Another great post. I have been using the same business plan for a number of years now. I work directly with my clients but 75% of my production work is done by freelancers all over the world.

Being able to go to bed knowing work is still being accomplished and that I am still making money as I sleep is a great feeling. And even though I don’t travel the world (yet) it’s nice to be able to go on vacation and still keep my clients happy.

After spending a number of years sitting in front of my computer all night after working with clients all day, it’s great to be able to delegate the production to other freelancers that I trust to do the same high quality work my customers expect from me.

A note to Andy - Would love to get on your team, even though I do mostly print production work, I have a few web catalog designers using my service.

This is very interesting indeed. I had not thought about that you can run your business remotely, ‘employing’ other freelancers. What a win-win situation! It makes perfect sense. You work as the project manager in stead of ‘on-the-floor’. I will think about this once I get some more experience. My plan was to work location independently anyway, and this opens up a whole lot of new opportunities for doing that.

Congratulations with setting up the web studio

Fantastic little piece - validating and supporting my idea of freelancing on top of my day job by getting majority of the work outsourced to other freelancers and I simply take the seat of project manager and carrying out administration of my accounts.

My first couple of projects - I was doing the front end development, and on top of my day job. This simply wasn’t going to work - i was unable to give my 110% energy onto the front end development - and of course - perhaps one of the most important things in winning more work is by having a quality portfolio!

Now I am trying to build relationships with fellow freelancers out there - trying to get locals first by advertising on free boards such as gumtree.com. Then I will be able to see them face to face rather than over email via another continent.

Keep up the supportive writing!

Gill - http://www.gillandco.com

This is something I tried in my business. I say “tried” because I’m back doing it all myself. The results just weren’t up to the standard I set myself. In any business that employs people, finding the right people can be the most difficult challenge facing you.

@John Pitchers: Completely agree! This has been the hardest part for me too, and it’s task I didn’t take lightly. Once the appropriate people are extensively researched and brought into the fold, it’s a great thing when everything goes well. I see how this would be a huge problem if the right people just couldn’t be found.

Great post.

There are two great books on the subject (not necessarily for web work, but automating business in general):

E-Myth, by Michael Gerber
The Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris

You might check them out.

Um, it’s startup, not statup. [moderator — you may delete my comment on that once you fix the spelling error]

Second, I wish you luck. As a successful freelancer now, I’ve found that it’s incredibly easy to make money in this business if you know what you’re doing. But your enemy is time and getting tasks accomplished in the timeframe of many clients. And, sad to say, you’ll occasionally bump into bad freelancers out there who want you to do a project estimate and perhaps a 20 minute screen mockup — just so they can stop talking to you and can take your estimate and 20 minute screen mockup as inspiration for how they will respond to the client. You’ll also encounter clients who are what I call “children” — for instance, young, ambitious guys who want you to build them a video sharing site for $500 USD, which is completely unrealistic.

On this site, the cartoons and the 12 Breeds of Clients — those are so true.

Great article, it’s business model that requires a lot of work and it’s definetely very risky, but it’s totally worth it. What I think it’s the major problem with this model is the standards. The quality of the work can greatly vary from country to country, obviously due to the different kind of education available (by this I specifically refer to countries in development, such as mine) but still, there’s a considerable amount of capable individuals that can do any kind of work (easy example is India). At the moment Im starting a design studio in my country (small, me and another freelancer), but in the future I’d like to offer this kind service and apply this business model

I agree it can be tricky and risky, but challenges are good! One of the key objectives in starting out should be forming relationships with people who’s work you respect and trust (as you mentioned). There are lots of great people out there who are very talented.

Another benefit of this model is to help allow time for researching other services you may wish to provide. Instead of having to focus on the work piece, you can focus strategically on learning new skills and researching other possible service offerings. If you are a great web designer, why not learn more about video production, etc.

Anyway, just my two cents. I enjoyed the article. Thanks!