Happy Birthday to Freelancing

Hey people, its now an year that I have been working on several projects from around the world and I have gained enough experience to share with you on which projects/ works should one select and which works(though the tempting ones) should one let go off.

So, there are a few things one should take care of a few things while accepting any project.

• Firstly make sure of the person you are working with is the real client or is forwarding someone else's project. Though there isn't anything bad with working with an intermediate person(who's just forwarding a project), but usually it becomes real difficult doing work because that person may not know the exact specifications/requirements of the project. I have had a similar experience while working for a freelancing firm. They don't give you a passage for direct communication with the actual client for obvious reasons, and hence your every query is answered by the intermediate person. This results in incorrect or incomplete info and usually delays the work. So make sure you communicate with the person enough to gather all the details of the project.
• Next thing one should be clear about is the platform being used. I remember trying to work on a project which required Java. I convinced the client to use PHP over Java for some reasons and he agreed to it. But later it turned out that the project was not very feasible with PHP and had to be done in Java. So not being very comfortable with Java, I had to turn down that project. So no matter which language you code in, you should be very clear which language/platform is to be used in the work.
• And one should discuss each and every term with the customer/client and should have an exhaustive list of the requirements of the work. Usually what happens is that the project requirements keeps on increasing as one proceeds. So clearing all the terms with the customer makes it easy for you to work.
• Always leave a good impression on the customer (usually the customer have multiple works and if you have nice terms with him, he may award you more projects in future). Even if you turn down the project, you should talk it over with the customer and tell him the reason for turning it down. Maybe you could work down the stuff sometime later. I have two PPO offers because of leaving a good impression on the clients.
  
• Lastly One should be very clear of the background of the person one is working for. There are several people offering projects, very attractive and luring. But one must take care that the person one is working for is genuine. He might make lame excuses while making payments and may even won't pay at all. There are several con sitting to serve fodder to you. Talk bout the payments earlier and if possible ask them to escrow some amount (Its better to get some money less than not getting it at all).

Please remember these things when you go off for doing some work in your free time. So this was a post to celebrate the first anniversary of my freelancing work. I hope this goes on and on as I really love doing this work. And I would really recommend every programmer good or bad to atleast try freelancing work atleast once, its fun ( I have also recommended the same to a couple of my friends and they have also loved it).