What 165 projects taught me
Seven lessons from 165 freelance front-end projects on scope, copy, feedback, handover and saying no to the wrong clients.
I have now finished 165 freelance projects, from a single landing page for a local florist to a full site with a shop and a booking system. Most of what I know about running the work came from the ones that went badly. Here are the seven lessons I would give anyone starting out.
The seven lessons
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Write the scope down before you quote. A short list of pages, features and content owners saves more arguments than any contract clause. If a feature is not on the list, it is extra, and it gets its own price.
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Ask who writes the words. Most delays I have seen were not in the code. They were waiting for copy. I ask for the text, or for a named person who will write it, before I agree on a launch date.
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Charge for the extra rounds of feedback. One round of changes is part of the job, and two is fine on a small project. After that, every round eats into the margin. I say so early and put it in writing.
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Build the boring parts first. Forms, contact details and the mobile menu are the things clients test first. I make sure they work with real data in week one, not the night before launch.
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Keep a note of every decision. Clients forget what they agreed to, and sometimes so do I. A short email after each call, with the date, saves a lot of trouble at the end.
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Hand over with a short guide. Two pages on how to edit the content, where the files live and who to call about hosting. Clients who can edit their own site send fewer emails.
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Say no to the wrong clients early. Some enquiries are not a fit. The budget is unclear, nobody can make decisions, or the deadline cannot work. A polite no in the first week is kinder to both sides than a stressful project that nobody enjoys.
What changed for me
These lessons did not come from reading books. They came from small failures that were obvious in hindsight. Once I started writing scope notes and asking about copy up front, my projects ran to time more often. My late nights dropped, and so did the tension with clients.
What I would tell myself at the start
Early on I thought my job was to make the site look good. Most of the work is really about making decisions visible. When everyone agrees on what is being built, who is doing what and when it will be finished, the design almost takes care of itself. I wish somebody had told me that earlier. It would have saved me a lot of evenings spent fixing problems I could have seen coming.