Jovan Cicmil's Blog
How I Used Outsourcing To Increase My Freelance Income
February 27, 2021
When you begin working as a freelancer, you can find yourself increasing your earnings steadily every month. However, growth inevitably slows down after some time and, eventually, earnings plateau.
How can a freelancer keep increasing their earnings after they’ve filled up their entire schedule and raised their hourly rate as far as it will go? There are several possibilities, including ...
Should Freelancers Charge Fixed-Price or Hourly?
February 24, 2021
Have you ever undercharged a client? Have you ever had a client complain that you’re overcharging them?
These sorts of disputes are common in the freelance world. Many come down to one simple mistake: charging a fixed price when you should be charging an hourly rate, or vice-versa. The choice should be made for each individual project and based on several variables.
With this in mind, I ...
Test-Driven Development is a Religion
February 15, 2021
If you asked a random person the question “are software developers rational as a whole”, you would very likely get an affirmative response. That response would show ignorance of the periodic pseudo-religious movements within the industry.
One of the current religions is test-driven development. If you write tests after you write the actual code that performs the task at hand, you are now ...
How To Be an Effective Leader in Remote Teams
February 6, 2021
The year 2020 brought about a remote revolution of sorts — whether they wanted to or not, many companies decentralized their operations.
This decentralization exposed some challenges of remote work to the wider public. As someone who has worked in several distributed teams over the course of a decade, I’ve watched even the most competent companies struggle to grasp the new ...
The Only Time I Failed a Tech Interview
February 5, 2021
Recently, I came across my notes from a technical interview I did back in 2017 with a funded tech startup. The interview consisted of a 30-minute video call, followed by a coding assignment that took about 2 hours, and a 30-minute feedback session the following day.
Despite doing well on the call and having a stimulating discussion with their CTO, I did a pretty mediocre job of the coding ...
Five Rules for Taking Your Project From Idea to Deployment
January 26, 2021
How many side projects have you started and then quit? Software developers are always learning new technologies, trying out new things, and building their ideas. They also build teams, launch startups, and create paid products.
However, most developers I have talked to report an abysmal completion rate on their projects. Many have 10 or more unfinished side projects, and most have participated ...
How To Invest in Yourself Like a Growth Company
January 21, 2021
Some of the fastest-growing companies in the world are losing money every year, and yet investors have more and more faith in them each year. The bottom line remains negative, and the stock prices are soaring. Why is that?
It all comes down to why the bottom line is negative. The fastest-growing companies often lose money for years because they’re reinvesting all their profits into better ...
How I Evolved My English Skills as a Non-Native Speaker
January 11, 2021
Have you ever watched a lecture, or read an article, where the author had a lot of knowledge but struggled to express it clearly in English? I’ve personally dropped at least a dozen Youtube tutorials for this reason.
If you’re a non-native speaker thinking about creating content, it can be a daunting prospect. Will native speakers mock you? Will your friends find you pretentious? Will your ...
How I Went From ‘Hello World’ to My First Freelance Client in 1 Month
January 7, 2021
Back in 2011, I was a university graduate with a very foggy look at the future. The field of study that I had chosen at age 18 now seemed like a foolish choice. Even though it was an engineering degree, in my country it resigned me to office work in one of maybe a dozen telecommunications companies.
This is not what I had envisioned when I left high school.
I was lucky enough, however, to ...
The 4 Most Important Lessons I Learned Growing My Business in 2020
December 31, 2020
This was an eventful year for the world, to say the least. For me, it was an echo of the immortal words of Charles Dickens: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the year I started creating content in addition to my regular freelancing work. I wrote close to 40 articles and published my first course on Udemy.
It was also the year of lockdowns, Covid-19, and frustrating ...
Money Management Tips for Freelancers
December 21, 2020
I owe a lot to freelancing. As my readers know, it has provided me with reliable income and <a href="/blog/the-evolution-of-my-productivity-as-a-freelancer" target="_blank">ample opportunity for self-improvement</a>.
However, freelancing isn’t without its challenges. Being independent also means being self-reliant. There is ...
The Evolution of My Productivity as a Freelancer
December 13, 2020
Those of you who have been following my work know that I have been freelancing for 9 years . During that time, my productivity has improved dramatically. How?
Through trial-and-error, as well as by reading many books on the subject, I have evolved a series of rules and principles that I adhere to on a daily basis. I am sharing ...
How a Single Freelancer Outperforms a Whole Team
December 7, 2020
Companies that want to hire you will often use an argument consisting of two logical fallacies, wrapped in a veneer of condescension. Specifically, they will tell you that you have to choose between security and freedom (false dichotomy fallacy). They will base their pitch on the presupposition that working in a team is more productive and more secure, and then proceed to ask you whether ...
How I Negotiated the Sale of My Bootstrapped Business
December 2, 2020
There are probably more articles out there about starting a business and running a business than you can read in a lifetime. But, what about selling a business? If your business is successful, you will eventually want to cash out. For major successes, this can take the form of going public by listing the business in the stock market. For minor ones, you will usually be acquired by a larger ...
How to Find Meaningful Work
November 3, 2020
What is meaningful work? The answer to this question changes from age to age and from society to society, but only on the surface. The essence remains the same because it comes from the very core of our humanity.
“Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
Philosophy is no match for evolution
For ...
How To Adopt Radical Open-Mindedness
October 21, 2020
I recently read Ray Dalio’s book, Principles. Dalio is one of the most successful investors in history, and a person of remarkable breadth and vision. In this book, he outlines the principles that he built over a long and rich career, and that we can use to guide our life and work.
Out of all the concepts in the book, possibly the most important (and certainly the most widely applicable) is ...
What Web Development Agencies Get Wrong
October 2, 2020
If somebody wants to pay you to build a wooden cottage for them, what do you do? Do you:
Name a price for building a wooden cottage.
Offer to build them a mansion with a swimming pool, solar panels, garage, alarm system, and an exotic garden, then try to bill them for that.
Common sense says that everyone should choose the former option. Yet, web development agencies routinely choose ...
How to Choose a 21st Century Career
September 17, 2020
How many times have you heard a sentence that started with the words “I wish I had…”? College graduates wish they had understood how the world works before they chose their majors (or, indeed, whether to attend university at all). Middle-aged men and women wish they had chosen this industry over that.
Everybody has 20/20 hindsight, but peering into the future is a completely different ...
Six Ways to Monetize Your Upwork Profile
July 30, 2020
I’ve been a freelancer for 9 years. Upwork has provided me with the sort of work that I never thought possible before that. The sort of work that you can enjoy doing and make good money while you’re at it — all on your own schedule. But, that’s not the whole story.
Contrary to popular belief, there is great value to be found in a ...
Applying Lessons From Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” to Your Business
June 17, 2020
One doesn’t need to be a literary expert to understand one thing — if a literary work survives for millennia, there is value in it that is intrinsic and timeless. There are messages within that have found application to the lives of people across centuries and continents. Thus, such works must not be ignored by anyone seeking to educate themselves.
The Art of War isn’t merely a ...
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