I am turning 16 in 3 months and I want to start freelancing then. I want to earn money and get some experience .

I will still go to school until I have my a levels so I can go to university later.

Do you have any advice for an absolute freelancing beginner? I will probably make websites with HTML and CSS (of course, what the hell else) and react. Nodejs and mongodb for the Backend.

What should I do in these 3 months to prepare myself?

I want to build a portfolio website and learn more about node, especially how to do safe authentication in these 3 months, anything else? Also which websites would you recommend me?

Contracts, use contracts. Let a lawyer check it.

@CWins I don't think that I can afford one, aren't there any websites which do this for you?

@mrtnrdl so I guess I shouldn't even start doing it?

@mrtnrdl ok, thanks for saving me from this cruel world out there. I thought it was better

@mrtnrdl thank you and I hope I didn't waste your time. Also Guten Tag , zufälligerweise war ich heute in Nürnberg

@mrtnrdl ja, es gab eine Aktion von der Deutschen Bahn dass man mit einer 1 im Zeugnis kostenlos innerhalb Bayerns fahren kann.
Manchmal ist es auch schön noch in der Schule zu sein

@mightyleguan can I be brutally honest with you? Don't even think about freelancing at your age. You're going to be hounded by your youth, irrespective of your skills.

I would suggest you create your own project. Build something interesting, maybe some sort of SaaS platform. You get a years free back end with Amazon AWS, use this to your advantage. Get a couple of people on board, and make it light on maintenance.

Even if this doesn't make you a rich teenager, the project shows initiative and drive, and it will be a huge feather in your cap come university and even career, if you successfully keep it going.

If you do well, you can even build a small company around it, and begin expanding. Now, during the time that you have no huge outgoings such as rent and bills, is the time to make this happen.

Thank you for being so honest.
I will do that and also have a look at that Amazon thing.
Thank you for this honest advice!

@mightyleguan
Einen Anwalt bezahlen ist teuer, ja. Wenn du dir das nicht leisten kannst, hol dir zumindest eine Rechtsschutz- und Haftpflichtversicherung, die berufliche Tätigkeiten abdecken.

Es gibt Foren für rechtliche Dinge, es gibt auch Beratungen für Selbstständigkeit. Nicht so Consulting Zeugs, sondern eher so Arbeitsamt-Fortbildung, da könntest du in deiner Gegend ja mal schauen. Ansonsten such dir Firmen raus, mach Praktika evtl. ergibt sich ja eine Teilzeitstelle oder du kannst zumindest bisschen Erfahrung abgreifen.

@CWins okay, aber ich werde das mit dem freelancing erstmal lassen. Das Problem ist nur, dass in meiner Umgebung fast keine Software oder web-development Firmen sind. Ich werde jetzt erstmal im privaten Umfeld schauen ob es jemanden gibt der eine Webseite braucht

@monr0e I think you got a lot of valid good advice there.

But frankly, I feel what you're suggesting has a tremendous amount of work required. Much more so than taking a few freelancing gigs. When you make your own interesting platform you got a hell of a lot of things to worry about. Just putting a team together is a challenge by itself already

@mightyleguan I don't think there's anything wrong taking some semi easy gigs at your age. Just something you'll be able to handle even if it initially doesn't pay well.

@mightyleguan das gleiche Problem habe ich auch, deswegen fahre ich jeden Morgen ca. 60km nach Köln zur Arbeit

@fthielen kann ich leider nicht, da ich kein Auto habe und auch noch zur schule gehe.

@vertti the problem is, when a client realises his developer is 16, they may be predisposed to be... Unkind with words, and assume OP doesn't have the relevant experience. The project idea that I suggested should, in theory, stand on its own merit, which will benefit OP a great deal in years to come - despite it being several months work.

Besides, this is the point where OP is most appropriated to such a project - monetary outgoings are at a minimum, meaning that any profit is either directly put towards expenses or towards personal income, rather than rent, bills or food costs. In my opinion, this is the most appropriate option long-term, even if freelancing will generate a profit short-term.

@monr0e yeah I understand your reasoning.

What my point was that in making something useful nowadays, the standards are quite high. Companies spend fortunes to develop modern digital services. So it's quite technically challenging to build a service which would be used by actual users, and the users would come back to it. And you'll have to have all bases covered, from backend to front-end, devops/deployment, monitoring, upgrades, preventing downtime, scaling. All that while worrying that you don't spend too much of your valuable money on it.

It could be a lot more disappointing building something for 3 years with a lot of sweat and effort only to find out only your family members care about using it. With freelancing you get to take less challenging tasks and be a small meaningful part of something that's already working (=useful for someone).

So that's why I thought freelancing could be a way to get started

Ey, 16 in 3 months. Im turning 16 in 2 and a half months ;).

I made my first website when I was 16 (now 24) and let me tell you there's no way that I could have sold these skills as a freelancing gig.

My experience is one where I've always been interested in dev work but didn't have the resources to continue it or nurture the skills so I pursued another education. I ended up coming back to dev and now I'm a software engineer.

I highly suggest getting yourself a mentor. They will point you in the right direction for learning materials, put you on the right track and will be honest with your prospects as a freelancer. Hey maybe you can apprentice with them and make a bit of money that way. Either way, reaching out to some dev friends, going to dev meetup, or reaching out to someone you find on LinkedIn might be a good start to finding one. I'm mentoring someone right now and I love it!

Good luck and don't give up!

@vertti this is true, but only when you're comparing yourself to the freelancing community. If you go your own way, its important to remember that not everyone is a developer. This means that we have skills that not everyone else has, which we use to create a profitable market. In this regard, the right project will generate a following of sorts, which will in turn at least create a programmatic following, if not a productite following. This is what I refer to when it comes to a project-based customer base - even if it isn't profitable, it generates ineterest without as much overhead as it would if I
the developer were responsible for their own upkeep. Furthermore, the history of that project f
would count significantly towards the experience of OP, irrespective of whether or not it generated a profit.

@monr0e I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy here. That's why I'm building up my startup instead of taking up a job working for some IT consultant company that does some nonsense but well paid projects for clients.

I was just thinking that 16 is quite a young age to dive into all this world of trouble with making a full service on your own

Just throwing in my two cents.

I dont know how much experience you have, but that part is crucial. I am 18 now and started freelancing a year ago, but I started developing stuff when I was about 12 (not web tho, that came later), and didn't feel confident to take money for it until 1.5 year ago.

I have personally never used a freelance site, but I've sold websites and I've tried to build my own services.
Until now the best working option has been selling sites to others, for a number of reasons. You dont have to maintain it, market it nor scale it. You can in theory just leave it (though your customers will most likely rely on you for maintenance anyways, make them pay for it).

Getting customers can be pretty harsh online, so my best advice is to explore your network and your parents' professional networks. Try to make small pages for a little money, it can help you that people out there know about you when they want something bigger.

Making small projects for professional people can be a great way to get your feet inside your business. If you charge little they wont expect that much and you can build a personal bond with your customers. If you know them already or they know your parents they will most likely not throw shit on you or abuse the fact that you're young.

Also if you sell something to someone it is very likely that they will come back to you if they like it. Being a single individual could also possibly help make you more approachable to the customers you already know.

Base line: try to utilize your network for all it's worth and expand it. Meanwhile you don't have any paid jobs go ahead and enhance your skills, if you feel motivated you could do as people have stated above, make your own product. Getting a team is very hard so it might be easier to work alone, that might also make it easier to pause your projects if you get the possibility to do paid ones.

@mightyleguan ich habe auch noch keinen Führerschein, deswegen brauche ich immer so 2 Stunden zur Arbeit 🤔

@Xpenz hello fellow German student

Little brother you have what so many of us have lost:
* Free time
* Imagination unstifled by past experience or failures
* A fully functioning pineal gland with very little calcification.

Sit yourself down with a notepad and just dream things up. Focus. Break your ideas up into smaller manageable pieces that you can build, and build it!

Open up a github profile, a blog. Keep those clean and concise: The git as a place to put your code for review, the blog to explain the WHY.

At your age I was making maps for Halo Custom Edition on the PC. I didn't make a dime but it opened me up to a deep ocean of various disciplines: scripting, graphic design, model rigging, testing, networking and so on.

The #1 thing I suggest: Have something tangible to show off in 1 year, 2 years and 4 years. If you can support yourself with Web Development, you can give a miss to spending 40 grand or more for a college degree. That might not equal fun spending money now, but you'll thank yourself later.

@unfuckers-inc ok I will try to build a project myself but I will probably still go to university (it is free here in Germany)

@Alt-Grrr Thank you for the advice. I live in Germany and do a levels in 2 years