Why Freelancers Should Leave Their Room and Join A Startup

Most people think that the freedom to stay in your pajamas and have flexibility in working hours is more than a dream come true. Freelancers can sleep until afternoon, go out to explore the city on his whim-something that many of us desire! (LOL) Apart from this, you can also select your clients as you are the boss of your own business. All these is attractive. But here we are claiming that you should not freelance and rather look for an opportunity to join a startup. Our claim may sound a bit audacious, but read on and you might end up concurring!

In freelancing, you’ll have to deal with inconsistent workload and income. In case you have left a job to freelance, you’ll always be under pressure to make more money than what you were assured to get every month.There is also a risk of not getting paid. You have to be the debt collector and also need to remain vigilant to avoid non-paying clients. Having no employer means no holidays, no paid leaves and no health insurance!

Exciting, isn’t it? Though it is lucrative to have flexible working hours, very often you end up working extra hours to meet the deadline. Moreover being your own boss, you are the one who earns contracts, markets and produces value which leaves you little or no time for your personal interests.Be ready to do all your administrative work: billing, dealing with accounting matters, own sales and marketing etc.

Freelancing can be isolating. You don’t have anyone to interact with. No manager to rectify your queries or help you through when you are stuck; no colleague to share your workload.

Being a freelancer, you have to find business for you and that will require you to establish your name as a freelancer. It is much like setting up a traditional business where you will have to generate goodwill among the customers. It eats up your valuable time and drains most of your energy.

If you are just getting started, brace yourself for stiff competition from the big folks out there. This strong competition will make it hard for you to find a client and also will force you to offer a lower price than what you’d like.

Making sense, aren’t we?

Now consider the benefits of working in a startup:

Startup journey is full of adventures. It will give you to work on an interesting project and you can contribute towards solving a problem that the startup is addressing. It will be intellectually stimulating and will hone your skills for sure.

Working at a startup will allow you to try on a lot of different hats. You will be exploring a whole new culture. Being a content writer for a startup you will be inspired to try out a bunch of other activities that your teammates might be expert at, be it marketing or a new technology. You will be enjoying your effort being appreciated over social media and that too in a large segment of audience. Who knows! Maybe apart from being a writer at a startup, you will find a new passion of creating beautiful graphics as well? Working in a team of rockstars will make you a rockstar too!

As a freelancer, you were getting sick of isolation, whereas in a startup you will work with a bunch of interesting and enthusiastic people. Be ready to hear exuberant cheers for good work and energetic motivational speeches when faced with failure. You get to network with people these future business tycoons and this might help you in your future endeavors.

Also Read: Difference in work culture between a corporate job and a start-up 

Working at a startup will also help in your all round development. You’ll learn to network, teamwork, leadership etc. If you plan to join some other company in future or aspire to start your own business, these skills will benefit you. Also in today’s world when a lot many startups are coming up, you have a wide exit option and you can actually associate yourself with different teams working on different ideas.

Startups are poised with tremendous growth opportunities. A small start-up might not be able to pay you much, but it can work as a springboard for your future success. Many startups offer equity instead of salary and even a small percentage of equity in a startup with the potential to grow will generate enough wealth for you in the future. Startups that are doing good and receiving funding are on a massive manhunt and the paycheck is heavy. If you end up in one of these, you will make way more than freelancing.

If you still feel that you are too addicted to freelancing to let go of it, then simply continue it while working in a startup. Though you won’t do it full time, you can make it more of a hobby that will earn you some extra bucks!