Leaving the Rat Race with

Python

An Insider’s Guide to Freelance

Developing
Dr. Christian Mayer and Lukas Rieger
 Dedication

This book is dedicated to the vivid Finxter community of

ambitious Python coders.

ii
 © 2021 Finxter Publishing
All Rights Reserved.
https://finxter.com/
For more information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to
admin@finxter.com.

Subscribe to our newsletter Grow Your Python Skills

and Become a Professional Freelance Developer
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 About This Book

This book originated from the massive results obtained

by Finxter students and their success in becoming thriv-
ing Python business owners. Tens of thousands of avid
Python students have completed the Python freelancing
material on the Finxter website, such as the free webi-
nar1 , the blog tutorial2 , or the full Python freelancer
course3 .
Many Finxters wrote in with their successes applying
the principles outlined in this book.4
The Python freelancer book you hold in your hands (or

1
https://blog.finxter.com/webinar-freelancer/
2
http://bit.ly/python-freelancer-tutorial
3
https://blog.finxter.com/become-python-
freelancer-course/
4
https://blog.finxter.com/what-our-users-say/.

iv
 v

keep at your fingertips) is the compilation of our collec-

tive practical knowledge—working as freelancers, hiring
freelancers, and teaching students how to become suc-
cessful freelancers. It’s written for the complete novice
in the field of Python freelancing.
However, it’s not a Python tutorial. To learn Python,
get the Coffee Break Python book series5 and join the
free Finxter Computer Science Email Academy6 .
It’s sad, but for many reasons—some discussed in this
book—the average reader will not reach success with
their business. That’s why we add the following dis-
claimer: Any earning figures stated in the book are not
representative of the average reader who will earn sig-
nificantly less or no money at all. Dedication and en-
durance are key to building a successful business.
Finally, we’ve created a separate book page with bonus
material, worksheets, and additional freelancer resources
at https://python-freelancer.com/.

5
https://blog.finxter.com/coffee-break-python/
6
https://blog.finxter.com/subscribe/
 Table of Contents

I Overview: $0 to $1000 38

II Skills: $1000 to $2000 68

III Strategy: $2000 to $4000 118

IV Systems: $4000 to $12000 151

vi
 Long Table of Contents

Table of Contents vi

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Freelancing in the 21st Century . . . . . 3
1.2 About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Freelancer Report 7
2.1 Disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Pro vs Cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 What’s Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4 Hourly Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5 Code From Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.6 What Does It Take . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.7 Intermediate Freelancer . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.8 Old Freelancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.9 Young Freelancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

vii
viii LONG TABLE OF CONTENTS

I Overview: $0 to $1000 38
3 Low Risk High Gain 45

4 Unfair Advantage 51

5 Know Your Why 55

6 Consultants Go Big 58

7 Join Freelance Platforms 60

8 Best Freelancing Sites 64

8.1 Upwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8.2 Fiverr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8.3 Toptal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
8.4 Freelancer.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

II Skills: $1000 to $2000 68

9 Focus on Skill Creation 69

10 Your Success Habit 72

11 Earn Trust 75

12 Money Seeks Specialists 78

13 Read Programming Books 81

LONG TABLE OF CONTENTS ix

14 Read Business Books 83

15 Seek Expert Advice 85

16 A Simple Heuristic 87

17 About Timing 93

18 Practical Training Plan 95

19 Solve Python Puzzles 98

20 Learn with Cheats 101

21 Confidence 103

22 Start Earning 106

23 Psychology Tricks 108

24 Open-Source 113

25 Non-Programming Skills 115

III Strategy: $2000 to $4000 118

26 Freelancer Algorithm 119

27 Network Effects 123

x LONG TABLE OF CONTENTS

28 Return on Invested Effort 125

29 Don’t Compete on Price 128

30 Free Float 131

31 Give 134

32 Eat Complexity 136

33 Perform From Your Strengths 139

34 Be a Specialist 141

35 Be Hyper-Responsive 143

36 Be Positive 145

37 Know Hourly Rate 147

38 Increase Hourly Rate 149

IV Systems: $4000 to $12000 151

39 Systems 152

40 Client List 156

41 Ad Funnel 158
LONG TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

42 Leads 160

43 Testimonial Videos 162

44 Referral Engine 166

45 Give and Take 169

46 Befriend Colleagues 171

47 On Investing 173

48 Leave Freelancing Platforms 177

49 Maximize Control 179

50 Seek Independence 181

51 Consultant Positioning 185

52 Strategy Sessions 188

53 Tutoring 191

54 Personal Brand 194

55 Create a Blog 196

56 Final Remarks 199

 1

Introduction

Do you want to learn about becoming a Python free-

lancer and start your thriving coding business online?
Do you want to regain control of your life? And are you
committed to succeeding in life and business?
You’ve got the right book in your hands. This practical
how-to book will help you nurture, grow, and harness
your new online coding business plant—even if you’ve
got little or no experience in both the coding and busi-
ness ecosystems. If you follow the instructions in this
book and commit to building your successful freelance
business, you’ll not only make this book the most prof-
itable investment in your life, but you’ll also achieve
new joy, happiness, and a sense of independence and
self-reliance.
Giving advice is cheap—but taking advice can become

1
2 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

very expensive. Thus, you should choose your advice-

givers carefully. Allow me to write a few words about
myself so that you can decide if I’m the right teacher for
you!
For more than four years, I’ve been growing my online
coding business Finxter, and it still feels like Alice’s—
or, to make the metaphor fit, Bob’s—Wonderland. I’m
working from the comfort of my own home—I write,
code, and help my students. I’m getting paid to do just
the thing I love most: helping people become successful
coders. The Finxter online business earns excess cash
for myself, my family, and my business partners and
coworkers, and I no longer have to worry about finan-
cial matters. You might expect that I’d have to pour
every free minute into it. But the truth is that I spend
only four hours focused on work every day—instead of
eight hours in the office, one hour at lunch, and two
hours in commuting. Yes, I spend a lot of time thinking
about how I can help my subscribers become successful,
but I don’t consider this work—it’s my passion. Still,
I’ve got plenty of time to see my kids grow up, enjoy the
company of my wife and friends, and take long walks.
While building and growing my business, I also learn
about state-of-the-art technologies and nurture my busi-
ness skills daily. After years of high-pressure and stress-
ful work as a doctoral research associate, I am grateful
for this new, refreshing, and exciting life I found myself
1.1. FREELANCING IN THE 21ST CENTURY 3

in.
This book is about giving back and helping others ob-
tain the same level of happiness. In essence, this book
is about distilling the most valuable insights from my
experiences and delivering them to you so that you can
avoid wasting time and money making the same mis-
takes I made.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long
enough to make them all yourself.—Eleanor Roosevelt

1.1 Freelancing in the 21st

Century
The landscape of work has already undergone massive
changes in the 21st century.
Many conflicts in the 20th century concerned the rela-
tionship between employers and employees. The former
played the role of the business owner, who only cared
about maximizing cash flow and business profits. The
latter worked for the former—resenting the fact that
their role was to generate more money than they were
getting paid by the business owner.
This binary world view caused a lot of tension between
the two groups, resulting in protests and strikes—–millions
of employees organized in unions to gain more power and
4 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

leverage against business owners. At the same time, the

business owners fought back rigorously, causing suffer-
ing and pain among millions of employees.
But the world has changed. Rather than being divided
into two classes with opposing world-views and incen-
tives, the lines have blurred. Today, more and more
people work independently as small business owners and
as self-employed freelancers. Automation reduces job
safety because machines replace human labor and intel-
ligence. But the long-term positive effects of automation
are that, increasingly, people are not anymore forced to
work jobs they hate. Let me show you a few facts:

• Fact 1: The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates

that 10,000,000 workers in the US are self-employed—
and the number grows faster than the number of
employed people1 . Most of these businesses have
less than ten employees, and include jobs such as
Uber drivers, Airbnb renters, freelancers, and con-
sultants.

• Fact 2: The trend towards massive automation

is not coming to a halt anytime soon. Today,
millions of people program machines to take over
more and more work from traditional jobs. In
1
https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/article/
self-employment.htm
1.1. FREELANCING IN THE 21ST CENTURY 5

2015, Tesla put its first self-driving cars on the

road. Baidu and Google entered the race, and Big
Car followed the innovators. Soon, the logistics
sector will see a comprehensive transformation to-
wards automation. Millions of jobs are at risk.
This massive transformation will reduce job sta-
bility.

• Fact 3: As best-selling author Yuval Harari points

out in Homo Deus, humanity has reached a point
where far more people die from overeating than
hunger. The existential need to be forced to work
and stay in a job to feed your family has vanished.
Even if you don’t want to work, it’s unlikely that
you or your kids die from hunger. So why bother
working in a job you hate?

These facts indicate that the strategies for a successful

job-based career in the 20th century may not work in
the 21st century. When self-employment is on the rise,
there’s no such thing as a safe job anymore, and you are
not forced to work in a job you hate.
This book will help you navigate today’s complicated
work environment towards finding your freedom and
success in life—and creating more value for more peo-
ple. If you position yourself on the right side of change,
you can benefit rather than suffer from those trends.
6 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.2 About This Book

The structure of this book is simple: after providing a
high-level overview of the freelancing industry, I’ll give
you a series of practical tips that can help you improve
your own freelancing business. Not all tips may apply at
all times—but by skimming through this book regularly,
you’ll always find good ideas for improving your business
and making more money in less time. Don’t read this
book cover to cover but use the first idea that makes
sense, put down the book—and implement it in practice
right away. Action! Action! Action!
I’ve added multiple videos about topics discussed in
this book. These are optional. They are not required
for you to understand the book’s full content. How-
ever, for a more multi-modal learning experience, feel
free to follow the provided video resources. All videos
are embedded on the freely accessible book compan-
ion page (no sign-up needed!) at https://python-
freelancer.com/. Here’s the first video:

Video 1: Python Freelancing | How to Exploit This

Disruptive Mega Trend (as a Coder)

https://python-freelancer.com
 2

Code From Home—Freelance Developer

Industry Report

What keeps you going day after day? Your motivation is

the most critical building block of your success. In this
chapter, I’d like to give you some fact-based motivation
on why creating your coding business online can easily
be the most rewarding decision of your life.
Yet, motivation is not everything. If you want to make
your business work, you must show persistence. You
need to keep working on your business for many months,
even years. There’s no quick and easy way to create a
successful, thriving, and lasting business. It takes time,
discipline, and focused effort.
The truth is that creating a successful business is a
straightforward endeavor if you have the right mind-

7
8 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

set, habits, and motivation. Using the words of leg-

endary entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker
Jim Rohn: What is easy to do, is also easy not to do.

Video 2: Freelance Developer – How to Code From

Home and Earn Six Figures [Industry Report]

https://python-freelancer.com

This part of the book is intended to give you all the

motivation you need to sustain for many months, even
years, working daily on your new online coding business.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of freelanc-
ing compared to working at a job? What can you ex-
pect to happen after you decide not to follow the herd
by working for a big corporation or the government?
What can you expect to earn as a freelance developer?
You’ll find answers to those questions, and more, in the
upcoming paragraphs.
Let’s take a high-level perspective analyzing some major
trends in society.
2.1. DISRUPTION 9

2.1 The Workforce Disruption of

the 21st Century

Massive change is the only constant in today’s world.

The nature of employment in a globalized economy is
one great example. Millions of self-employed business
people believe that freelancing is the most suitable way
of organizing, managing, and delivering one’s talent to
small businesses and creators in the 21st century. Free-
lancing platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr grow dou-
ble digits year after year.
Say you’re a small business owner, and you need to get
some editing done for an ebook project. Would you hire
a new employee for this project? Or would you just
visit an online freelancing platform and hire the best
editor you can get for a fair price? You may find the
answer obvious, but I don’t think that most people have
already realized the second-order consequences. Online
freelancing is not a cute idea with little practical impact,
but one that has the potential to ultimately transform
and dominate the orchestration and organization of the
world’s talent. It’s accessible to billions of creators and
business owners, and will become even more efficient in
the future.
When I discuss the evolution of the traditional employment-
centered job market to a project-driven freelancing-centered
10 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

gig market, I often end up debating the ethical implica-

tions. Yes, there will be less job security in the future.
There will be a massive global competition for skill. The
ones who deliver excellent work will get paid much bet-
ter than their lazy, low-quality competition. You may
not like this trend. But this doesn’t change the fact that
it is happening right now. The purpose of this book is
not to provide guidance on whether society should or
should not allow this trend to play out—this book is
about how you can benefit from it. But, taking a stand
on this, I find it a highly positive development towards
a more efficient workforce where everybody can focus
on the work they like and are good at and outsource
everything else.
To me, freelancing is already an integral ingredient of my
existence. Here’s how freelancing impacts every aspect
of my professional life today:

• By earning my income as a freelancer myself, I

generated cash to fund my online business Finx-
ter.com.

• I hire freelancers for Finxter. The more Finxter

grows, the more I rely on freelancers to create more
value for my users.

• I host the most comprehensive Python freelancer

course in the world at https://blog.finxter.
2.1. DISRUPTION 11

com/become-python-freelancer-course/. This
is my way of centralizing and sharing (but also
learning from) the expertise of experienced free-
lancers across the globe.

My online business would have never been possible in

its current form and scale without leveraging the effi-
ciency gains of freelancing. Before freelancing became
popular, large corporations practically monopolized ex-
ploiting the benefits of globalized labor. Today, every
small business owner can access the global pool of tal-
ent. This way, new arbitrage opportunities open up for
every small business owner who seizes them. Both busi-
ness owners and freelancers benefit from this trend—as
well as the people who, like me, work on both sides.
Freelancing allows people who are “losers” in the birth
lottery – e.g., because of poor education or missing in-
frastructure – to perform from their talents and succeed
beyond their wildest expectations. One of my freelancer
students, Adam, quickly reached an earnings level of
$100 per hour right after finishing his math education—
and consequently traveled through Europe earning top
dollars and living inexpensively in a small and beautiful
commune with his close friends. Another Finxter free-
lancer student, Shubham from India, now earns a full-
time income as a content creator in the Python space—
writing and learning from the comfort of his own home.
12 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

Freelancing allows you to build the lifestyle you desire—

no matter where you’re coming from.
So how can you benefit from the global freelancing trend?
One way would be to become an arbitrage trader: buy
and sell freelancing services at the same time! You pur-
chase the services you’re not good at. You sell the ser-
vices you’re good at. This way, you’re continually in-
creasing your hourly rate. A bit of napkin math will
highlight the fundamental arithmetic of outsourcing.
Say you’re a fast coder: you write ten lines of code per
minute. But you suck at customer service: you write 0.1
emails per minute. Now, you need to do both in your
current position. To write 100 lines of code and answer
ten emails, you need 10 + 100 = 110 minutes. Most of
the time, you’ll be answering emails.
Let’s assume further that your friend, Alice, has the
exact opposite skill set: she writes only one line of code
per minute (10x slower than you) but answers one email
per minute (10x faster than you). To write 100 lines of
code and answer ten emails, she’d need 100 + 10 = 110
minutes. Most of the time, she’ll be writing code.
Both of you spend most of your time doing the work
you suck at.
But what if you decide to hire each other? You hire
Alice to answer your emails, and Alice hires you to do
her coding. Now, you write 200 lines of code instead of
2.2. PRO VS CONS 13

100 lines of code which takes you only 20 minutes. Alice

answers 20 emails instead of 10, for which she needs 20
minutes. In total, you two finish your work in 20+20=40
minutes instead of 110+110=220 minutes! Together,
you save 220 - 40 = 180 minutes—3 hours per day—by
outsourcing the work you suck at!
It’s a stupid idea to do everything by yourself because
you’re incredibly inefficient in the vast majority of tasks.
Fortunately, the freelancer disruption makes the world
much more efficient. So, let’s get some more clarity
about the specific impact freelancing may have on your
life.
In this book, we mainly focus on freelance coding using
the Python programming language but most of the con-
cepts will also apply to other programming languages
and even outside the realms of computer science!

2.2 Freelancer: To Be Or Not To

Be?
Becoming a freelancer is an exciting way of growing your
business skills, participating in the new economy, learn-
ing new technologies, practicing your communication
expertise, learning how to sell and market your skills,
and earning more and more money on the side. Technol-
ogy and globalization have expanded this opportunity.
14 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

And now it’s up to you to seize it.

Video 3: Python Freelancer - To Be Or Not To Be?

https://python-freelancer.com

But what can you expect from this new path of becom-
ing a freelancer?
First and foremost, freelancing is a path of personal
growth, learning new skills, and earning money in the
process. But in today’s digital economy, becoming a
Python freelancer is—above everything else—a lifestyle
choice. It can give you fulfillment, flexibility, and end-
less growth opportunities. Additionally, it offers you a
unique way of connecting with other people, learning
about their exciting projects, and finding friends and
acquaintances on the road.
While this sounds nice, becoming a Python freelancer
can also be a struggle, with the potential to make your
life miserable and stressful if you approach it with the
wrong strategies and tactics. But no worries, this book
is all about teaching you the right ones.
So is being a Python freelancer for you? Let’s discuss
the pros and cons of becoming a Python freelancer (see
2.2. PRO VS CONS 15

Figure 2.1: An overview of advantages and disadvan-

tages when working as a Python freelancer.

Figure 2.1). The list is based not only on my per-

sonal experience as a Python freelancer—working for
diverse projects in science, data analytics, and even law
enforcement—but I have also assembled the experience
of some of the top experts in the field.
The Good Things. There are many advantages to
being a Python freelancer. Here are the most important
of them:

• Flexibility: You are flexible in time and space. I

live in a large German city (Stuttgart) where real
estate prices are increasing. However, since I am
16 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

working full-time in the Python industry, being

self-employed and 100% digital, I have the free-
dom to move to the countryside. Outside large
cities, housing is exceptionally cheap and living
expenses are genuinely affordable. I am earning
good money matched only by a few employees
in my hometown, and I don’t have to compete
for housing to live close to my employers. It’s a
huge advantage that can make your life wonder-
fully peaceful and efficient. Taken to the extreme,
you can move to countries with minimal living ex-
penses: earn dollars but pay rupees. As a Python
freelancer, you are 100% flexible, and this flexibil-
ity opens you up to new possibilities for your life
and work. There’s a moral argument to this—no
matter whether you live in the mountains of Tibet
or in Manhattan, your opportunities to participate
in the global economy have skyrocketed. Besides,
maybe you like to travel back and forth between
those locations—now you can too!

• Independence: Do you hate working for your

boss? Being a Python freelancer injects a dose of
true independence into your life. While you are
not free from external influences (after all, you
are still working for clients), you can theoretically
get rid of any single client while not sacrificing
your business. Firing your bad clients is often a
2.2. PRO VS CONS 17

smart move because they demand more of your

time, drain your energy, pay you badly (if at all),
and generally don’t value your work. In contrast,
good clients will treat you with respect, pay well
and on time, come back, refer you to other clients,
and make working with them a pleasant and pro-
ductive experience. As an employee, you don’t
have the freedom to fire your boss before finding
a better one. This is a unique advantage of being
a Python freelancer compared to being a Python
employee.

• Tax advantages: As a freelancer, you are the

owner of your business. I’m not an accountant
— and tax laws are different in different coun-
tries. But in Germany and many other developed
nations, your small Python freelancing business
usually comes with a lot of tax advantages. You
can deduct many things from the taxes you pay.
For example, your computer, smartphone, car, liv-
ing expenses, working environment, or even eating
outside with clients or business partner. At the
end of the year, many freelancers enjoy tax bene-
fits worth tens of thousands of dollars.

• Business expertise: As a Python freelancer, you

gain a tremendous amount of experience in the
business world. You learn to offer and sell your
18 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

skills on the marketplace, how to acquire clients

and keep them happy, how to solve problems, and
how to keep your books clean, and invest and man-
age your money. Being a Python freelancer gives
you a lot of valuable business experience. And
even if you plan to start a more scalable business
system, being a Python freelancer is a great first
step towards your goal.

• Paid learning: While you have to pay to learn at

University, being a Python freelancer flips this sit-
uation upside-down. You are getting paid for your
education. As a bonus, the things you are learn-
ing are as practical as can be. Instead of coding
toy projects in University, you are coding (more
or less) exciting projects that have an impact on
the real world.

• Save time in commute: Commuting is one of

the major time killers of modern life. Every morn-
ing, people rush to their jobs, offices, factories,
schools, or Universities. Every evening, they rush
back home. They leave 1-2 hours of their valu-
able time on the streets every day, or 200 days a
year. In ten years, they’ll have wasted 2000-4000
hours—enough to become a master in a new topic
of your choice, or write more than ten full books
with a publisher and sell them on the marketplace.
2.2. PRO VS CONS 19

Commute time to work is one of the greatest in-

efficiencies in our society. And you, as a Python
freelancer, can eliminate it from your life. This
will make your life easier, and you have an unfair
advantage compared to other employees. You can
spend the time on learning, recreation, or building
more side businesses. You don’t even need a car (I
don’t have one), which will save you hundreds of
thousands of dollars over your lifetime: e.g., the
average German employee spends 300,000 € on
cars. Besides, save the environment!
• Family time: During the last 12 months of being
self-employed with Python, I watched my 1-year
old son walking his first steps and speaking his
first words. Many parents who work at big compa-
nies as employees may miss out on their sons and
daughters growing up. In my environment, most
fathers and mothers do not have time to spend
with their kids during their working days. But I
have the time, and I’m very grateful for this.

Are you convinced that becoming a Python freelancer

is the way to go for you? You are not alone. Thousands
of Finxter students have checked out the Python Free-
lance Developer program1 —and I compiled this list of
1
https://blog.finxter.com/become-python-
freelancer-course/
20 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

advantages from their personal feedback.

Testimonial Video 1: How to Start Earning $5000

per Month on Upwork as a Python Freelancer?

https://python-freelancer.com

The Bad Things. But it’s not all sunshine and rain-
bow being a freelancer. There are a few severe disad-
vantages which you have to consider before starting your
own freelancing business. Let’s dive right into them!

• No stability: It’s not a trivial matter to reach

a stable income as a freelancer. If you only feel
safe when knowing exactly how much income you
will bring home every month, you’ll be terrified
as a freelancer. And if you live from paycheck
to paycheck and you haven’t yet developed the
valuable habit of saving money every month, being
a freelancer can be very dangerous because a few
bad months will push you out of business. You
need to buffer the lack of stability by implementing
a rigorous savings plan. There is no way around
that. Especially in the beginning!
2.2. PRO VS CONS 21

• Bad clients: Yes, they exist. If you commit

to becoming a freelancer, you will get some bad
clients for sure. They expect a lot, are never sat-
isfied, give you a bad rating, and don’t even pay
you. You might as well already accept this fact
and write 10% of your income off as insurance for
freeing yourself from those bad clients. I’m not
kidding — set aside a fraction of your income so
that you have the ability to fire a bad client imme-
diately. You’ll save yourself a lot of time, energy,
and ultimately money (and time is money in the
freelancing business).

• Procrastination: Are you a procrastinator? If

so, it may be difficult for you to start a freelanc-
ing business because it requires that you stay dis-
ciplined. No boss will kick your ass if you don’t
perform. All the initiative is on you. Of course,
if you have established a thriving freelancing busi-
ness, new clients will line up to do business with
you. In this case, it may be easier to overcome
procrastination. But, especially in the early days
when you have to make a name for yourself, you
must show the discipline that this job profile re-
quires. Make a clear plan for how you will acquire
clients. For example, if you are a freelancer on
Upwork, make it a habit to apply for ten projects
every day. Yes, you’ve read this right. Commit
22 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

first, figure out the specifics later. You can al-

ways hire freelancers of your own to help you if
you find yourself with more projects than you can
handle. Or you can even withdraw your services.
But doing this will ensure that you never run out
of clients, which will practically guarantee your
success as a freelancer in the long run.

• Solitude: If you are working as an employee at

a company, you always have company, quite liter-
ally. You will meet your buddies at the coffee cor-
ner, attend seminars and conferences, and present
your work to your group. You’ll generally get a lot
of external input regarding upcoming trends and
technology. As a freelancer, you cannot count on
these advantages. You have to intentionally struc-
ture your day well, read books, attend conferences,
and meet new people. Otherwise, you will quickly
fall out of shape with both your coding and com-
munication skills because you regularly work on
your own. The ambitious way out is to continu-
ally grow your freelancing business by hiring more
and more employees.
2.3. WHAT’S UNIQUE 23

2.3 What’s unique in Python

freelancing compared to
general IT or coding
freelancing?

Python is a unique language in many ways. The gold

standard provides strict rules (PEP standards) on how
to write “Pythonic code”. Coding in Python has the sig-
nificant advantage that you will usually work on clean
and standardized code projects that are easily under-
standable. This is in stark contrast to languages such
as C, where it’s hard to find common ground from time
to time.
Python is an old language that, naturally, comes with
a lot of legacy code. For example, many projects use
Python 2 or old frameworks that don’t exist anymore.
Managing the various dependencies of a Python project
can be a curse. Make sure to ask more experienced de-
velopers and the original creators of a certain codebase
for support - this will make your life much easier. And
they usually don’t mind talking about their code.
The Python ecosystem is incredibly active and vivid —
you’ll find tons of resources about every question you
may have. The documentation is excellent. Many lan-
guages such as COBOL (yes, still alive and well), Go,
24 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

Haskell, and C# are documented poorly compared to

Python. Python’s excellent documentation will help you
a lot when trying to figure out the nasty bugs in your
(or your clients’) code.
Python’s entry barrier is relatively low, which is partly a
result of the comprehensive documentation, and partly a
result of the easy-to-understand language design. Python
is clean and concise — there’s no doubt about that.
Although the number of code projects in Python is snow-
balling, so is the international competition. Many coders
are attracted to Python because of its excellent docu-
mentation and suitability for machine learning and data
science. Thus, the significant advantage of writing Python
code that is fun can also be your biggest challenge. Com-
petition can be fierce. However, this is usually only a
problem if you are just starting and have not yet made
a name for yourself. If you are doing good work and
focus on one sought-after area (e.g., machine learning),
you will have a good chance that plenty of clients will
compete for your valued time!
If you plan to start your career in machine learning or
data science, Python is the 800-pound gorilla in the
room. The library support is stunning — more and
more people are migrating from Matlab or R to Python
due to its generality and the rise of new machine learn-
ing frameworks such as TensorFlow.
2.4. HOURLY RATE 25

Knowing about those, let’s dive into the more worldly

benefits of becoming a freelance developer.

2.4 What’s the Hourly Rate of a

Python Freelancer?
Today, many Python freelance developers earn six fig-
ures. How much can you expect to earn as a Python
freelancer? The short answer is: the average Python
developer in the US makes between $51 and $61 per
hour.2 In other words, if you work eight hours per day
for 230 days per year earning $55 per hour, you’ll reach
six figure income level.
The variation in earning potential is high, but so is the
quality of the Python freelancers in the wild. Take the
average salary as a starting point and add +/- 50% to
account for your expertise. If you work on the side, for
example 8 hours each Saturday, you might earn $400
extra per week – or $1600 per month before taxes. Ini-
tially, your hourly rate may be a bit lower because you
need to find freelancing clients first — an activity that
may cost 20% or so of your total time.
What’s your market value as a Python developer? Based
2
Sources: https://blog.finxter.com/whats-the-hourly-
rate-of-a-python-freelancer/
26 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

on my estimation, it’s roughly 1.07 million USD.

I base this calculation on a standard and straightfor-
ward way to value companies. In a way, you’re a one-
person company when you’re selling your coding skills
to the marketplace. This holds whether you’re an em-
ployee or a freelancer. When estimating the value of a
company, analysts often use multiples of the company’s
yearly earnings. Let’s take this approach to come up
with a rough estimate of how much your Python skills
are worth.
Let’s say we calculate the value of a company by mul-
tiplying its earnings with 10, i.e., an investor would
have earned their initial investment back after ten years.
Now, let’s apply this 10x multiplier to your earnings
when working as a Python freelancer earning about $55
per hour.
Your yearly earnings may be $107,800 if you work for 40
hours per week, 49 weeks per year, earning $55 per hour.
With yearly earnings of $107,800 and a multiplier of ten,
the value of your personal freelancing company would be
$107,800 times 10 equals $1.078 Million. And this is
when assuming a relatively conservative earnings mul-
tiplier and average earnings. So even for an average
programmer, Python can be a million-dollar skill!
And the value of a top-5% coder can easily be 10x that
of the average coder.
2.5. CODE FROM HOME 27

So if you want to thrive with your own coding business,

you need to think strategically. Not sharpening your
programming skills will cost you hundreds of thousands
of dollars. The more you’ll learn, the more you’ll earn.
So you simply cannot invest too much time, energy, or
even money in your education.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is a strong proponent
of education, value, and integrity:
“Ultimately, there’s one investment that supersedes all
others: Invest in yourself. Nobody can take away what
you’ve got in yourself, and everybody has potential they
haven’t used yet.”—Warren Buffett

2.5 Avoid This Productivity

Killer
Before you learn about the concrete skills of a Python
freelancer in the next section, let me quickly dive deeper
into one freelancing advantage: working from home saves
you a lot of commute time.
Commute time is a massive productivity killer that drains
your energy silently but surely. Even if you used com-
mute time productively by listening to audiobooks or
reading business books, it’s still a waste of your time
compared to what you could be achieving instead. Roughly
28 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

speaking, commute time is consumption time that takes

away from your production time.
When I became self-employed, my work productivity
skyrocketed. At the same time, work became more re-
laxed and less stressful. When I analyzed my days to
find out the reason for this, it struck me: no commute
time.
Suddenly, I had a lot more time and more energy to
create content. Skipping commute time simply gave me
more resources to work with. The same happened to
my Finxter partner Lukas when he reduced his commute
time from two hours to half an hour.
Working from home means that you don’t have these
enormous drains of energy every day—even more so if
you’re involved in a lot of office politics.
Many research studies show that having a long commute
time makes you less happy:

“It is found that longer commute times are

associated with lower job and leisure time
satisfaction, increased strain and poorer men-
tal health.” 3

It’s one of the top ten influential factors for your hap-
piness –— even more important than making a lot of
3
How commuting affects subjective wellbeing, Clark et al. 2019
2.6. WHAT DOES IT TAKE 29

money. Working from home is one of the best advan-

tages of being a Python freelancer.
You’ll save 1-2 hours per day commute time. If you
invest this commute time into your dream project every
day, you’ll be wildly successful within a few years. You
could write 2-3 books per year, finish ten small web
projects per year, or learn and master an entirely new
skill such as business or marketing.

2.6 What Does it Take to Be a

Freelancer?
Surprisingly, many people fear taking their first step to-
wards freelancing. They are hesitant because they be-
lieve that they don’t have enough knowledge, skill, or
expertise. But this limiting belief harms their ability to
progress toward their dream life.
The only thing it takes for certain to become a freelancer
is to be human (and this may not even be a requirement
in the decades to come). Everything else, you already
have in more or less rudimentary form:

• Communication skills. You need to ask and re-

spond to questions, figure out what your clients
want, be responsive, positive, enthusiastic, and
helpful.
30 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

• Technical skills. There’s always an underlying

set of technical skills for which clients hire you.
They may want you to develop their next website,
write their copy and ads, create valuable content,
or solve other problems. Before being able to de-
liver the solution, you first need to have the tech-
nical skills required to develop the solution.

• The ability and ambition to learn. Chances

are you won’t already know enough to solve the
client’s problems. So you need to learn. There’s
no way around it. If you are willing to learn, you
can solve any problem -— it’s just a matter of
taking the time. And as you learn more in your
area of expertise, all freelancing gigs that follow
will become a little bit easier.

• Time. All of us have the same number of hours in

a day. You already have enough time to become
a freelancer. You just need to focus your effort –
and maybe skip a Netflix episode this evening.

You see, there’s nothing special about what you need

to have in order to become a freelancer. You already
have everything you need to get started. Now it’s just
a matter of persistence.
André, one of my Finxter freelancing students, asked me
the following question: “How much do I have to learn to
2.6. WHAT DOES IT TAKE 31

become a Python freelancer?” My answer is straightfor-

ward: Nothing! Start right away, no matter your current
skill level, and learn as you create value for clients.
But I know that for many new Python coders, it’s tough
to start right away. Why? Because they don’t yet have
the confidence to start taking on projects.
And the reason why is because they never quite finished
a Python project — and they are full of doubt and have
low self-esteem. They fear not being able to finish their
freelancer project and earn the criticism of their client.
If you have to overcome this fear first, I recommend
working on some old or archived freelancer projects.
There are thousands of such projects in Python, data
science, web development, machine learning, or Blockchain.
To make it easier for you, I have compiled a list of 10
suitable Python projects for beginners to intermediates
and published a blog article about them4 , which you
can start doing today to improve your skill level and
gain some confidence. Real freelancers have earned real
money solving these projects — so they are as practical
as they can be.
I recommend that you invest 70% of your learning time
finishing these projects. First, select a project. Second,
finish the project - no matter your current skill level.
4
https://blog.finxter.com/how-real-freelancers-
earn-money-in-2019-10-practical-python-projects/
32 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

If you are a complete beginner, it may take weeks to

finish a project that may have earned the freelancer $20.
However, by finishing the project anyway, you’ll improve
your skill level. Why not finish your first real project
next, earning your first $20 yourself? Even if it’s hard
to earn your first $20, the next $20 will be much easier,
and the next $20 will be easier again until the money
starts flowing in greater and greater quantities. Each
time you earn money with your Python skills, it builds
your confidence as a professional freelancer—it’s a vote
from the marketplace that you are valuable. This vote
of confidence is priceless.
For example, say the first project takes a couple of
weeks to complete. Due to your learnings from the first
project, the next one will take just one week rather than
a few. And the next project will take you only three
days, then one day, then one hour, then half an hour.
And this is how your hourly rate increases exponentially
until you reach some convergence. As this happens, you
must specialize even further. Select the skills that inter-
est you and focus on those skills first. Always play your
strengths.
2.7. INTERMEDIATE FREELANCER 33

2.7 Can I Start Freelancing as an

Intermediate-Level Python
Programmer?
For sure! You should have started much earlier. Have
a look at the income distribution of Python freelancers
(see Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2: Income distribution of Python freelancers.

The hourly rate as an online Python freelancer resembles

a Gaussian distribution around the average value of $51
per hour. So if you are an average Python freelancer,
you’ll likely earn $51 per hour in the US.
I have gained a lot of experience at the freelancing plat-
form Upwork.com. Many beginner-level Python coders
34 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

earn great money finishing smaller code projects. If

you are an intermediate-level Python coder interested
in freelancing, you should start making money as soon
as possible.
The significant benefit is that not only are you getting
paid to learn and improve your Python skills further,
you’re also learning the right skill sets that will make
you successful online: communication, marketing, and
coding (the essential, practical stuff).
Only practice can push you to the next level. And work-
ing as a Python freelancer online will give you a lot of
training for sure!

2.8 Are You too Old to Become

a Python Freelancer?
The short answer is no. You are not too old.
The older you are, the better your communication skills
tend to be. Having excellent communication skills is the
main factor for success in Python freelancing.
Just to make this crystal clear: there are plenty of suc-
cessful freelancers with limited technical skills that earn
more than highly-skilled employees. They are success-
ful because they are responsive, positive, upbeat, and
committed to making their clients’ lives easier. That’s
2.9. YOUNG FREELANCERS 35

what matters most as a freelancer.

As you see, there’s no age barrier here – just double
down on your advantages rather than focus too much
on your disadvantages.

Video 4: Are You Too Old to Become a Freelance

Developer?

https://python-freelancer.com

2.9 Are You Too Young to

Become a Python
Freelancer?
Again, the answer is no. You are not too young.
Was Mark Zuckerberg too young when he started Face-
book at age twenty? Was Warren Buffet too young
when buying his first stocks at age eleven? Was Magnus
Carlsen, one of the world’s top-rated chess players, too
young to start playing chess at age five?
Young age may have disadvantages. However, it has
advantages too. And you should double down on those
advantages by relentlessly pursuing maximum value for
36 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

your clients—and focus on learning and mastering emerg-

ing technologies you’re excited about! Old people often
remain stuck in their mode of thinking—at least the
ones that don’t keep learning throughout their lives.
If you are young, you’ll learn quickly. By focusing your
learning on highly practical tasks such as solving prob-
lems for clients by using Python code, you’ll create a
well-rounded personality and skill set. If you do this,
you’ll have an excellent chance to build yourself a thriv-
ing business within a few years.

Video 5: Are You Too Young to Become a Freelance

Developer?

https://python-freelancer.com

If you want to become a Python freelance developer and

create your coding business online, check out our free
webinar. Just click the link, register, and watch the
webinar immediately. It’s a replay so you won’t have
to wait even a minute to watch it. The webinar is a
PowerPoint presentation that will give you a detailed
overview of the Python freelancing space.
2.9. YOUNG FREELANCERS 37

Complete Webinar Guide

How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python

https://blog.finxter.com/
webinar-freelancer/

Are you motivated to transform your life, have more

time for your friends and family, and work from the
comfort of your own home while earning great money?
Let’s dive into the central part of this book: the expert
secrets to 10x your business success.
 Part I

Overview: $0 to $1000

38
2.9. YOUNG FREELANCERS 39

Can you become a business person that’s also an expert

coder? Knowing only a few things about you, I can
confidently answer this question: yes!
Let me quickly share a personal story with you. I vividly
remember my first semester studying computer science
more than ten years ago.
I knew almost nothing about coding. To be precise, I
had never written a single line of code. The only insight
I had about computer science was a piece of knowledge
obtained from the only person in my environment who
worked in the IT sector - my uncle, a professional soft-
ware developer. He had quickly shown me the program-
ming language Visual Basic and told me something that
you may find helpful, too:
“Learning a programming language is like learning a nat-
ural (spoken) language — it becomes easier the more
languages you’ve already mastered. Two things underlie
every single language: concepts and syntax. Concepts
are hard; syntax is easy. But if you understand the con-
cepts, you can directly build upon the concepts from an
old language when studying a new language. Therefore,
you should focus on the concepts!”
Equipped with such high-level advice, I tried my luck as
an upcoming computer scientist. In hindsight, I didn’t
even know what I was doing—I only chose computer sci-
ence because I loved puzzles and riddles. And it didn’t
40 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

hurt that the bar to get into the program was very low.
Of course, people told me about the great job oppor-
tunities that came with becoming a computer scientist.
But I didn’t care about them at that point in my life.
I had no clue what I was going to do with these new
computer science skills I was working hard to acquire.
As a kid, I dreamed of becoming self-employed as a
writer and starting my own business. For the people
around me, this was weird because not a single per-
son in my environment succeeded in their own business.
Most of my family members were employees and skep-
tical about self-employment—all had seen my grandfa-
ther fall into bankruptcy by trying to create a highly-
leveraged business (be careful taking on too much debt).
His case often served as a negative example to showcase
the dangers of creating one’s own business.
What about you: Have you ever dreamed of becom-
ing self-employed? Statistically, more than half of the
Americans want to be their own boss and create their
own business. But many of them fear the risks asso-
ciated with being self-employed. Like my grandfather,
you may fear being forced to file for bankruptcy and
losing everything.
Debt increases the pressure to serve creditors, and it’ll
cost you peace of mind. Some people fear taking the big
leap forward, getting rid of their day job, and risking
2.9. YOUNG FREELANCERS 41

not being able to support themselves and their families.

So they stick with their dreaded jobs—paralyzed and
unsatisfied with their current situation.
If people try to force you into an “either-or” decision,
why not aim for both? Why not stick with the day job
and gradually build your business on the side? And,
even more critically, grow your business experience? This
strategy is the one I followed, and it worked.
You too can spend your Saturday mornings working on
your side business and earn double income. You too
can improve your technical skills and business expertise
at the same time. You too can make yourself more ro-
bust, valuable, and knowledgeable. And, when the time
comes, you can grow your side business into a full-time
income.
But are you good enough? We’ve already discussed this
in the previous chapter: You are! The fear of not be-
ing good enough is a limiting belief we all face—and
you must get rid of it. Only by risking not being good
enough do you have the chance to actually become good
enough. If you’ve any ambition, you must get rid of this
fear immediately.
I started with zero knowledge in computer science, and,
frankly, little innate talent. Most people in my environ-
ment doubted that I could become successful in busi-
ness. Fast forward ten years, and I got my PhD in com-
42 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

puter science, and created a thriving coding business

online based on $100+ per hour work in the freelancing
industry. I love my work—it’s fun, exciting, and I learn
a lot in areas I’m interested in such as Blockchain de-
velopment and machine learning. I work less and earn
more, and I’ve got plenty of time to read Lord of the
Rings with my kid. I’m studying computer science every
day, just for fun, on my quest for continuous improve-
ment, and can afford everything I need to live a great
and satisfying life.

Video 6: One Line of Code Every Day—A Powerful

Habit

https://python-freelancer.com

I tell you this because I truly believe that becoming self-

employed on the side was one of the best decisions I ever
made. Yes, I had to overcome a lot of objections, doubts,
and fears. And I had to work hard in the beginning, as
I built my side business—hard work is expected! But
by doing it, I not only created a thriving side business,
but I used my growing experience in my “real job” to
become more valuable as an employee too.
2.9. YOUNG FREELANCERS 43

In the following chapter, I’d like to share some of my

most significant insights with you – to save you from
working on the wrong things for weeks, if not months.
Your time truly is your most valuable asset, especially
if you decide to become self-employed. Every unit of
time passes and never comes back. Money is plentiful,
but time is limited. Don’t let all of those opportunities
pass. The best time to start your own business was ten
years ago, in which case you’d now have a profitable
freelancing business. The second best time is now!
So why not start your own (side) business as a Python
programmer? Side-hustling Python programmers have
zero debt risk, zero liquidity risk, and zero downside
risk. You only need to give up some of the stupid con-
sumption time, we all indulge in, watching Netflix or
playing World of Warcraft. Yet, there’s tremendous up-
side potential towards financial safety and stability.
Read the upcoming expert secrets. If you encounter a
secret that is likely to improve your freelancing busi-
ness, implement it immediately. Adopt a “ ‘do it now”
mentality with a strong bias towards action! You get
maximum value out of this book if you revisit these ex-
pert tips from time to time. Each time you read over
the list, you’ll find another expert tip that will help you
grow your business. You don’t have to follow each ex-
pert secret to the letter, and you don’t have to read the
whole thing. Just use it as a source of inspiration for
44 CHAPTER 2. FREELANCER REPORT

how to increase the value of your business today. If the

expert secrets can accomplish just that, you’ll already
have a positive return on your invested time and money.

Video 7: Finxter Python Freelancer Course –

Walkthrough Towards Six Figures

https://python-freelancer.com
 3

Expert Secret: Low Risk High Gain

Many Americans dream of being their own boss by be-

coming self-employed. But most never take the leap be-
cause of their limiting beliefs. They fear creating some-
thing new in their life, being dependent on other peo-
ple like clients or co-founders. They fear telling their
bosses, coworkers, or families about their new business
ventures. They fear not being good enough to charge
money. These fears are self-fulfilling prophecies because
they become true as they hold on to them. The lack of
exploration and experience will prevent them from be-
coming good enough in the first place. The only way
out is to try the things they fear and improve as they
go. If you’re one of those people, you must get rid of
this fear as soon as possible if you have any ambition in
life.

45
46 CHAPTER 3. LOW RISK HIGH GAIN

Video 8: Low Risk High Gain? How to Create a

Coding Side Business

https://python-freelancer.com

Let’s assume that you are currently working as an em-

ployee in your primary job, or you’re a computer science
student thinking of building your own business in the
mid- or long term.
If you want to start your own business at any point in
your life, you should start it now. It doesn’t matter
what else you are doing—even if you work most of the
time in your primary job. I don’t recommend that you
get rid of your main job and go all in right away.
Instead, a much better way of becoming self-employed is
to work part-time on your business. Maybe you decide
to work for 5-10 hours every Saturday. Over time, you’ll
be able to create a very sustainable, robust, and long-
term side business.
When building your business on the side, you’re more
robust because even if there are market changes and you
lose your job, you’ve got something to fall back on. You
can always go back to the business and do more of what
already works — now full-time. Or, if the business fails,
 47

you still have a job that can pay for your basic needs.
But expect that neither the business nor the job fails.
They will coexist, and there will even be synergies where
one feeds the other. For example, when working as a
doctoral researcher at University, I would also write blog
articles about my research topics - which was great for
my main job and great for my side business as a Python
freelancer.
As a result, you’ll earn more, save more, and learn more.
Financial stability is a massive advantage for you as a
small business owner because you can think long-term.
The job brings in a steady stream of income while you
can build a robust, stable, long-term asset (the busi-
ness). For example, you can write a book, give courses,
steadily grow your online community, and grow your
client base and testimonials.

Video 9: How to Earn $4000/M Passive Income as

a Coder?

https://python-freelancer.com

You can also write blog articles. Many people wrongly

believe that this is not a profitable use of their time.
But if you write a blog article now, it will take months
48 CHAPTER 3. LOW RISK HIGH GAIN

to rank and then bring in a consistent flow of traffic,

month after month. You can then start selling stuff on
your website — or monetize your traffic with ads, which
is truly passive income. Blogging is a long-term strategy.
You can even go for businesses with high-entry barri-
ers because you have an unfair advantage: you are not
dependent on your business. So you can try out things
and experiment until something works. For example,
you could start long-term code projects just for fun that
don’t have to show a positive return on investment for a
long time. Most new market participants need to make
money quickly — that’s their heaviest liability: they
cannot take the long-term perspective.
But you can afford to do so because you work on your
business on the side. You can grow your business by
reinvesting the cash it earns because you don’t depend
on it.
That is how I created the Finxter.com platform for learn-
ing Python. I could think long-term. It took me years
to build. I wrote everything from scratch in Python —
it was tedious, but I had money coming in working as
a researcher in computer science. There was a decent
entry barrier because new market participants couldn’t
invest a lot of time creating new platforms — they were
running out of money. If they had to pay a team of
developers, they’d often run out of money faster.
 49

In summary, if you are thinking about creating your

own business, don’t wait - start now. Think radically
long-term.
An excellent way of creating a side business is to be-
come a Python freelancer. You can learn the business
side of things, become better, build your reputation and
knowledge, and earn good money proportionally to the
time invested. You can then build upon your new skills
to attract better and better clients - all while growing
your skills.

Video 10: Get More Clients as a Freelance

Developer with This One Simple Trick

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps: Answer the following questions in

written form.

• What are your life goals?

• How much monthly income will you need to fund

your dream life?
50 CHAPTER 3. LOW RISK HIGH GAIN

• How much will you earn from your job, your (side-)
freelancing venture, your passive income streams,
and your investments?

• Create a simple spreadsheet answering the previ-

ous questions for each of the next ten years!
 4

Expert Secret: Gain an Unfair

Advantage

Do you know how much money you currently earn?

Publicly available US government statistics indicate that
an average employee works 1811 hours per year. As an
employee, it is difficult to earn more than $90,000. In

Figure 4.1: Table of salaries.

51
52 CHAPTER 4. UNFAIR ADVANTAGE

fact, the median wage of all workers in the US is $24.

For example, if you are a student, you are earning -$4
per hour, school teachers earn $37 per hour (see Fig-
ure 4.1). If you push yourself very hard and become an
extremely skilled employee, you might become a univer-
sity professor with a yearly salary of $98,423 or $54 per
hour. First, know your hourly wage. Second, improve
it.
So how can you increase your value to the marketplace?
First, by creating a new high-income skill: Python de-
velopment. Second, by learning how and why to switch
the road from being a full-time employee to being at
least part-time self-employed.
In Figure 4.2, you can see the income distribution of
Python freelancers. The median wage of a Python free-
lancer is $51 per hour! In other words, an ordinary,
self-employed Python freelancer easily reaches the uni-
versity professor’s income level. Think about this: can
you become a university professor? It’s totally up to
you to answer this question. But you can undoubtedly
become an average-skilled Python freelancer, can’t you?
The key takeaway is that intermediate-level Python free-
lancers today earn six figures easily. Statistically, they
earn a healthy $100,000 yearly gross income.
If you work on the side, let’s make it 8 hours each Sat-
urday, you will earn $400 extra per week - or $1600 per
 53

Figure 4.2: The figure shows the income distribution of

Python freelancers (relative frequency) based on vari-
ous data sources. An important observation is that your
skills are always valuable—even if you’re relatively un-
trained. The best strategy is to start now and improve
your hourly rate over time as you gain more and more
practical experience.

month (before taxes).

Video 11: How to Go Full-Time ($3000/m) as a

Python Freelancer [Working Only Part-Time Hours]
54 CHAPTER 4. UNFAIR ADVANTAGE

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• When and how do you plan to become self-employed?

• Can you become self-employed on the side?

• Write down how many hours you can invest per

week.

• Write down your goal hourly rate.

Feel free to download worksheet 1 as a PDF to complete

the action steps: https://python-freelancer.com/
 5

Expert Secret: Know Your Why

Video 12: Code From Home! How to Be Happier

and More Successful

https://python-freelancer.com

How would your life look if you only needed to work

part-time as a Python freelancer doing projects that you
like?
I have already stressed the first point: Imagine you work
from home and see your kids growing up, having the flex-
ibility to spend more quality time with your spouse. But
there is also an equally important point if you need to
take care of your family. And that is: you can increase

55
56 CHAPTER 5. KNOW YOUR WHY

your value to the marketplace. And there is virtually no

upper limit of your hourly rate. If you are an employee,
you will definitely have an upper limit - you have seen
that a professor earns $53 per hour. But many free-
lancers earn $100-$200 per hour. It all depends on how
expensive you can make yourself for the marketplace.
For some of my students, being a Python freelancer is
also a lifestyle choice. For example, one of my students is
successfully employed in the US and earns good money
there. But his dream is to go back to India to his family
and work as a Python freelancer. Doing this, he earns
dollars and pays rupees for his living expenses. Why
not enjoy the benefits of globalization?
It’s also good to diversify your income streams. You
could spend one day per month to earn $400-$500 per
month as an additional income for you or your family
to lead a better life or even save it for later.
Finally, being a Python freelancer is also a lot of fun.
You have to stretch your abilities regarding Python but
also your soft skills such as communication ability and
language skills. If you are not a native speaker, free-
lancing is a great way to improve your skills while you
are getting paid to do good work for other people.
Can you already see yourself working as a Python free-
lancer? Let’s gain some practical experience before you
overthink it.
 57

Action steps:

• Block at least 8h per month to work on your busi-

ness.

• Write ten emails to business owners and offer them

your services for $500 per month. Make it valuable
to them! You may create a social media account
for them, write blog articles, do some administra-
tive things. Or simply ask them what they would
need from you to pay you $500 per month.

Feel free to download worksheet 2 as a PDF to complete

the action steps: https://python-freelancer.com/
 6

Expert Secret: Consultants Go Big

There are three main ways of becoming a Python free-

lancer. The first is being a consultant working for a big
company. The second is to be a freelancer working on a
platform such as Upwork or Fiverr doing mostly smaller
tasks. The third option is to create your own platform
(for example, creating your website and driving traffic
to it). The last one, I call the hybrid approach because
you have some elements of both previous options. Now,
we will dive a bit deeper into each of these options.

Video 13: How to Get Traffic for Your Online

Coding Business FAST? It’s Not Advertising!

58
 59

https://python-freelancer.com

The first way of becoming self-employed is to work for

one or a few big clients as a consultant. Working as a
consultant has some advantages. You work in a business-
to-business setting, which allows you to tap into enor-
mous earning potentials. There is a lot of money in
business-to-business – especially if you focus on high-
ticket sales.
However, many people working as consultants heavily
rely on one or two big clients. They are not diversified
at all. And if you work for a single big company, you
will have minimal freedom in terms of your projects and
working conditions, and minimal job security. Many
Python consultants report that the pressure is hard, and
it feels like working as an employee.
If you like the corporate environment, however, you
should gravitate towards this option because it’s the eas-
iest way to get massive results fast!
Action steps:

• Would you rather work for one big corporate client

or ten small business owners?
 7

Expert Secret: Join Freelancing

Platforms

The second way is to sell your services as a Python free-

lancer on existing freelancing platforms such as Upwork
and Fiverr. These platforms are very convenient. You
could start today, create your freelancing account and
begin with your first gig in the evening. Then you solve
the jobs that take maybe a week or even only a day.
This way is very flexible, and you can learn fast and
without too much pain or commitment.
You can also have a small feedback cycle by acquiring
a client, doing the work, finishing the job, and getting
reviewed. Over time, you will become an expert in the
soft skills and communication part, and you will learn
about many different areas where your Python skills can

60
 61

help people out.

Video 14: How Long Does It Take To Become A

Python Developer

https://python-freelancer.com

It’s the perfect option to get your foot in the door and to
converge, job-by-job, toward your final specializations,
in case you want to specialize in increasing your earning
potential on the freelancing market.
Finally, there is no startup overhead. Marketing is sim-
ple. If you have an attractive profile and good ratings,
you’ll get recommended by the freelancing platforms
and you’ll soon get more gigs than you can handle.
Of course, nothing is perfect. If you work as a freelancer,
you don’t own the platforms. You don’t own the clients.
Later, we will see that you can also acquire clients from
the platforms and create your own client database to
mitigate this last point. Moreover, these platforms get
a significant cut of 25% for each job. That’s quite some-
thing.
Overall, working as a freelancer on these platforms is all
about getting testimonials, skills, and experience.
62 CHAPTER 7. JOIN FREELANCE PLATFORMS

Video 15: What Are the Best Freelancing Sites for

Coders?

https://python-freelancer.com

If you’re already successful, you don’t need more clients.

There will be many more clients than you can serve
in a limited time. Demand is much higher than sup-
ply, which will enable you to raise prices—your ultimate
goal.
However, you need to gain momentum. Clients will not
flock to you in the beginning. It’s hard to land your
first client. It’s also hard (but a little bit less so) to
land your second client. For each new client, it tends to
become easier—if you provide more value than you take
in payment (if you only internalize this one rule, you’ll
earn tens, hundreds, or even millions of dollars more in
your lifetime).
To gain momentum and experience, you can join free-
lancing platforms in the beginning. As a rule of thumb:
working on freelancing platforms for 10-20 clients (1-2
months) is a good use of your time—even if the pay
sucks. After that, you should gradually switch to your
own client acquisition strategy. The reason is that free-
lancing platforms take a significant cut of 20% or more
 63

of your pre-tax earnings.

Action steps:

• Do you want to start on a freelancer platform?

• Is this your long-term goal or only one step up the

ladder of your career?

• Create a freelancing account on all major plat-

forms: Fiverr, Freelancer.com, and Upwork.

• Find the platform that fits you best and focus on

mastering that platform. If you’re unsure about
which fits best, continue reading the next Expert
Secret Chapter 8.

Feel free to download worksheet 2 as a PDF to complete

the action steps: https://python-freelancer.com/
 8

Expert Secret: Best Freelancing Sites

There are many different ways of starting your Python

freelancing adventures. Many freelancing platforms com-
pete for your time, attention, and a share of your value
creation. These platforms are a great way to start your
freelancing career as a Python coder, gain some experi-
ence in business and coding, and get some testimonials
to kick off your freelancing business. But keep in mind
that they are only the first step, and in the mid-term
you should strive to become independent of those plat-
forms if you want to avoid global competition for each
project in the future.
These are the best places to start your Python freelanc-
ing career and get clients fast (ordered by my recom-
mendation):

64
8.1. UPWORK 65

8.1 Upwork
Upwork places a significant focus on quality. This is
great for clients because it ensures that their work will
get delivered—without compromising quality. For free-
lancers who are just starting, Upwork poses a signifi-
cant barrier of entry. Oftentimes, new profiles will get
rejected by the Upwork team. They want to ensure that
only clients who take their freelancing jobs seriously will
start on their platform. However, the relatively high en-
try barrier also protects established freelancers on the
Upwork platform from too much competition. There is
no price dumping because of low-quality offers, which
ultimately benefits all market participants.

8.2 Fiverr
Fiverr initially started as a platform where you could
buy and sell small gigs worth five bucks. However, since
then, it has grown to a full-fledged freelancing platform
where people earn six-figure incomes. Many jobs earn
hundreds of dollars per hour, and many freelancers make
a killing, especially in attractive industries such as pro-
gramming, machine learning, and data science.
66 CHAPTER 8. BEST FREELANCING SITES

8.3 Toptal
Toptal has a strong market proposition: it’s the plat-
form with the top 3% of freelancers. Hence, it connects
high-quality freelancers with high-quality clients. It’s
tough to become a freelancer at Toptal: 97% of the ap-
plicants will not enter the platform. However, if you
manage to join Toptal, you can greatly benefit from the
best-in-class hourly rates. You can easily earn $100 per
hour and beyond. Also, the high entry barrier ensures
that the freelancer stays the valuable resource—he or
she doesn’t become a commodity like on other freelancer
platforms. If you are an upcoming freelancer, you should
aim to join Toptal one day.

8.4 Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com is the go-to resource for beginners with
a low barrier of entry and opportunities for everyone.
For years, this site has been my recommended starting
point to gain experience and finish your first projects,
because Freelancer.com can help you obtain your first
testimonials—while getting paid for learning and pol-
ishing your skills. However, in recent years, I found
that Fiverr offers many of the same advantages while
being more active, larger, faster-growing, more fun, and
easier to use. On the other hand, Freelancer.com is a
8.4. FREELANCER.COM 67

great site with countless freelancing projects. A great

resource is the archived freelancing projects, which help
you get some real-world projects for training purposes.
Action steps:

• Before you read on, decide on one platform and

stick to it for at least one year. Commitment is
king! My recommendation is Upwork – and, no,
I’m not affiliated with Upwork.
 Part II

Skills: $1000 to $2000

68
 9

Expert Secret: Focus on Skill Creation

Are you broke? Especially in the US, but also in Eu-

rope, many people are broke. You may ask: What is
the definition of being broke, anyway? Here it is: You
don’t have any leftover money to account for individual
circumstances. It’s that simple.
The average debt of a college student is $27,225. Many
political commentaries consider this a significant prob-
lem in the US. But is it really such a big problem?
The famous consultant Dan Lok, who calls himself the
world’s highest-paid consultant, has a somehow different
view on debt. Let me show you one of his statements:
“You don’t have a debt problem, you have an income
problem. You don’t have an income problem. You have
a SKILL problem!”

69
70 CHAPTER 9. FOCUS ON SKILL CREATION

Because if you are skilled, you can always sell your ser-
vice at a higher rate. Suppose there are two employees:
Bob and Alice. Bob has $10,000 in assets and a yearly
income of $31,524. Bob is debt-free. So many peo-
ple would consider Bob’s financial state as convenient,
when in fact he is broke—a negative life event such as an
illness in his family forcing him to pause work for a year
will wipe him out in an instant. And even if we remain
optimistic, it is really hard to see how he can better
his financial position significantly on his relatively small
yearly income. Alice, on the other hand, has an incon-
venient $100,000 in debt. But Alice can sell her skills
at a rate of $131,000 per year. What she doesn’t have
in assets, she overcompensates in skills. Alice at least
has hope to transform her skilled labor into new assets
to create wealth for herself and her family.
In two years, Alice can easily outsave Bob by tens of
thousands of dollars—even if she starts with a lot of
debt. You can also see this scenario in Figure 9.1. The
higher the skills, the more you can expect to earn.
Action steps:

• Make a list of all the skills you have (at least 20

skills).

• Assign a number to each skill (0 - beginner, 1 -

intermediate, 2 - expert, 3 - top 1%)
 71

Figure 9.1: Starting point of Bob and Alice. Who has

the higher net worth? Who will become richer?

• How can you give more value applying your skills

with scores 2 and 3.

Feel free to download worksheet 3 as a PDF to complete

the action steps: https://python-freelancer.com/
 10

Expert Secret: Your Individual Success

Habit

The success formula is simple. You start working as

a Python freelancer now, no matter your current skill
level. Then, you keep increasing your value to the mar-
ketplace by taking jobs and learning as you deliver value
to clients until you have reached at least an average
Python freelance level. At this point, you will charge
$51 per hour.
Would you consider a daily income of $100 as a full-
time income? According to US statistics, earning $3000
per month is above the median salary. Thus, to make
a full-time income, you may need to work for only two
hours on your core freelancing activities, given an aver-
age income of $51 per hour as a freelance coder. The

72
 73

rest of your time, you are free to spend with your family,
rest, learn, or find even better freelancing jobs. That’s
it. The strategy is simple but effective, nonetheless. It
provides you with a clear and manageable path to your
new freelancing lifestyle.
Action steps:

• Choose one habit that will transform your busi-

ness, and complete it every day. An idea would
be to write a valuable and friendly email to a lead
or client.

• Set up a habit tracker and complete it every day.

I use a smartphone app—any simple device where
you can check boxes daily should suffice for in-
stant gratification. The real reward will come in
terms of growth, appreciation, higher income, and
success.

Feel free to download worksheet 4 as a PDF to complete

the action steps: https://python-freelancer.com/
How can you increase your value to the marketplace so
you can quickly work at the average Python freelanc-
ing level? What’s the magic key that will allow you to
open the door to your dream clients? First, use research
insights of psychology to build trust. Second, become
74 CHAPTER 10. YOUR SUCCESS HABIT

a specialist rather than a generalist. Third, leverage

network effects.
Let’s dive into each of those three keys next.
 11

Expert Secret: Earn Trust

Clients will pay you more and give you better jobs if
you are trustworthy and appealing to them. Conse-
quently, you should focus on earning trust and make
yourself more attractive to clients in every way you can.
I did a small experiment and searched for the keyword
“Python” on the freelancing platform Upwork. All rec-
ommended freelancers have a very high job satisfaction
rate. Because Upwork recommends them, the demand
for their services is much higher which leads to higher
hourly rates. This leads us to the simple observation:
Trust is vital for your success in business.
So how do you earn trust? First and foremost, you
collect positive ratings. The more you have, the more
money you’ll earn. If you buy property in the real es-
tate sector, it’s all about location. In the freelancing

75
76 CHAPTER 11. EARN TRUST

industry, it’s all about ratings. You need to engineer

your ratings by using the tips discussed in this book.
If you have great ratings, you will always find jobs, no
matter how good your external achievements are. You
don’t even need an academic degree; you can find the
best jobs if you have good ratings. With good ratings,
you will always find good, well-paid, and attractive jobs.
Ratings are king.
How to get good ratings? There are five basic ways.
First, communicate well. Be responsive, very positive,
and generous with your offers.
Second, acquire a lot of (Python) skills.
Third, over-deliver. If your task is to give a client 100
Python puzzles, and you send them 110 Python puzzles,
you can almost be sure to get the 5-star rating on the
platform. You not only delivered what they asked you
to deliver, but you delivered more than you were get-
ting paid for. Always do more than you’re getting paid
for and clients will keep paying you to get more. How
simple!
Fourth, tap into the power of reciprocity. If you give
something away, the receiving person will feel the obli-
gation to give back to you. That’s why they have free
food in supermarkets. I have hired many freelancers for
Finxter.com, and some of them were really smart to get
the gigs: When applying for a project, they would give
 77

me something for free. For example, one project was

“develop 100 Python puzzles,” and a freelancer applying
for it gave me a couple of sample puzzles for free. I not
only saw that he has the skills to do the work, but I also
felt the strong urge to give back by hiring him. Even
though I wanted to hire another freelancer who was an
even better fit, I couldn’t help but hire the giver too be-
cause I didn’t want to miss out on giving back to him.
Here’s a powerful mindset: Give first! The receiving will
take care of itself.
Fifth, certificates go a long way in building trust with
your clients. Today, many online courses offer course
completion certificates. For example, you can download
a personal course certificate for each completed course
on the Finxter Computer Science Academy https://
academy.finxter.com/.
Action steps:

• Create a new document titled Business Systems.

• Add a bullet list with things to do before complet-

ing each gig.

• Add bullet points of things to consider to increase

the odds that clients will love you.
 12

Expert Secret: Money Flows to

Specialists

There are more approaches that will impact your success

on these platforms. One is the specificity of your skill
set—the more specific, the better and more trustworthy
you will be perceived.
For example, many clients run their own Python Django
application. Say, a client looks for an expert on Django
authentication. If you’d sell your services by telling
them, “I can code any program you need Python”, chances
are that they will not trust you—who knows everything
in Python after all? But if you’d position yourself as
the go-to expert for Python Django Authentication, the
client will go for you because they need just that. For
you, it’s not only easier to find clients, it’s also eas-

78
 79

ier to master only one specific niche than to master a

broad and general topic consisting of multiple specific
niches. Communicating your circle of confidence—the
things you are skilled and knowledgeable about—in an
honest and authentic way signals expertise and profes-
sionalism to your clients.
What are the skills that the marketplace seeks? There
are some foundations that any excellent Python free-
lancer must master. These are basic and complex data
types, lambda functions, list comprehension, the com-
plexity of data structure access, basic algorithms, key-
words, and so on. Knowing about the foundations al-
ready qualifies you to do Python freelance jobs.
However, if you want to increase your earning poten-
tial, you need to specialize in more advanced knowledge
areas. Examples are machine learning, data analysis,
web scraping, or web development with Django or Flask.
Each of these areas consists of subtopics like scikit-learn,
regression analysis, and NumPy. In each of these spe-
cializations, you become more focused on this specific
area, which automatically increases your value to the
client. But an important observation is also that every
specialization builds upon a solid foundation. So don’t
be lazy and skip the foundations!
Action steps:
80 CHAPTER 12. MONEY SEEKS SPECIALISTS

• What’s your specialization? Choose one—even if

you’re not yet knowledgeable about it. You will
be soon!
 13

Expert Secret: Read More

Programming Books

Experts read books. Warren Buffett is said to have read

1000 pages of annual reports every day. Buffett and his
partner Charlie Munger became billionaires by spending
80% of their day reading. Buffett was once asked how
to become smarter, to which he responded:
“Read 500 pages like this every week. That’s how knowl-
edge builds up, like compound interest.”
Knowledge compounds—a fundamental truth that all
experts know. If you want to get highly paid in any
space—say, as a freelance developer—you’ll need to be-
come a highly sought-after person. And how do you
achieve that? By reading a lot of programming books.
Programming books provide a maximum return on in-

81
82 CHAPTER 13. READ PROGRAMMING BOOKS

vested time and dollars. Of course, you can find all the
information on the web for free. But it’ll take you a
lot of time searching—and what you find tends to be
low-quality information.
The opportunity costs of consuming low-quality infor-
mation are huge (even if they never appear on your bank
statement)! Instead of spending 20 hours reading soft-
ware documentation, you could have read one book in
10 hours (or even two books in 20 hours). Not buying a
book because it costs $20 is like standing in line for two
hours to get a free coffee: stupid.
Good books have the highest quality of information for
a low, almost negligible price. If books are still too
expensive for you, have a look at my list of 101+ free
programming books.1
Action steps:

• Spend at least 30 minutes every day reading a pro-

gramming book. Use your habit tracker or sim-
ply add a small “pb” into your calendar every day
where you manage to finish your 30-minute pro-
gramming book reading session. Just read any
book you can lay your hands on.

1
https://blog.finxter.com/free-python-books/
 14

Expert Secret: Read More Business

Books

The habit of reading more programming books will make

you a coding expert. But as a freelance developer, you’re
as much a business person as you are a coder. You need
to study business from the best. Fortunately, many
successful business people have written great business
books. Each of those books will make you a better busi-
ness person.
Think about it this way: if every business book you
read increases your yearly income by 2%, how many
business books would you read? You’d read hundreds
of business books—doubling your annual income every
35 books: Knowledge Compounds.
Action steps:

83
84 CHAPTER 14. READ BUSINESS BOOKS

• Every day, spend at least 30 minutes reading a

business book. Yes, with your 30-minute program-
ming book reading that’s 60 minutes reading every
day.

• Add a small “bb” into your calendar every day

where you manage to finish your 30-minute busi-
ness book reading session.
 15

Expert Secret: Seek Expert Advice

Here’s a nice trick to boost your performance: seek out

someone who’s already been there and done that. How
much faster would you learn to code if you had an expert
coder who guides you through every step? How much
faster would you learn to create a thriving business if
Warren Buffett gave you valuable advice as you went
along? This can save you years, even decades. We stand
on the shoulders of giants. If you’re feeling too small and
insignificant, it’s because you’re NOT standing on the
shoulders of giants.
Spending time, energy, and even money on expert advice
is the success secret of the most successful people on
earth: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Page – they all
spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours seeking
expert counsel.

85
86 CHAPTER 15. SEEK EXPERT ADVICE

Action steps:

• Seek expert advice from freelance developers who’ve

already mastered what you want to achieve.

• Consider joining my in-depth Python freelancer

course.1

1
https://blog.finxter.com/become-python-
freelancer-course/
 16

Expert Secret: A Simple Heuristic

Should you become your own boss, being self-employed?

In this chapter, I’ll give you a simple heuristic you can
use as a decision framework.

Video 16: Becoming a Self-Employed Programmer?

A Simple Heuristic

https://python-freelancer.com

Are you committed to becoming an above-average pro-

grammer? Think about salaries in a company. They of-
ten follow the Pareto principle: 20% of the people earn
80% of the salaries. 20% of employees create 80% of the

87
88 CHAPTER 16. A SIMPLE HEURISTIC

output in companies. The concrete parameters do not

have to be 80/20; they could be 70/30, or even 95/5.
In the programming space, it’s often more extreme (like
95/5). For example, Bill Gates famously said:
“A great lathe operator commands several times the wage
of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of soft-
ware code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average
software writer.”
There are many reasons for this. First, an expert pro-
grammer can solve a problem in a few seconds that
would take an average coder days. Second, an expert
programmer adds fewer bugs to the code base which re-
duces negative first-order consequences such as longer
development cycles for the whole team, as well as neg-
ative second-order consequences such as damages pro-
duced by faulty code in the real world—think of the neg-
ative effects on a car company’s brand due to a damaged
self-driving car. Third, an expert programmer increases
the social standards for all other coders, for example,
by educating them and, thereby, raising the bar for the
whole company.
In the programming space, some people are much more
productive than other people. Above-average program-
mers create and, often, command more value than av-
erage programmers. Thus, if you are at least above
average, you should consider becoming a full-time self-
 89

employed coder to make sure you get paid proportion-

ally to the value you create.
Note that this recommendation addresses only the first
part of the question: should you become a full-time
coder? So if you are committed to joining the top 20%
of coders, you should become a full-time coder because
then you will be able to become much more profitable
than you would while working for a company.
If you don’t become self-employed as a top 20% coder,
the lion’s share of your profits will be collected by the
company you work for. If you are 10,000 times more pro-
ductive than the average coder, you won’t earn 10,000
times more as an employee. But if you are self-employed,
you can! Just ask billionaire coders like Vitalik Buterin,
Bill Gates, and Steve Wozniak.
But being a self-employed coder is not all about your
coding productivity. Business success is first and fore-
most about marketing, client acquisition, effective com-
munication with your clients (this alone can be more
important than your coding skills), and your position-
ing in the marketplace.
And these crucial skills can only be learned if you are
working as a self-employed coder.

Video 17: Massive Action: A Foolproof Way to Find

Clients as a Freelance Programmer
90 CHAPTER 16. A SIMPLE HEURISTIC

https://python-freelancer.com

If you are an employee working for a big company, I bet

you don’t feel very confident taking the risk of becoming
self-employed. And you’ll never acquire these critical
skills.
The only way to acquire these skills is to become self-
employed, increase your hourly rate over time, and work
on your business skills and coding skills at the same
time. Read coding books, business books, books about
selling, copywriting, and so on. Combining these skills
will bring you much more substantial profits in the long
term than working as an employee at a company.
Therefore, before you become full-time self-employed,
just earn money for your company and do some Python
freelancing on the side. And if you feel that you are
skilled enough to match your salary income as a Python
freelancer, you can safely decide to leave your job. You’ll
be very confident in the marketplace because you’ll know
that you have already provided value for your clients.
If what you earn is proportional to your invested time
and above, say, $100 per hour, go full-time. Don’t lose
any more time in this case because you already belong
 91

to the top of self-employed coders.

In summary, this is the best advice that I can give: start
for one or two years freelancing on the side and then take
the big leap with confidence and a nice cushion.
If you are committed to becoming a top 20% coder and
top 20% business person, then there is no doubt that you
can and should become self-employed as a freelancer.
But how can you become a top coder? By reading busi-
ness and programming books. Do this every day for an
hour, and you’ll be virtually guaranteed to join the top
20% of coders and business people.
Why? Because the average person will read maybe 3-
4 books a year (mostly fiction). So if you are reading
non-fiction books such as programming books and busi-
ness books, then there’s no question that you’ll become
an above-average freelancer. In addition, you also have
practical experience working part-time as a Python free-
lancer.
For some people, attending online courses is more effi-
cient than reading books because of the content’s multi-
modality and interactivity. Mastermind groups are also
a great way of continually improving your skill level if
you are the person who needs other people to push you.
Action steps:

• Commit now to lifelong learning. Use a habit

92 CHAPTER 16. A SIMPLE HEURISTIC

tracker to make sure you implement your commit-

ment and read in a programming book and in a
business book for an hour a day.
 17

Expert Secret: About Timing

When will you start earning money? Just start now and
figure out how to solve the problems as you go.

Video 18: Freelance Programmer – When To Start

Taking Projects?

https://python-freelancer.com

You will be paid for your learning time. If you are just
beginning with your Python career, you will earn less,
but you will still earn something, get a lot of experience,
and gain practical insight into what to learn and where
your knowledge gaps are.

93
94 CHAPTER 17. ABOUT TIMING

If you don’t feel confident yet, you can master the Python
basics first. You can already specialize in a Python
topic. And to gain even more confidence, you can learn
with toy projects. A little-known Python freelancing tip
is to learn with archived freelancing projects. You can
already gain practical experience and learn the type of
projects for which clients have paid freelancers. Still—
it’s even better just to start doing real Python projects
and then putting in all the effort to earn your five-star
ratings. Don’t worry about failing: you will fail from
time to time. If you do, be honest with the client, ac-
cept your failure, and try again with a new client. But
whatever you do, stay in the game and keep learning!
Action steps:

• Read one book teaching the Python basics.

• Get yourself a freelance gig (don’t overthink it).

Go!
 18

Expert Secret: Practical Training Plan

My recommendation is that you use a personalized train-

ing plan which focuses on the practical skills you need.
First, decide how much time you can allocate to learn-
ing. Second, divide your learning time into two blocks
using a 70%/30% allocation. Third, use 70% of your
learning time to implement a practical code project with
real-world impact. The rest of the time (30%), invest in
solving Python puzzles (see next Expert Secret), work
through Python courses, or read Python books.
For example, if you can spend 100 minutes per day
learning to code, spend 70 of those minutes working on
a practical project! What is a practical code project?
A practical Python project can be archived freelancing
Python projects that challenge you to go to higher lev-
els. Or it could be one of your dream projects—this is

95
96 CHAPTER 18. PRACTICAL TRAINING PLAN

even better because it keeps you highly motivated and

engaged. The key is not to stop working on these until
you have successfully finished them and have created a
viable product.
You can see that this is a highly practical approach.
The reason is that only practical motivation can push
you to mastery in any subject. You need to understand
your knowledge gap and see what you don’t know before
stuffing things into your brain. Any expert will tell you
that practice-first is how to learn Python fast.

Video 19: You Are Stuck in Coding! ... And Why

Nobody Tells You

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• If you haven’t already, watch the free Finxter free-

lancer webinar at https://blog.finxter.com/
webinar-freelancer/ because freelancing provides
you with a never-ending stream of practical code
projects.
 97

• Create a training plan to track your learning time

and use it to track your learning and practice time
every day.
 19

Expert Secret: Solve Python Puzzles

For the theoretical part, I recommend solving Python

puzzles as one of your primary methods of improvement.
Python puzzles are a powerful tool for becoming more
proficient in reading and understanding Python source
code (see Figure 19.1).
What’s a Python puzzle? A Python puzzle is an educa-
tional snippet of Python source code that teaches a single
computer science concept by activating the learner’s cu-
riosity and involving them in the learning process.
The idea is that you solve code puzzles that start out
simple but become more and more complex as you progress
in your learning journey. In essence, you play Python
interpreter and compute the output of a code snippet in
your head. Then you check whether you were right with
your guess using feedback and explanations to adapt

98
 99

Figure 19.1: Example of code puzzle. Find the solu-

tion at https://app.finxter.com/learn/computer/
science/408.

and improve your coding skills over time. To make this

idea a reality, I developed the online coding academy
Finxter.com. The Python puzzles range from easy to
complex—each puzzle will push your theoretical and
100 CHAPTER 19. SOLVE PYTHON PUZZLES

practical coding skills one step further. The puzzle-

based learning method is very effective, proven by tens
of thousands of online students. It incorporates ele-
ments of immediate feedback, conditioning, repetition,
trial and error, and active learning techniques for max-
imum learning efficiency.
Here is an example of a code puzzle:

# Create the list

friends = ["Alice", "Bob", "Ann"]

# Remove the final element

friends.pop()

# Remove and return the first element

print(friends.pop(0))

What’s the output of this code snippet?

Action steps:

• Check your correct solution to this puzzle here:

• https://app.finxter.com/learn/computer/science/
563

• Solve 10 more puzzles on the app, it’s addictive!

 20

Expert Secret: Learn with Cheats

In your theoretical learning time, feel free to invest 10-

20 hours in refreshing your basic Python skills before
anything else. This is not much of a time commitment—
after all, you are learning a high-income skill. You can
learn a lot in 20 hours if you do it right. The key is to
learn probabilistically by mastering important sub-skills
first.
So what’s the best way to learn probabilistically? Sim-
ple: use the 80/20 principle and learn 80% of the neces-
sary Python skills to get started in 20% of the time via
Python cheat sheets. I have summarized the five best
Python cheat sheets at https://blog.finxter.com/
python-cheat-sheets/. Download the cheat sheets
and spend your first 20 hours learning them thoroughly.
Or even better: print them and post them to your office

101
102 CHAPTER 20. LEARN WITH CHEATS

wall.

Video 20: How to Learn Python Faster?

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• Download the 11 Python cheat sheets.

• Consult them daily until you know them by heart.

 21

Expert Secret: Confidence

How can you gain confidence that will increase your

value to the marketplace? If you’re like most other Finx-
ter students, you don’t want to offer your services before
you don’t feel 100% confident about your skills. Unfor-
tunately, this moment never arrives. I have seen hun-
dreds of advanced coders who are still not confident in
selling their services. They cannot overcome their self-
woven system of limiting beliefs and mental barriers.
Can I tell you a harsh truth? You’re unlikely to join
the top 1% of the Python coders. Unfortunate, but a
hard statistical fact. Most people can join the top 10%
of the coders — many of them earn much more than
$50 per hour — if they’re ambitious and keep learning
Python daily following the ideas outlined in the previous
chapters. But joining the top 1% of coders is much

103
104 CHAPTER 21. CONFIDENCE

tougher than that.

Never mind! Your services will still be valuable to clients
who either have less programming skills (there are plenty
of them) or little time (a big part of the rest). Most
clients are happy to outsource the complex coding work
to focus on their key result areas.
Regardless of your skill level, the variety of Python projects
is huge. There are simple projects for $10 that an experi-
enced coder can solve in 5 minutes. And there are com-
plex projects that take months and promise you large
payments of $100 to $1000 after completing each mile-
stone.
You can be reassured that you will find projects within
your skill level.
Action steps:

• Take your time to browse all the archived Python

freelance projects.1

• Select 3 projects that you think you can solve in

the price range ($10-$50). Better yet: browse real
projects and apply to them even though you don’t
feel ready yet!
1
See the book companion page resources provided at https:
//python-freelancer.com/
 105

• Write down your dream niche within the program-

ming space — for example, Blockchain develop-
ment, Python automation, web scraping, machine
learning, data visualization — keeping the projects
in mind that you just selected: data science, web
scraping, application development, or scripting.
 22

Expert Secret: Learn While You Earn

Most developers know that they should never do pre-

mature code optimizations. But they do premature skill
optimization—that is, learning without immediate prac-
tical application—all the time. Don’t do that. Instead,
you should laser-focus your time to learn the essential
skills you need to finish the current code project and
delight your users and clients with the highest priority.
Start with real projects as soon as possible. Don’t wait
too long—even if you are a beginner programmer. Set
aside 10 minutes per day to watch out for interesting
freelancing projects. If you do so, you will learn the
practical Python problems that clients will need solved.
You will learn about the patterns of Python problems
“in the wild.” This knowledge will guide you in your
efforts to become more valuable to the marketplace. In

106
 107

contrast to millions of other aspiring coders, you will

develop a practical Python skill set tailored to your in-
terest level. Try to establish your brand as soon as pos-
sible. Learn with real clients. Focus on mastering the
highly practical skills by working on real projects.
Action steps:

• Browse current freelancing Python projects daily

on websites such as Upwork or Fiverr.

• Find projects you like within your difficulty level.

Take the first project you think you can solve.

• Invest all your time and effort into cracking this

project. Make sure to track the time you need and
calculate your hourly income.

• Learn on the fly, as you solve real projects. It’s a

sure way to improve and build a relationship with
your clients—and make money in the process.
 23

Expert Secret: Psychology Tricks

My company Finxter relies on many freelancers to im-

prove the overall student experience. Naturally, I have
collected a lot of experience using freelancer services as a
client. I soon realized that a similar pattern emerged ev-
ery time I posted a new project description. A few hours
after posting the description, several freelancers applied.
The competition was fierce. But within minutes, I had
subconsciously chosen an inner circle of high-potential
candidates. In the vast majority of cases, I didn’t select
a freelancer who could not immediately pass the entry
barriers posed by my subconscious mind.
You want to be in that inner circle of potential free-
lancers. To get there, you must appeal to the sub-
conscious mind. The following factors will give you a
psychological advantage when competing for a freelance

108
 109

job.
Use the power of reciprocity. Reciprocity is the so-
cial impulse to reply to a positive stimulus with a posi-
tive reaction, thereby rewarding other people’s positive
actions.
This principle is powerful. It works on me—and it will
work on other clients. For example, I published a project
to check the Python code of my recent Python program-
ming book. The project description stated that I in-
tended to edit the code to make it more Pythonic. Sev-
eral freelancers applied immediately for the job. Most
of them went into “competition-mode”, bragging about
their credentials. They tried to convince me that they
were the perfect fit for this project. I selected a few
candidates but was not 100% sure about any of them.
Towards the end of the application phase, a new free-
lancer registered interest with an unusual application.
Instead of talking about his credentials, he focused on
the project itself. He dived right into the project and
submitted annotated and corrected Python code snippets—
improving those I provided as sample files. He gave
them to me for free. Of course, I knew that he pur-
posely used the reciprocity rule to get the job. Yet, I
was immediately hooked and felt a strong obligation to
reward him for his work—and I gave him the job.
This is the power of the reciprocity rule.
110 CHAPTER 23. PSYCHOLOGY TRICKS

Don’t hide your titles and credentials. They still

work. When you apply for a job, and you have the title
“Prof.,” “Ph.D.,” “BSc,” or “MSc” in a relevant area, you
will gain immediate credibility. In most cases, it will
set you apart from the other freelancers without strong
credentials or titles.
Note that credentials are not limited to the academic
world. You should also highlight your practical achieve-
ments, such as your websites, shiny projects, or certifi-
cates. Be creative.
Invest time in your profile picture. You wouldn’t
believe the powerful impact of your profile picture on
your chances of getting the job. Many coders don’t focus
too much on appearance. Don’t do this. Smile, dress
professionally, use a natural image background.
Don’t compete on price. Forget about it. Com-
peting on price is a race towards zero. You can not
win. There is always a cheaper freelancer, and some
of them WILL apply for the same projects. It’s true—
some clients look for the cheapest freelancer who barely
finishes the task. But most clients will choose high qual-
ity and predictability over price. What would you do if
you were a business owner who works 60 hour weeks to
push his website? You love your baby and don’t want
a cheap freelancer to mess around with it. A freelancer
that offers a service at a very cheap rate is also per-
 111

ceived to produce cheap quality. After all, you wouldn’t

be cheap if you were good.
So what is the value of an hour of your work? Multiply
this number with 1.5 for two reasons: (1) You tend to
underestimate your value to the marketplace, and (2)
it’s a good practice to push yourself towards higher in-
come (that’s what you want, isn’t it?). Now you have
your number. Don’t work for an hourly rate below that
number! And keep pushing it - the sky is the limit!

Video 21: Programmer Procrastination: Best Hack

From Bevahioral Psychology

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• Collect Python certificates. For example, use our

web app Finxter.com to certify your Python skill
level. You can also find certificates on Udemy,
Udacity, and RealPython.
• Take an awesome profile picture.
• Give something to each potential client. For ex-
ample, invest some time creating a prototype so-
112 CHAPTER 23. PSYCHOLOGY TRICKS

lution. This will greatly improve your acceptance

rate and ultimately save a lot of time!
 24

Expert Secret: Contribute to

Open-Source

Clients want to see that you’re the right fit for them.
They want to minimize transaction risk: if they book a
freelance developer, they spend time and money. Above
everything else, they fear losing their invested time and
money. This is a psychological effect that has proven to
be very robust in countless scientific studies, called loss
aversion. Most people would rather avoid losing than
get the chance to win.
A powerful way of mitigating loss aversion is to con-
tribute to open-source projects and showcase those projects
to your clients. If clients browse your projects, they’ll
feel that you are a trustworthy coder who gives a lot to
the community. Naturally, they’ll feel more attracted to

113
114 CHAPTER 24. OPEN-SOURCE

you and see you in a positive light.

Video 22: Don’t Think in Terms of Resumes as a

Coder – Do This Instead!

https://python-freelancer.com

Moreover, working on open-source projects connects you

to like-minded coders. Many will refer freelance devel-
oping gigs your way—make sure to talk to and help a lot
of people in the open-source community. From time to
time, drop that you’re a freelance developer and watch
how more business will come your way.
Last but not least, you’ll boost your coding skills. Work-
ing on practical code projects is the number one strategy
to improve your skills. Chapter 18 outlines a practical-
first strategy for learning how to code (70% practice
projects, 30% theory).
Action steps:

• Which open-source projects would you love to work

on?
 25

Expert Secret: Non-Programming Skills

Do you work in the software development industry? Big

news: programming expertise is an important skill set
that will help you accelerate your career. For example,
one of the most satisfying and highest-paying jobs is
DevOps specialist. But DevOps specialists need to have
a high level of coding expertise, gained through working
on practical projects in different developer teams.
However, programming is not the most important skill
needed to become wildly successful in the field, espe-
cially if you are working as a freelance developer online,
creating your coding side-business, or looking for other
ways to increase your income. These two skills are more
important than programming expertise to earn six fig-
ures online:
Sales and Marketing. Without the shadow of a doubt,

115
116 CHAPTER 25. NON-PROGRAMMING SKILLS

creating good sales and marketing systems is the most

important skill you can have as a self-employed freelance
developer online. You can even have only this skill and
become wildly successful these days. Many online mar-
keters do just that. They create their community of
like-minded people, offer more value, and are crushing
it.
As a programmer, you need to know how to market and
position yourself.

• How would you like to be perceived?

• Where should you focus?

• How can you create a landing page that converts?

• How can you start on freelancing platforms such

as Upwork or Fiverr?

Communication. Again, a no-brainer. But many pro-

grammers think it’s only about the quality of code they
submit. No! It’s about being in constant communica-
tion with your client. Ask them if you don’t understand
the specifications. Figure out exactly what they want.
You may need to dive deep into this. For example, a
client may tell you they need a beautiful GUI for their
back-end, but they need to improve their back-end func-
tionality.
 117

You need to keep communicating, be responsive, posi-

tive, upbeat. This will ensure that you get good rat-
ings and recommendations on freelancing platforms—
and that your pipeline of clients stays full.

Video 23: How to Get Clients as a Python

Freelancer? A Guide For Noobs

https://python-freelancer.com

If you want to improve your communication skills, read

the excellent book from Dale Carnegie: How To Win
Friends And Influence People. Also, sharpen your mar-
keting skills. You can find free marketing courses at
Hubspotacademy.com.
Action steps:

• What is one thing you can do today to improve

your sales and marketing systems?

• How can you become a better coder today?

• Send one of your clients a valuable email (or, even

better, call them) now.
 Part III

Strategy: $2000 to $4000

118
 26

Expert Secret: Freelancer Algorithm

Becoming a freelance coder is both easy and hard. It’s

easy because everybody can do it within a day or so.
And it’s hard because most people fail because they
don’t know the right way of approaching this.
Maybe you are interested in coding, or maybe you are
already very good at coding.
But see, you’ve already approached this endeavor from
the wrong perspective. As a freelance coder, you are
first a business person and second a coder. It’s not the
other way round. Coding is not your number one skill as
a freelancer. Many coders who start on platforms such
as Upwork or Fiverr believe that they need to sharpen
their coding skills before they can become successful us-
ing these platforms. Nothing could be further from the
truth!

119
120 CHAPTER 26. FREELANCER ALGORITHM

A much better strategy is to think like a business person:

what problems do people have and how can I solve them?
With this in mind, you can even approach people and
ask them whether they would be interested in solving
their problems. This skill is called selling—and it’s the
lifeblood of any business.
So you start solving small problems, grow your skills as
you solve them, and then attack larger and larger prob-
lems for your clients. As you solve their problems, they
will be happy and give you a positive rating. You’ll find
it much easier to get more and more clients. At some
point, not too far in the future, you’ll have much more
on your plate than you can solve alone. Clients are con-
tacting you and asking you to solve their problems. And
they’ll refer you to other clients with similar problems.
Heck, even the freelancing platform will propose you as
a freelancer to solve their clients’ problems since they
want to satisfy them. This is a good sign, and it means
that you have been quite successful in solving clients’
problems.
As you’re a coder, I’ve compiled the great freelancing
strategy in pseudocode for you:

goal_hourly_rate = input("What's your goal

,→ hourly rate?")
current_hourly_rate = 0
while current_hourly_rate < goal_hourly_rate:
 121

problems = make_list_of_problems()
clients = make_list_of_clients()
clients[0].contact("Can I solve your
,→ problem: " + problems[0] + "?")
solve_problem(problems[0])

This is a simple algorithm, but it works. Become aware

of the problems in your industry—guess if you don’t
know them exactly. Then, contact potential clients out-
side of the freelancing platform. You can use the free-
lancing platform to find the contact info of the clients.
Ask them whether they would be willing to hire you if
you solve one problem. If not, ask them what problems
they have. Over time, you’ll get pretty good experience
in determining the problems of clients.
Then you attack the problem. No worries if it takes you
forever to solve it. That’s just not relevant. You are on
a path of continuous improvement, and every follow-up
project will become easier because of your experience,
while finding follow-up clients will become easier too.
It’s hard at the beginning and very easy later––if you
stay in the game long enough.

Video 24: Why Most Coders Fail Riding the Curve

of Continuous Improvement
122 CHAPTER 26. FREELANCER ALGORITHM

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• Print the freelancer success algorithm.

• Run through the first loop body.

• If you haven’t already, watch our free video about

the state-of-the-art in Python freelancing: https:
//blog.finxter.com/webinar-freelancer/.
 27

Expert Secret: Leverage Network

Effects

The internet follows a universal law: “The winner takes

it all.” The rich get richer, and popular people get even
more popular. If you are already winning on these plat-
forms, you will win even more. People tend to rein-
force the decisions of their peers. If all of them gave
you five stars, most clients would simply default to giv-
ing you five stars as well. The network effect is a well-
researched phenomenon in all kinds of networks like so-
cial networks, the web, and freelancer-rating networks.
There are two basic tactics that you can use to leverage
this information to earn more money and increase your
value to the marketplace.
First, focus on your first jobs—see them as investments

123
124 CHAPTER 27. NETWORK EFFECTS

into your future. Even if you did them for free (I’m not
advocating this), they will be profitable by attracting
better jobs and clients.

Video 25: Why You Should Offer Your Services For

Free as a New Freelance Developer?

https://python-freelancer.com

Second, you should prefer many small jobs over a few

large jobs, so that you’ll gain credibility faster. Many
people subconsciously have the simple heuristic: more
jobs + more ratings = better freelancer.
Action steps:

• Get a small $20 gig on a freelancing platform.

• Overdeliver.
 28

Expert Secret: Return on Invested

Effort

May I share with you one of my business secrets?

You can transform your business by calculating the Re-
turn On Investment (ROI) of all activities you’re doing.
For instance, here’s how this would look like for creating
Facebook ads:
Investment: Writing an ad may take you one hour. You
may price the value of one hour of your time at $100.
So writing an ad costs you $100.
Return: Say your average ad brings in 1000 visitors per
month. About 1% will buy your product with a profit of
$10 (after deducting the costs per click). So the return
is 1000 visitors * 1% * $10 = $100 per month.

125
126
CHAPTER 28. RETURN ON INVESTED EFFORT

So, writing an ad results in a 100% return on investment

month after month. Based on your estimations, you
decide that spending time writing ads is a great idea for
your business.
I started my career as a Python freelancer, and the ex-
perience I got and the skills I learned were priceless. Be-
fore I purchase anything, like an educational program, I
calculate the expected return on investment.
Now, I want you to do one thing: calculate the expected
ROI of taking the freelancer course1 by assuming it in-
creases your hourly rate by only 10% in the first year.
It will increase your hourly rate much more, but this is
a good conservative starting point.
You’ll probably realize that investing in yourself is the
most profitable use of your time and money, especially
if you’re still young (below 30). That is if the course
can keep its promise!2
Action steps:

• Start your capital allocation habit today—your

most valuable capital is your time!

1
https://blog.finxter.com/become-python-freelancer-course/
2
The good thing is that there’s a strong 60 (!) day money-back
guarantee. If the course doesn’t deliver, you’ll get your money
back.
 127

• Calculate the ROI based on your rough estimates

of an activity every day.

• This may sound fuzzy (and it is), but it’s the high-
est value activity I have ever started in my busi-
ness. It will transform your business, too.
 29

Expert Secret: Don’t Compete on Price

Today, there’s global competition in the coding market.

If you create your coding business online, you compete
for business with coders all around the world. And there
are great coders in India, Pakistan, and other countries
who have a significant advantage in pricing flexibility—–
it’s much easier to reduce prices if you are living in a
non-expensive area. If you’re living in Silicon Valley,
you need to charge premium prices just to be able to
afford basic housing.

Video 26: Where Should You Live as a Freelance

Developer?

128
 129

https://python-freelancer.com

Before you conclude that you don’t have a chance to

pursue this freelancer thing, stay with me. If the world
were that easy, America would already be out of busi-
ness. But America’s freelance developers thrive.
Now, how can you possibly compete in the global econ-
omy as a coder in a developed nation?
The answer is simple and straightforward: don’t com-
pete for price. You need to provide superior perceived
value. That’s it. If you compete for perceived value,
you can easily earn six figures in the US.

Video 27: Don’t Compete For Price as a

Self-Employed Developer!

https://python-freelancer.com

How can you improve your perceived value? Establish

predictability through testimonials and positive ratings.
Communicate well, be responsive, be positive. Become
130 CHAPTER 29. DON’T COMPETE ON PRICE

a marketing and sales pro (e.g., create your own com-

munity).
Action steps:

• Ask every client for a testimonial.

• Place the previous step to your gig checklist.

 30

Expert Secret: Free Float Your

Learning

But can it be a good idea to offer your services for free,

considering that Python freelancers earn $51 per hour
on average? Yes, it can! Note that this doesn’t conflict
with the previous expert secret.
You can increase your Python skill level, but you don’t
have to polish your salesman skills from day one. You
don’t compete on price; you compete on learning speed.
Price is only a tool to accelerate your learning speed.
It’s a great way to increase your confidence as a Python
freelancer. And confidence is a crucial skill to working
successfully on freelancing platforms.
Building this confidence is one of the most important
things you can do to become a successful freelancer be-

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132 CHAPTER 30. FREE FLOAT

cause your clients will sense whether you feel confident

enough to deliver a lot of value. Without this, it’ll be
hard to find jobs. But without jobs, you cannot build
confidence. Many students remain stuck in this negative
spiral and lose confidence over time.
A great way to break out is to offer your services for
free. In any case, you won’t get rich with your first few
gigs—the bulk of the money is earned later. The first
gigs are for the experience, the testimonials, and the
success rate statistics on platforms such as Upwork.
You cannot offer your services for free on the Upwork
platform (it’s against their terms). So what can you do?
An alternative is to contact people who rely on free-
lancers to grow their businesses. One great example is
a programming blog. Blog owners always need new ar-
ticles, and many of them hire freelance writers (who are
also skilled in programming) to create articles for them.
Even if you can’t land a paid job, you can contact any
blog owner and offer it for free. Just tell them that you
are looking for testimonials and experience.
Action steps:

• Before getting your first gig, offer your services for

free in exchange for a testimonial.
• An even better idea is to offer clients the following
deal: finish the gig for free. Seeing the result, they
 133

can pay you what they believe is fair compensa-

tion. This leverages several psychological effects
that are well-known to be beneficial for your in-
come.
 31

Expert Secret: Give More Than You

Take

As a self-employed freelance developer, you’re as much

a business owner as you are a coder. You need to mas-
ter both skills— business and coding—to thrive in your
industry.
“Giving more value than you take in payment” is the first
rule of business. While it sounds simple, most struggling
business owners violate it. And this is the reason they
struggle in the first place. They forget that on the other
end of the transaction is a human being with a pain
point, a problem, or a desire. And the only reason you’re
here is to remove the pain, solve the problem, or satisfy
the desire.
If you pay two bucks for a coffee, it’s because you value

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the warm, tasty coffee in a comfortable environment,

where you can relax and read a book, much more than
you value two bucks. If you’d value your money and
the coffee equally, you wouldn’t give up your two bucks
(behavioral psychologists call this “loss aversion”).
See the pattern? The sole reason your business exists
is to solve the problems of your customers. You simply
cannot survive if you don’t know which problem you
solve.
Formula: If your client asks you to do X, do X...and a
little more.
With this mindset, you’re going to crush it in business.
The power of reciprocity will kick in, and your client
will always want to hire you for the next thing. It’s far
easier to convince an existing client to buy again than to
convince a new lead to buy the first time. Every great
business leverages this powerful law: give more than you
take.
Action steps:

• Before you submit work to your client, ask your-

self: have you given all you have? Can you give
some more?
• Add this to your checklist to ensure that you’ll do
this after each gig.
 32

Expert Secret: Eat Complexity

Fortunately, you’re in the coding business. And coding

is a mess. It’s difficult, complicated, error-prone, and
only a small minority of people have the patience and
time to learn it. There’s a massive barrier of entry. You
need to spend a lot of time staring at your computer
and searching StackOverflow to learn how to solve bugs
in the code.

Video 28: How to Create a Barrier of Entry

Running a Software Business

https://python-freelancer.com

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What does this tell you? It tells you that your client
needs you more than you need him. This is a great po-
sition to be in. If you can solve and alleviate the com-
plexity in your client’s life, you’re doing him an essential
service.
Either you or your client has to handle the complexity.
If you’re paid to set up a server system, it’s because your
client doesn’t want to burden the complexity. He hires
you to free himself from the complexity. Great business
owners such as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, have
mastered this rule of eating their customers’ complexity.
Jeff Bezos pushed towards one-click payments because it
makes purchasing easier. Jeff Bezos created the Kindle
to simplify the whole book consumption process. You
don’t have to order a book and wait forever. With one
click, you can now read almost any book in the world.
Great freelance developers empathize with their clients
or just ask them to learn about their complexities. Then
they take on their clients’ complexities.
These are the two most important rules for freelance
developer success. They don’t sound fancy, and they’re
not easy to do—they are not business hacks to make a
quick buck. But they will make you more money than
everything else you’ve learned.
Action steps:
138 CHAPTER 32. EAT COMPLEXITY

• Make a big list of things that are complicated for

your customers.

• How can you eat your clients’ complexity?

 33

Expert Secret: Perform From Your

Strengths

This rule was formulated by Peter Drucker, the famous

management consultant. Time is limited, and you can
either improve your weaknesses or your strengths. Say
you’re a great writer, but you don’t enjoy being in front
of a camera. On a given day, you can write your new
book or create your new video course. What do you
think will create more value for society?
Many people are great in front of the camera, but they
cannot write. Why on earth should everyone do what he
is naturally bad at? More value can be created if every-
one performs from their strengths. As a natural writer,
write. As a natural coder, code. As a natural singer,
sing. This way, society becomes much more efficient,

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 CHAPTER 33. PERFORM FROM YOUR
140 STRENGTHS
and value creation explodes.
For you, this means that you need to know your strengths.
What are you naturally good at? Don’t read on until
you’ve answered this question.
Make a list!

• What have you been great at in school?

• Which YouTube videos do you watch a lot?
• What do you keep talking about?
• What do you love to do?
• What do you spend money on? Check your income
statements.

These questions can give you a hint at where your strengths

lie. Use this information to your advantage! Let some-
one else compensate for your weaknesses. That’s how a
society should operate anyway.
Action steps:

• Make a list of your strengths by answering the

previous questions.
• How can you move towards your strengths in your
professional life?
 34

Expert Secret: Be a Specialist

Would you pay more to a brain surgeon than your gener-

alist doctor to perform critical brain surgery? Of course,
you would! Specialists can demand higher rates because
their skills are highly developed in one specific area. Due
to their specialized knowledge, there’s little competition,
and they often have a dominant market position.
You have 24 hours each day. You can either invest,
say, 10 hours every day in data science. Or, you can
invest 1 hour in data science, 1 hour in blogging, 1 hour
in writing a book, 1 hour in learning guitar, 1 hour in
programming, 1 hour in singing, 1 hour in preparing
coffee, 1 hour in studying cryptocurrencies, 1 hour in
writing a compiler, and 1 hour in politics.
If you do the former, you become a specialist. If you do
the latter, you become a generalist.

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142 CHAPTER 34. BE A SPECIALIST

As a freelance developer, you shouldn’t specialize in a

specific technology but on a particular problem. For
example, don’t focus on Python’s TensorFlow library
for deep learning, focus on machine learning concepts.
Don’t focus on NumPy, focus on data science. Don’t
focus on Django, focus on web development. While
the technologies may change over time, your special-
ized knowledge in a particular problem area will remain
valuable.

Video 29: Focus on One Thing. But What’s the

Thing?

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• Which problems will you solve for clients?

• Which technologies should you learn first?

• Write a letter template to your dream client—how

can you help them solve their problems?
 35

Expert Secret: Be Hyper-Responsive

Communication is a crucial skill for freelance develop-

ers. If you don’t know the exact problems and strug-
gles of your clients, you cannot help them. A lack of
communication will regularly lead to hours and hours
of wasted time. Let’s say your client wants a website
hosted. Then, you host the website. But it turns out
that the hosting provider you selected is too expensive
for the client. All the work is lost.
You need to communicate with the client at every stage
of the process. Give them a daily update of what you’re
currently doing and what you have accomplished. Ask
them many questions. This will help you figure out the
concrete gap where you can give the most value. And
it’ll ensure that the client sees how much time and effort
you’ve invested.

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144 CHAPTER 35. BE HYPER-RESPONSIVE

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should spam the

client with minor questions—you have to find a good
balance. But if you’re in doubt, it’s far better to err on
the side of too much communication. And, of course,
a freelance developer who is hyper-responsive and an-
swering emails within hours (not days) will make a very
good impression, even if the code he delivers is not per-
fect. The freelancer-client relationship lives and dies on
great communication.
Action steps:

• If you haven’t already, get the great book How

To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale
Carnegie to learn how to communicate with peo-
ple. Otherwise, take a break—you earned it.
 36

Expert Secret: Be Positive and Upbeat

Have a can-do attitude with a bias towards action. This

is almost always superior to an attitude where you see
constraints and limitations everywhere. If the client asks
you if you can solve one of his problems, be optimistic
and positive, and figure out how to do it. If you can’t
do it, figure out how to solve a slightly easier problem–
—and repeat until you’re able to solve the original prob-
lem.
Clients love freelance developers who are positive and
upbeat. If you’re their daily positive contact, you have
their subconscious mind on your site because it’ll always
push your client to hire you again. Without the client
even being aware of this, he will be attracted to you,
which is a powerful client retention tool. Plus, it’s a lot
more fun that way.

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146 CHAPTER 36. BE POSITIVE

Action steps:

• Use the Grammarly plugin in your browser. It

also gives you “clarity” and “engagement” scores
to start writing more engaging messages to your
clients! A spellchecker will immediately improve
your average writing quality.
 37

Expert Secret: Know Your Hourly Rate

Everything that gets tracked gets improved. As a busi-

ness owner, the most important metric is how much you
earn. This is as true for freelance developers as it is for
Fortune 500 CEOs.
Therefore, you should continuously track and increase
your hourly rate. This challenges you to keep increasing
your value to the marketplace, communicate your value
better, and learn more by reading books or industry
periodicals.
How do you calculate your hourly rate? There’s noth-
ing simpler—just start tracking your time. Divide your
average monthly income by 30 to get your daily income.
Divide it by your average number of hours worked to get
your hourly rate. This is your base rate. If you charge
clients, you should at least double this rate—even bet-

147
148 CHAPTER 37. KNOW HOURLY RATE

ter, more than that. The reason is that not all working
hours will be tracked: you also have to work on your
taxes, learn and improve, do marketing, etc.
The average hourly rate of a Python freelance devel-
oper is about $51. This is what the average developer
earns, and you should at least target this rate. How-
ever, it’s relatively easy to become better than average–
—especially if you use the tricks outlined in this tutorial.
Action steps:

• Answer one simple question now: What’s your

hourly rate?

• Copy my hourly rate template here: https://

bit.ly/hourly-rate-template
 38

Expert Secret: Increase Your Hourly

Rate

The next step after knowing your hourly rate is to in-

crease it. Earning more money is simple: charge more.
If you don’t increase your hourly rate, you won’t earn
more money. But if you have higher hourly rates, clients
will value your services more. Clients are humans, and,
as a result, they tend to reinforce their decisions. If
they pay more money, they will focus much more on the
value you bring to the table. The Halo effect in behav-
ioral psychology is defined as the tendency to generalize
a positive impression to unrelated areas. Charging more
money may impress a client, causing them to look for
these positive impressions in your work. Deliver quality
code quickly—it’s mostly a matter of focused effort on
your part.

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150 CHAPTER 38. INCREASE HOURLY RATE

Charging more money will increase your confidence. If

clients pay you more money, you feel valued and mo-
tivated to keep learning and keep improving. With
more money, you can also reinvest more money in your
business to enhance your appearance and marketing.
With more money, you can solve most business prob-
lems quickly.
Action steps:

• By how much (percent) will you increase your hourly

rate every month?

• How much time will you spend each day read-

ing books in your field to justify charging more
money?
 Part IV

Systems: $4000 to
$12000

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 39

Expert Secret: Use Systems and

Templates

All thriving businesses use systems to create consistency,

predictability, and scale. Without systems, you’re the
slave, and your business is the master. With systems,
you’re the master, and your business system is your
slave. Controlling your systems means that you can cre-
ate a predictable stream of leads, customers, and cash
flow. If you’re the one business owner in your industry
who masters systems, you’ll crush your competition.
As a freelance developer, you can create systems in many
different areas. Here are some ideas where systems can
help you do more with less:
Write a template email response for similar emails
you receive from your clients. If clients ask you for

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your credentials, prepare a killer email response once,

copy it into a Google Docs file, and reuse it multiple
times. Can you see the power of email templates? You
only do the work once but leverage your work again and
again and again. Over time, you’ll polish your email
templates so that they become better and better. This
way, you’ll reduce the average time spent on each email,
but you’ll also increase the average quality of your re-
sponses. You’ll work less and convert more leads to
clients.
Write a template to apply for new freelancing
gigs. However, it’s smart to modify the first sentence
of the template to fit the individual freelancing gig. I
know it sounds extremely simple, but working on your
lead generation template is a highly effective and lever-
aged use of your time. Increasing the conversion rate
of your gig application template from 10% to 20% in-
stantly doubles your sales! I’ve written a blog article to
help you write effective gig application templates.
Create ads to sell your service. Creating and im-
proving ads for your freelancing service is time well spent.
Why? Because every ad is a mini system that sells your
skills on the marketplace—even while you sleep.
Create content such as YouTube videos or blog
posts in your field. Each blog post and each video
lives in the web decoupled from your time. Content sys-
154 CHAPTER 39. SYSTEMS

tems exist independently in cyberspace—and they sell

your services 24/7. A nice benefit of content systems is
that they instantly position you as an educator rather
than a marketer. Imagine you’re a business owner, and
you want to hire a freelance developer to write an An-
droid application. Who would you employ as a freelance
developer —Alice, who writes blog articles about devel-
oping Android apps, or Bob, who does nothing of the
sort?
Create people systems. A people system can be an
employee who helps you with your freelance developer
business. Here are some examples: your accountant,
your lawyer, subcontractors, or affiliate marketers who
sell your services for a 10% fee. Every person who helps
you in any way is a stakeholder of your small freelanc-
ing business. The more stakeholders there are in your
business, the more firepower it has.
Create referral systems as outlined before. Of
course, there are many other soft and hard systems. As
a rule of thumb, every action you perform on a repeat
basis is a good starting point to create a mini system.
Work as much on your freelance developer business as
you work in it. Don’t just write code for clients—spend
the same amount of time improving your marketing sys-
tems!
Action steps:
 155

• Track your systems in a new document in the form:

trigger –> checklist of what to do on that trigger.

• Template: https://docs.google.com/document/
d/1r2r_oJcxm4ZoNmCsndv96EdJ_KuvNMaQd1Ai4cb_-
cU/edit?usp=sharing
 40

Expert Secret: Create a Client List

Depending on what study you read, it’s between 5 and

25 times more expensive to acquire a new client than
to convince an existing or previous client to buy again.
Every great business has high client retention rates.
The first step towards having high client retention is
to deliver more in value than you take in payment—
the golden rule of business success. The second step
is to maintain a client or customer list. Nurture your
list. Send them regular emails with an email automation
tool such as Mailchimp. Send them valuable resources,
tools, information products, or greetings. Be good to
your customers, and they’ll be good to you. You should
center your whole business around the simple idea of
generating a list of leads, converting those leads into
customers, and converting one-time customers into re-

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peat customers. In each step, you move them further

down the funnel.
Action steps:

• Create a free account for email marketing soft-

ware.

• Start building your list of clients.

 41

Expert Secret: Create an Ad Funnel

Funnels are potent mechanisms to deliver value for clients

and create a predictable flow of business. In the end,
the company with an optimized value delivery funnel
will beat the company that performs random acts of
marketing.
What’s a funnel? A funnel is a powerful machine that
transforms random people into leads, then into cus-
tomers, and finally into repeat customers. Make no mis-
take: working on your funnel is one of the most effective
things you can do for your business. It’s one of those
$10,000 per hour activities that can make or break your
business.
This tip is about advertising. If you read the Google
annual reports, you’ll see that the costs per click keep
decreasing year over year. One reason is the progress

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made in artificial intelligence that helps deliver more rel-

evant ads. Advertising tends to become more profitable
as a result. Businesses that don’t use advertisements
to acquire leads miss out significantly. If you’ve got a
high-converting funnel, you can easily make back your
advertisement costs–in many cases, you’ll double, triple,
even quadruple your ad spend.
Use ads to create a predictable source of leads for your
business.
Action steps:

• Sketch your ad funnel: what’s your dream client,

and what are the steps they take in your funnel?

• Create a Google, Facebook, LinkedIn ad account,

and start serving ads. Use a small daily amount
(e.g., $5) and never stop paying this. This forces
you to improve your ad copy over time if you don’t
want to throw $150 monthly ad spend out the win-
dow.
 42

Expert Secret: One Lead Per Day

If you’ve got a funnel, you know how important it is to

move leads further down the funnel. It’s the lifeblood
of your business.
How do you acquire new leads? Just contact people.
Don’t shy away from contacting people manually. Write
emails to website owners and offer them a free “strategy
session” (see next tip). In effect, you acquire new leads
manually.
You may ask: how can this pay off even though it’s not
scalable? The answer is simple: It doesn’t have to be
scalable. You just need to get some momentum. As
soon as you’ve convinced a random person to become a
lead, you can start to give them value and move them
further down the funnel until they become customers.
Happy customers will talk, and that’ll help you get more

160
 161

customers. This cycle will repeat and strengthen over

time.
Action steps:

• How can you find potential leads?

• What can you offer them to join your list of leads?

• How can you move them further down the funnel

so that they ultimately become customers?
 43

Expert Secret: Leverage Testimonial

Videos

It sounds simple, but only one in five freelancers (at

most) is doing it. Why? I don’t know — maybe people
are too shy asking their clients for video testimonials?
I only know that the combination video + testimonial
converts like crazy.
Video engages people like nothing else on the web. Think
about it: video contains all elements of a strong message—
audio, image, movement, and text. It’s far superior in
terms of engagement and conversion rates compared to
text only.
On the other hand, people trust other people. They
don’t trust you and your business because they know
that you want to sell them stuff. So your clients know

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that you’ll present yourself from your best side. Essen-

tially, you can tell them whatever you want, but there’s
no way for your clients to verify it.
While this sounds like a problem for your clients, it’s
much more your problem. If clients are not 100% sure
that they can trust the quality and professionalism of
your services, they are unlikely to buy. The only way of
overcoming this is to leverage testimonials. Testimonials—
and, to a larger extent, celebrity endorsements—are sci-
entifically proven to increase customer conversion and
trust.
Now combine the engagement booster of video with the
trust of testimonials, and you get one of the most pow-
erful marketing weapons in existence.
How can you, as a software developer, use this strategy
to convert more clients? Simple: ask every single client
you work for to send you a video testimonial. Nowadays,
many people are comfortable recording selfie videos, so
the barrier is low, and many clients will be happy to
help you out. I observed compliance rates of 40% and
higher when working as a freelance developer. That is,
if you give value first and solve the gig satisfactorily.
But how do you get to the first testimonial video if you
don’t have any clients? Simple: work for free. Seri-
ously. The value of your first few freelancing gigs will
be mainly in the experience, the testimonials, and the
164 CHAPTER 43. TESTIMONIAL VIDEOS

client base. The value is not in monetary compensation.

So it’s a reasonable choice to skip the monetary reward
altogether for the first few freelancing jobs. However, af-
ter you get your first video testimonials, you should rad-
ically ramp up your hourly rate to avoid getting stuck
in low-paying jobs.

Testimonial Video
How Adam Earns $5000 per Month as a Python
Freelancer on Upwork

https://youtu.be/IrzUr__AUIo

Action steps:

• Ask each client to give you a video testimonial.

• Put this on your gig checklist of things to do af-

ter each gig to streamline and optimize your value
 165

delivery system.

• Create a video testimonial page on your own web-

site.
 44

Expert Secret: Get the Referral Engine

Rolling

If you follow the tips outlined before, you will quickly get
more and more clients. But don’t stop there. You must
increase the demand for your services as long as you live.
Why? Because you’ll leverage one of the oldest princi-
ples of capitalism: supply and demand. Increase the
demand while keeping the supply constant, and prices
begin to rise—your prices.
The median number of friends of a Facebook user is
99 [Ugander, 2011]. So, every client gives you indirect
access to 99 more people. A handful of those clients are
potential customers for you. Think about it: Business
owners tend to befriend other business owners. If you
get the referral engine going, you will quickly have a

166
 167

super high demand for your services. You will choose

the clients for which you work. Thus, you will be able to
decline projects that you don’t like or that pay poorly.
The key question you should always ask is: how can I
get the referral engine going? A few simple things will
move the needle:

• Ask: Ask every client whether he knows someone

who’d be interested in your service. Do this in
addition to asking for the testimonial video. Of
course, you shouldn’t do both at the same time–
—but if you work together with a client for several
projects (or several weeks), you can spread your
requests out, giving a lot of value in between.

• Gift Cards: Give your client a gift card to be

used for your next freelancing service. This one is
huge! If you give your client a $50 gift card for
your services, he’ll feel the strong desire to take
you up on the offer. Nobody likes giving away
free money. Do you?

• Email Tactics: Every successful business is long-

term oriented. Focusing on the long term is one of
Amazon’s founding principles, and it helped make
Amazon the largest retailer in the world. So what
are some long-term tactics you can implement in
the blink of an eye? Send all your customers an
168 CHAPTER 44. REFERRAL ENGINE

email at least once per month. You can use a pro-

fessional email management system, MailChimp,
or just an Excel spreadsheet. Your list of for-
mer clients will become your most valuable asset.
Treat it as such, and take care of your customers.
Send them birthday or Christmas ecards, ask them
how it’s going in their business, and foster com-
munication as much as possible.

There are many more tactics to ensure that customers

of your freelance developer business are encouraged to
refer more clients to you. But the best strategy is to
provide awesome service. Give them great code, answer
any of their messages, and ask them if everything’s all
right. And clients will come back and refer you to their
friends.
Action steps:

• Outline your referral engine on a piece of paper.

Why would clients refer you to other clients?
 45

Expert Secret: Give, Give, Give, Right

Hook

This is the title of a popular book of social media guru

Gary V. There’s some truth to it: to build a warm rela-
tionship with your customers, users, and business clients
as a freelance developer, you must first give. The more
you give, the more you’ll receive. Don’t be pushy and
try to receive first. Don’t ask for a raise before you
haven’t proven that you’re worth it. Don’t negotiate
hard before you haven’t given value to the other party.
Of course, you can violate those rules, but it’ll bring you
no good.
As a freelance developer, you’re in the people business,
not just the coding business. You must learn to handle
people. And if people sense that you’re in it only to

169
170 CHAPTER 45. GIVE AND TAKE

extract maximum value for yourself, they will start to

push against you. On the other hand, if you have the
other person’s best interests at heart, they will usually
reciprocate and have your best interests at heart too.
Some people will indeed rip you off. But you cannot
protect yourself against it by ripping other people off—
this will only increase the likelihood of it happening.

Video 30: [Python Freelancer] You Are in The

People Business (Not in the Coding Business)!

https://python-freelancer.com

Action steps:

• Brainstorm and write down 20 things you can do

to give value to your clients in advance.

• Include at least three of them in your acquisition

and lead generation process.
 46

Expert Secret: Befriend Colleagues

This is a no-brainer. Your colleagues are also freelance

developers. If you have many of them as friends, it may
easily happen that you can ignore all other tips listed
here and still thrive in your coding business. Why? Be-
cause they will refer business your way, give you invalu-
able advice, show you what works to acquire clients and
what doesn’t, and teach you all the industry-specific tips
and tricks that they’ve learned over the years.
The most effective strategies are often easy to do. But
they are also easy not to do. Be the one who does them
relentlessly.
How can you befriend a lot of freelance developers if you
currently don’t know a single one? Here are some tips:
Action steps:

171
172 CHAPTER 46. BEFRIEND COLLEAGUES

• Investi 10-20 minutes in LinkedIn to connect with

peers and potential clients and give value where
you can. With this attitude, friendships will emerge
quickly.

• Go to local startup meetups. This will help you

increase your local community—rarely will you de-
velop deep friendships 100% online.

• Go to technical talks and conferences in the area

of computing and software engineering.

• Search for partners who want to build a thriving

freelance developer business with you. This is the
most prolific thing you can do to boost your speed
of building a thriving coding business and winning
lifelong friendships. Use any channel there is (in-
cluding Facebook groups) to find possible partners
for your business.

• Visit co-working spaces to find possible partners.

 47

Expert Secret: On Investing

Investing is the most natural thing in the universe. Trees

invest energy into seeds. Parents invest time, money,
and sleepless nights into their children. Companies in-
vest in employees. States invest in public school sys-
tems. They invest because they expect growth in their
investments.
The one who invests more and invests smarter has a
huge structural advantage. This is true for species,
states, and corporations alike. It’s also true for Python
coders! So what is the best way to invest as a Python
programmer?
There are fundamentally different ways you can invest
as a Python coder. Here are the best ways of investing
something now in order to get more back later:

173
174 CHAPTER 47. ON INVESTING

Invest learning time now to save much more de-

bugging time later. The more you learn the basics,
the less time you’ll spend debugging and solving prob-
lems. Any minute you use sharpening your skills now
will come back to you many times over. As Abraham
Lincoln said: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree,
and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” Learn-
ing Python is your way to sharpen your ax.
Invest money in the right learning material. For
example, say you want to create your own thriving cod-
ing business. You can spend thousands of hours figur-
ing out how to do it—and you’ll be smarter after you’ve
failed again and again. Or you can spend a few hundred
bucks on learning material. Decide for yourself.
Invest in your network and your credibility. This
one is huge—the ROI is much higher than anything else.
Give everything you have and don’t worry about it. The
world rewards people who are willing to give more than
they receive. Becoming loved and respected in your
community is one of the most important things you can
do, especially in the Python community, where people
help and assist each other like no other programming
language.
Invest in a good computer and internet connec-
tion. The value of time is much higher than the value
of money. If you have time, you can always get more
 175

money. But the reverse doesn’t hold true: you cannot

necessarily get more time by giving up money. Well,
sometimes you can—by investing in a fast notebook and
a fast internet connection, you’ll work 10% faster. It’ll
cost you less than $2000 per year. Although earning
$50,000 per year as a Python developer in the US can
be seen as minimum wage, this investment would still
return $5000 per year (against the $2000 invested). And
the more you earn, the higher your ROI.
Invest 8h in your daily sleep and recreation. By
sleeping properly, you can easily be 20% more produc-
tive. An additional benefit is that you’ll be less prone to
errors, which is especially important for coders: every
bug can cost you tens of hours of debugging time—–
and much more if your users find it first. You have to
sleep anyways, and there is nothing to gain by reducing
your sleep time. So sleep longer and optimize your sleep
quality.
Invest 10% of everything you earn. This is the
traditional advice on how to invest—and it’s sound. All
the wealth you will ultimately acquire will be the one
you have saved rather than spent on goods. By investing
10% of all capital that flows through your hands, you’ll
build yourself a growing capital base that increases by
the amount you contribute and its appreciation in value.
The smartest way to invest capital is to buy and hold
a broad index fund. It’s a mathematical necessity that,
176 CHAPTER 47. ON INVESTING

over time, you’ll beat even world-class investors with

this simple strategy.
Proof sketch: divide the world into active and passive in-
vestors. Active investors trade a lot. Passive investors
simply hold their portion of all the companies in the
world. As a group, passive investors will match the in-
dex. As a group, active investors match the index minus
the costs for trading. The expected return of a passive
investor is higher than that of an active investor. QED.
These are only a few examples of how you can bene-
fit from the idea of investing in yourself as a Python
programmer.
Action steps:

• Write down how you will invest and create an au-

tomatic investment system. For example, set up a
savings plan into an exchange-traded fund owning
a broad world index of diversified stocks. This is
not meant to be investment advice—only you can
know what suits your needs and risk profile best.

• Save at least 10% of your income and invest it

safely and steadily.
 48

Expert Secret: Leave Freelancing

Platforms

As a freelance developer, you can get a lot of traction

on general freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Free-
lancer.com, or Fiverr and developer-specific platforms
such as Topcoder. Check out which one is best for you.
However, these platforms are generally expensive. It’s
not part of a sound business strategy to rely forever on
a third-party platform to send clients your way. You’ll
not only pay 20% of your income for platforms such
as Upwork, but you’ll also lose control of your clients
and pricing strategy. Upwork can also kick you off their
platform—and you could lose the business in minutes
that took you years to build.
The best defense is to use, and not to get used by, these

177
 CHAPTER 48. LEAVE FREELANCING
178 PLATFORMS
freelancing platforms. Get a list of clients fast and then
build from there. Move the contract to the outside, earn
more money, and gain total control sooner, not later.
Action steps:

• Ask your best repeat customer to work with you

outside of a freelancing platform.
 49

Expert Secret: Maximize Control and

Payout

How can you optimize your earning potential and con-

trol? You create your own platform. For example: set
up a WordPress page where you offer your details and
service offerings. You retain 100% of the control over
your income, your projects, and even your testimonials.
The sky’s the limit. You can earn hundreds of dollars
per hour if you are smart about it!
However, there is also the need for you to market your
services. You need to install a marketing funnel. For ex-
ample, you attract potential customers using Facebook
ads. Then, you set up a landing page with a lead mag-
net so that they are motivated to give you their email
address. Finally, you nurture your leads and send them

179
180 CHAPTER 49. MAXIMIZE CONTROL

tons of value via email, thereby building a relationship

with them.
While this all may seem complicated, it is the most prof-
itable long-term strategy. But in the short term, most
people should gain experiences and testimonials on the
freelancing platforms and then gradually shift their fo-
cus towards their own platform as they get to know more
and more clients.
Action steps:

• Do you want to sell your services on your own

platform?

• Set up your WordPress page now! You can opti-

mize it later as you see fit—but set it up now!
 50

Expert Secret: Seek Independence

Let’s stay for a moment and further explore the previous

expert tip.
Freelancing platforms offer you convenience and speed
in starting your own freelancing business. Examples are
Upwork, Freelancer, or Fiverr. Some of those platforms
(e.g., Upwork) will manually approve and activate your
profile, so it will take some time to sign up. The reason
is that these platforms receive thousands of applications
every day. They have to be selective in order to guaran-
tee a certain quality of service. I have read about many
cases where Upwork rejected freelancers with attractive
profiles.
On first impression, these platforms seem to be very at-
tractive for your emerging freelance business. But be
careful! Many existing freelancers rely too heavily on

181
182 CHAPTER 50. SEEK INDEPENDENCE

these platforms. By using a platform such as Upwork,

you make yourself vulnerable. Your income depends on
the decisions of the platform owners. And don’t think
they have your best interest at heart. For example, Up-
work already takes a 20% cut (!) from your hourly rate,
just for brokering your services to potential clients. And
their cut is pre-tax. You are working the first 12 min-
utes of each hour for Upwork and the next 28 minutes
for the government.
What are the risks of depending on a freelancing plat-
form? The platform owners can suddenly increase their
cut. They can throw you from the platform for no rea-
son whatsoever. They will stop sending clients your way
as soon as their algorithm decides that you are not the
optimal fit for a client project. The main problem is
that you don’t control your customer base. On the back
of only these platforms, you cannot build a robust and
sustainable business.
So what’s the alternative? If you are serious about be-
coming a Python freelancer, setting up your own website
is the way to go. This allows you to offer your services to
clients all over the world. You can establish trust, and
clients will perceive you as a professional freelancer. Use
freelancing platforms to attract clients, but retain them
for yourself.
To increase your conversions, add testimonials to your
 183

website. Collect them during each of your freelancing

activities. Of course, this is a bit harder than just setting
up a freelancing account on Upwork. But you can figure
it out with Google and YouTube. Building it this way is
a much more sustainable foundation for your freelancing
business. A nice plus is that your professional website
sets you apart from your competition. It increases your
chances of getting clients.
Only after creating your own web presence should you
use these platforms to get new clients. Make sure to al-
ways refer to your professional website within any project
application.
How do you retain clients beyond the first project? Fo-
cus on always over-delivering to new clients! Make them
happy. Ask them to contact you directly the next time
they need a similar service. And give them a special of-
fer for their next freelancing service. Finally, ask them
for referrals and testimonials after the job is done.
As you establish a growing client base that you con-
trol, you will find yourself using Upwork, Freelancer,
and Fiverr less and less. Because of that, your profit
margin will grow over time. Not only will your income
increase, but it will also stand on a solid foundation.
You own the foundation of your business which is your
client base.
Action steps:
184 CHAPTER 50. SEEK INDEPENDENCE

• Get a meaningful domain such as python-freelancing-

services.com.

• Create a WordPress page introducing your ser-

vices.
 51

Expert Secret: Consultant, Not a

Freelancer

One of my breakthroughs as a self-employed Python

coder was to reposition myself as a consultant and coach
rather than a freelance developer. You may ask (and
rightly so): what’s the difference?
The most important difference is in the clients’ percep-
tion: A consultant is a trusted advisor while a freelance
developer is a commodity. You want to be the trusted
advisor because, as an advisor, you do less work yourself
while charging higher hourly rates. As a freelance devel-
oper, you often end up doing the ugly stuff (like finding
nasty small bugs in a complicated server setting) that
takes hours and hours. As a consultant, you can talk
about strategy and overall system architecture. Both

185
186 CHAPTER 51. CONSULTANT POSITIONING

skill sets are highly valuable to the client, but the latter
skill tends to get paid better. I don’t know the reason,
but that’s just how the world works. Maybe it’s just
because the client cannot appreciate the complexity of
setting up a program or finding a nasty bug. It just
seems to be a small thing. As a rule of thumb: always
sell big results.
After all, the client pays you for results, not for time in-
vested. This may easily be the most important advice in
this list of freelance developer tips. If you currently work
in a job, you have the deeply ingrained feeling of getting
paid for your efforts. If you put in little effort, you ex-
pect to get paid little. However, in the self-employment
space, it’s all about results. Time invested has little to
no effect on your compensation. And it shouldn’t have.
What takes you minutes can take hours for someone
with less experience. Work should always gravitate to
the people that can finish it most effectively.
The rule to sell big results can also mean that you find
nasty bugs. But now you’re doing it only if the client is
terrified of this bug. The best-case scenario is that they
have already invested tens of hours but didn’t find the
bug. If you find the bug now (even if it takes you only
an hour or so), they will gladly pay you large sums of
money. Why? Because you saved them large sums of
time and, thus, money.
 187

It’s all about the results.

Action steps:

• Write down how you plan to position yourself as

an IT consultant rather than a freelance developer.

• What unique value will you provide as a consul-

tant after your upgrade?
 52

Expert Secret: Convert with Strategy

Sessions

What’s a strategy session? A strategy session is a free

consultancy service you do for your client. It’s the kick-
off meeting that starts a regular consultancy service.
As a freelance developer with many leads but no customers—
what’s your problem? Most likely, the clients do not see
how you can improve their lives. That’s what strategy
sessions are for. The most successful consultants that
earn six or seven figures have done thousands of strategy
sessions. That’s their primary lead conversion strategy,
and it works beautifully.
Why does it work?
There are many reasons why strategy sessions are among
the most effective ways of converting a lead into a cus-

188
 189

tomer. A few of them are listed as follows: You tap into

the power of reciprocity. As you’ve given a lot to the
lead, they feel the urge to give back—by buying your
service. You show the client how useful your service
is. If you can give clients value in your strategy ses-
sion, they see exactly how you can help them, and they
wouldn’t like to miss you.
Using strategy sessions is a great sales conversion strat-
egy (“the puppy sale”). If you want someone to buy a
puppy from you, just give it to them in a free trial. As
soon as they have tried the lovely puppy with its dark
eyes and cute attitude, the puppy is sold. Free strategy
sessions represent a low barrier to clients. You give value
for free. This way, you draw them into your funnel, and
there’s virtually no logical reason for the clients to reject
your offer. You learn what the client wants. The more
strategy sessions you’ve implemented, the more you’ve
learned what your clients want and how to sell to them.
This is probably the most important point in this list.
What do free strategy sessions look like for software de-
velopers or data scientists? Just talk about where you
see the potential of improving the code base, analyze
parts of their company code, tell them the benefits (such
as how much money they lose for every second delay),
and give them a broad picture and clarity.
Virtually every business can benefit significantly from
190 CHAPTER 52. STRATEGY SESSIONS

improved IT solutions, so for a freelance developer, strat-

egy sessions are a huge way of driving business. This is
probably the most underutilized conversion strategy in
the world. Use it and crush your competition!
Action steps:

• Every week, write down 10-20 clients to contact.

• Every day, write to one client with an offer for a

free strategy session that’s very specific to their
business: how can you help them?

• Prepare for the clients that take you on the offer

and create a nice (PowerPoint or Keynote) presen-
tation. Show them how they can earn more money
and where you come into the play.
 53

Expert Secret: Alternative Tutoring

I work closely with hundreds of coders who want to be-

come Python freelancers on the side or as their main
profession.
It quickly became apparent that most upcoming Python
freelancers don’t believe that they can bring value to the
marketplace. They think in terms of finishing software
projects for companies. That’s it.
But this is not the only route to take as a Python free-
lancer. An attractive industry is often overlooked: cre-
ating your own education business.
In your city today, there is a small percentage of people
who want to learn Python. It may be 1% or 10%, but
it’s a significant number of people.
If you are a born teacher, consider starting your career as

191
192 CHAPTER 53. TUTORING

a Python freelance teacher. Start with 1-on-1 education.

Use Craigslist, Facebook groups, or the job board at
your local university to find students you can teach, even
if you are just starting. You only need to be one step
ahead of them. Your student will appreciate that you
can see their perspective. As you learn and become
better, you can gradually increase your class sizes until
you offer full-fledged seminars. I’ve seen people (e.g., the
German Python seminar teacher B. Klein) who’ve done
exactly that and now earn $400 per seminary student—–
and they have dozens of students per seminar.
A great bonus is that as you create your local seminar
business, you can gradually collect Python learning ma-
terials and publish them online to create a more scalable
online business that exists independently of your own
time.
To supplement your income, you can also register on an
online tutoring site to educate people online as a Python
tutor.
A clear road to success: your Python freelancing fi-
nances your education and your scalable online business
creation.
Action steps:

• Is giving local seminars for you?

• Are you a teacher?
 193

• Consider shifting your freelancing business to a

more educational venture.
 54

Expert Secret: Your Personal Brand

As a freelance developer, you need to connect with po-

tential clients (leads) to generate business for you. Who
hires freelance developers? Other businesses. Think
about it. You’re now part of the B2B marketplace. You
need to attract other business owners and show them
how you can be a valuable part of their business. You
need to show them how you can make them more money
than they pay you. It’s a simple game once you’ve un-
derstood the rules.
So what’s the best social media platform to connect with
business owners in a professional environment? Correct:
LinkedIn.
Microsoft’s platform is the incarnation of a professionally-
focused B2B social media platform. It’s far easier to
connect with business owners you don’t know and still

194
 195

make a professional, trustworthy impression. Why? Be-

cause the platform ensures that there’s little spam. You
need to act as a real human, not as an anonymous cor-
poration. If you spam other people, you do this in your
name, losing credibility. You cannot hide. That’s why
LinkedIn is superior to creating professional contacts.
Give more value than you’re getting paid for.
This is how you slowly and steadily build your network.
I recommend you to focus on one social network, and
that’s it. Don’t lose your focus. Don’t spend too much
time on social media—that’s what everyone else is do-
ing, and it’s not an effective use of your time. Instead,
spend ten to twenty minutes per day on LinkedIn, in-
creasing your network and improving your appearance.
Then, focus on the other points outlined here.
Action steps:

• Create a LinkedIn account now.

• Dump the other social networks that distract you

from your main objective: building a thriving cod-
ing business.
 55

Expert Secret: Create a Blog

Video 31: How to Get Passive Income as a

Programmer with Blogging?

https://python-freelancer.com

Creating a blog is a long-term strategy to build your

market value. And it’s fundamentally different from
creating a social media account. Why? Because you’ll
create your own community—–for yourself, not for some
Silicon Valley billionaire.
Creating your own blog is long-term because it takes
a few months until your articles rank for keywords on
Google or other search engines. You have to spend time

196
 197

writing articles, testing and tweaking the designs, main-

taining your community, and learning about search en-
gine optimization. You must invest significant effort for
a long period.
But if you commit to staying in the game, it’ll be the
one thing that boosts your reach from hundreds of peo-
ple to millions. The demand for your services will sky-
rocket while supply stays constant. You can charge pre-
mium prices like nobody else in your industry: hundreds
of dollars per hour. Many bloggers also earn passive
income through ads or sales of information products.
They don’t even sell their time anymore because they
don’t need to.
In addition to that, writing blog articles in a program-
ming niche is an excellent way of building your exper-
tise. Write about machine learning with TensorFlow,
data science with Pandas, or neural network engineering
with C++. This is how you’ll build detailed, low-level,
and robust knowledge in a field.
Action steps:

• Create your programming blog (e.g., with Word-

Press) now.

• Select a niche that you will master and dominate.

The smaller the niche, the better—if you’re a be-
198 CHAPTER 55. CREATE A BLOG

ginner coder. You can always expand your niche

once you’ve achieved dominance.

Video 32: Passive Income as a (Python) Coder: 3

Simple Ideas

https://python-freelancer.com
 56

Final Remarks

Congratulations, you made it through this whole Python

freelance developer textbook!
By reading this book, you should now have a much bet-
ter understanding of how to create a thriving coding
business online. In his famous 1962 book The Success
System That Never Fails, W. Clement Stone proposed
that there are three steps that will guarantee you success
in life:

• Inspiration to action: increase your inherent

motivation to thrive in your field.

• Know-how: learn which skills will get results for

you.

199
200 CHAPTER 56. FINAL REMARKS

• Activity knowledge: acquire knowledge about

the small habits and activities that matter in your
field.

After reading this book about Python freelancing suc-

cess, you now know what to do and how to do it (know-
how ). You know how to develop good habits and which
activities will boost your success as a freelance devel-
oper (activity knowledge). And hopefully, you now also
have inspiration to take action!
Throw yourself into practice. Get your first client, fo-
cus on value creation, and overdeliver. The principles
are simple and universal. Apply them quickly and go
through the real-world feedback cycle.

• We worked hard to make this book worth your

time and money. But no book can reach perfection
without feedback from early adopters and highly
active readers. For any feedback, questions, or
problems you may have, please send me an email
to admin@finxter.com.
• To grow your Python skills on autopilot, register
for the free Python email course here: https://
blog.finxter.com/subscribe.
• Do you want to learn how to sell your skills as
a Python freelancer? Get the free “How to Build
 201

Your High-Income Skill Python” webinar at https:

//blog.finxter.com/webinar-freelancer/.

• To join the Finxter freelancer program with guar-

anteed success, join us at https://blog.finxter.
com/become-python-freelancer-course/

Let us express our deepest gratitude that you have spent

your time meeting with us throughout this book. Above
everything else, we value your time. The ultimate goal of
any good textbook should be to save time. By working
through this book, you have gained insights into build-
ing a thriving six-figure coding business online. But,
only if you apply your skills to the real world will you
experience a positive return on invested time and money.
Keep investing in yourself, work on practical projects,
and stay active within the Finxter community to con-
tinuously improve your Python skills.
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Coffee Break Python Workbook: 127 Python

Puzzles to Push You From Zero to Hero in Your
Coffee Breaks
This book is the chess grandmaster’s way of learning
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each pointing to gaps in your knowledge, challenges you
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Coffee Break NumPy is a new step-by-step system to
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Coffee Break Python Slicing is all about growing your
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As a bonus, you will track your individual Python cod-
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Coffee Break Python

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