Needed some cash, someone asked if I knew anyone who made websites. Took the job and I haven't looked back since.

Always good to have a project to learn though. I guess the pressure was on and you rose to the occasion.

How long have you been doing it? I've just starting building my design/dev side biz and would love some tips!

@leviwhalen I was freelance for 5 years, and I'm now in my second year as a junior dev.

My only tips for running your own business are

1. Don't undervalue your work. I did this all the time in the beginning.

2. Don't just learn dev skills, go to courses on business, contract drafting, and all that stuff. It'll make your life easier in the long run. Hell, it even pays to read books on marketing psychologies.

3. Don't just work for clients. Find a gap in the market and build your own product. It may seem to be sucking in a bunch of time you could be using to make "real" money from clients, and marketing is a ball ache, but at the end of the day if you have something that for the most part can just sit in the background and earn you money with minimal input, your life will be a lot easier.

@Jumpshot44 basically, yeah. There's very few jobs I've taken where I knew the subject matter beforehand. In the first couple of years of being a dev I specifically sought out projects that used stuff I knew nothing about so that I could get paid to learn.