while I've been starving them of Ruby jokes but no even I can't believe I'm saying this even Ruby on Rails is an option that you could use of course I'm joking I'm facetious here for me though Oh Jade Jolie decide Ruby and rails can produce great apps server out there I just prefer PHP laravel because of the speed advantages and I just think with the PHP community because there's a redheaded stepchild they are the redheaded stepchild of the coding community they work really hard to optimize PHP for speed and security PHP 7x is extremely fast extremely resource efficient and very secure so to summarize yes in freelancing you're gonna find your niche your niche is not necessarily going to be dependent on a particular technology your reputation how you present yourself how you communicate is far more important in that regard you're gonna go out there you're gonna deal as a freelancer a lot of us are gonna be doing a lot of local jobs for local companies and they're gonna choose you based on whether they get a good feeling about you because remember most small business owners have no idea between the ders between laravel PHP and Python and Django Ruby rails or Java C most won't know the difference right and what you probably finds a lot of them will have some sort of infrastructure in WordPress or maybe Drupal and they're gonna want to build off of that because their use of those tools so try not to get so caught up in the technology in terms of marketing yourself with the technology because that's a really I think that was the heart of this guy's question and turns a to choosing nation which stack him he was talking to view and Larry bow which by the way I'm either great but that I don't think is gonna get you two jobs what's going to get you two jobs as I said reputation etc and again let the market determine what technology stack so what type of work but you what to do as if real answer and it will unfold itself and again that's a big part about being a professional in the world out there is being sensitive to what the market tells you and adjusting and pivoting accordingly try not to be caught up in the in the box of saying I am a Java code or I am a Python coder I am a Jas coder if you train properly shameless plug my web stack courses my Python courses if you're trained properly you will feel comfortable moving into any particular specialization Python PHP JavaScript Java etc based on the needs of the project as I've told people many times in my freelancing career going back to when I start writing code in the 90s I would choose the technology based on the merits of the job sometimes I would have to learn something new which is very common in software development actually you should that's par for the course that's how it works that's one of the big illusions I'll lead with I'll leave with this this video one of the big illusions in software development is that you're gonna know everything and then you're gonna come into the job into the game knowing everything you just go sit down you're gonna know everything it doesn't work that way one of the key jobs here's to take away one of the key jobs of a professional coder developer is the ability to learn on the go one of the key jobs let me say it again of a professional developer is to learn on the go if you're trained properly and you're more experienced you will be able to learn any technology fairly easily and there you go this video was sponsored by me if you want to learn freelancing see the link below my freelance course it's very popular people love it it comes with five templates teaches you how business works in general I also have entrepreneur course but it's kind of a broader view everything you want to learn a web stack links below five on the links below there hate that's it for today bye bye

Channel: Stefan Mischook

Views: 15,006

Keywords: freelancing, web developer

Id: zWbFQFAxPz4

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 24 2019