From Freelance animator to Software Developer

UpdatedOctober 4, 2024

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From Freelance animator to Software Developer

Soumya Mondal

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Blogs by Soumya

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Early challenges

The beginning was not without its challenges. I had to learn to manage my time effectively, communicate clearly with clients, and deliver high-quality work within tight deadlines.

Funnily enough, I was doing "5 minutes of character animation using some of my existing models for just $5". Very often, buyers would ask if my gig was a scam. I had to explain that I was just starting out and that $5 was a significant amount for a student in India at that time.

I managed to earn a decent amount in the next few months, which helped convince my father that I was heading in the right direction.

Transition into Video Editing

On Fiverr, to increase visibility, I also offered a couple of video editing gigs. I gradually started attracting clients from various industries, particularly for video editing. Many of them were international customers, which offered better payouts compared to my earlier gigs.

Eventually, I moved out of Fiverr with a few of my regular video editing clients and began working for them directly.

Left International clients

While video editing seemed lucrative, constant client revisions and working US hours while being in India made my lifestyle very difficult. Years went by, and by this time, I was in my first year of undergraduate college.

It was almost impossible to attend engineering classes and manage night meetings and numerous client revisions. So, I made the choice that many Indian students would make: I left freelancing to focus on my studies and the gaming channel I was running at that time.

A Major Turn

In my first year of engineering, I heard about various tech fields and clubs. Web development caught my interest, so I started learning it. After six months, I began creating websites on WordPress and sharing the innovative things I was doing, on one of my websites.

Surprisingly, I started receiving direct messages from international clients asking for help with their websites. I enjoyed web development so much that I wanted to learn more in-depth.

Towards the end of 2020, I started learning NodeJS and was again approached by a few high-paying clients through direct messages.

Recent Gig

It's been over 7 years since I started freelancing. I’m glad I explored a few fields before settling into software development (for now).
Currently, I share content on the development process of full-stack websites on my YouTube channel.

Last month, a client approached us to develop a complete web app for building a startup product for $3000, with a deadline of 21 days.

At the moment, I have a few team members to whom I outsource tasks, and I provide mentorship to them. I am mostly unavailable for freelancing tasks due to my full-time job as a software developer.

Unfortunately, the client specifically wanted me to complete the project, and due to my unavailability, we had to decline the deal.

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