Freelancing provides flexibility to build side projects
Consider freelancing as a bridge to product income. Freelancing provides the flexibility and income to build side projects without the constraints of full-time employment.
When to use
When transitioning from employment to entrepreneurship
Don't do this
Staying in inflexible employment while trying to build
9 Founders Who Did This
Uses Upwork freelancing to fund micro-SaaS building, believes freelancing is 'the best way to learn how to run a business'
Built Weightley nights and weekends while working full-time in management at Shutterfly. Used side project as learning opportunity to regain coding skills.
Built Starter Story as side hustle while working 9-5 full-time job by waking early and doing deep work sessions at Starbucks every morning before work
Chose larger company job specifically for work-life balance and ability to close laptop at 5pm, explicitly avoided early-stage companies that require founder mentality
Applied to The Hustle specifically to learn newsletter growth and media scaling, treating the job as a stepping stone to his own newsletter business
Moved to Batumi, Georgia ($250/month rent) to stretch savings while bootstrapping Linvo as a solo developer; used geographic arbitrage to extend runway
Taught himself to code via freeCodeCamp, freelanced as a React developer in London to earn income, then used that flexibility and income to fund building indie SaaS products.
Freelanced part-time while building Headlime to maintain income during the early months when the product wasn't generating significant revenue.
Used freelancing income to fund living expenses while building Uneed as side project for 4+ years before going full-time