Designing Your Freelance Business
9.9
(9 ratings)
3 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Learn how to start and sustain a successful and fulfilling freelance practice.
Hosted by
Sarah Jutras
Bay Area UX Lead with 14+ years industry experience, business owner since 2016
Course overview
Join the freelance life!
The top 3 things freelancers worry about most involve (1) finding work to make money, (2) keeping organized with operations, and (3) setting boundaries and attaining balance. From working with over 90 clients throughout the past 7 years, I've experimented with and refined my tools, systems, and practices. After our short 2-weeks together, you'll have systems and processes to run your business and the foundational tools and techniques to ENJOY being a business owner.
✦ Explore your core values and the why behind starting your business
✦ Showcase your services to attract right-fit clients and source projects
✦ Better understand biz setup requirements, taxes, and insurance
✦ Differentiate between pricing models and how to determine what to charge
✦ Design the client experience through all touchpoints: biz dev, to proposals, to onboarding, to handoff, to invoicing
✦ Get tools and templates to keep your business organized
✦ Manage your time and design sustainable rituals for the average day, week, month, and year
A one-size-fits-all career is a fallacy. By thinking like a designer I gained the creative confidence to experiment with different ways of working and start my own business. You can too.
This course is designed for:
01
Aspiring freelancers who want to gain the confidence to go out on their own so they can quit their 9-to-6 job
02
Active solopreneurs struggling with inefficient systems and overwhelm who want to design more intentional processes
03
Design/Tech industry professionals who worry about finding work and want to attract the right clients for their consulting services
What you'll get out of this course
Confidence in building your business
Stop worrying if you're doing it right. Get a solid foundation to launch (or improve) your biz practices by joining me LIVE to receive behind the scenes process, guidance, and actionable next steps to build as we go.
Templates made for personalization
Not only will you be able to see visual examples in practice, but receive access to customizable Notion workbook templates and frameworks, designed exclusively for this course (and curated from experimentation with over 90 clients!)
Access to LIVE coaching
We'll meet live in 3 sessions over the duration of the course for hands-on workshopping. Plus get coaching during office hours so you feel completely supported in making the jump into freelance life.
A cohort community of freelancers
Aspiring freelancers often wonder, will it be lonely? In this course you’ll be able to build relationships with other peers who want to carve their own path too. PLUS get access to the Freelance for Life community to keep connected with each other, resources and jobs!
Designing Your Freelance Business
Teaching from experience
Sarah Jutras
Independent Product Designer & Business Owner
Sarah Jutras (she/her) has spent the past 14 years leading design for consumer products. She has served as a design director, educator & mentor, business coach, and maker (designing over 20 apps that shipped to the App Store). With experience both working in-house as a design leader (at PayPal, Modcloth, Detour, Chairish) and consulting agency side (with IDEO, Industry Global, Deloitte), Sarah made the leap into freelance, founding Huzzah Studio, where she now provides creative strategy and UX/UI expertise to a wide-range of clients.
As a multidimensional designer, Sarah has evolved in her craft as a UX/UI designer, strategist, and intentional business owner. She shares her passion for creating meaningful experiences and helping others find a new way of working. Her Maven course is the compilation of what she has learned after 7 years in business, and what she wish she would've known when first starting out as a freelancer.
When she’s not in her sunny studio, Sarah is trying new baking recipes, dining at San Francisco’s tastiest restaurants, or traveling the world (sometimes by motorcycle).
Course schedule
15 hours over 3 weeks
Exclusive video content
1 - 2 hours per week
Recorded lessons of lecture and demo walkthroughs that you can watch on your own time and return to at any point in the journey of launching or running your business.
Weekly projects
1 - 2 hours per week
Specific course assignments will help you get hands on with building your business and your operating procedures. You'll be able to leverage coaching and peer feedback from the cohort community to help you progress.
Live workshopping
Wednesdays @ 4pm - 5pm PST
Our live time together is spent on live review, interactive workshopping, and group critiques.
- Workshop 1: Weds 10/25
- Workshop 2: Weds 11/1
- Workshop 3: Weds 11/8
Additional "Tea Time" office hours
Fridays @ 3:00pm PST
Take a break in your day and join me in my afternoon office hours for small group coaching and additional guidance on your projects.
Course syllabus
01
Doing work differently
- Define your values, why freelance?
- Identify your unique service offering to better connect to the right clients
- Setting expectations on expected challenges of freelance and what to watch out for
02
Making it too legit to quit
- Get checklists on how to setup your business with necessary registration, insurance, and taxes
- Differentiate between pricing models
- Calculate your rate structures by outlining your ideal income and budget
03
Designing the client experience
- Discover practices and recommended tools for running an organized business
- Construct the client experience through all touchpoints: biz dev, to proposals, to onboarding, to handoff, to invoicing
- Practice role play with a biz dev call!
04
Prototyping balance and boundaries
- Tip to manage your workload and burnout
- Build practices for sustainability
- Design your time and day to day practices through personal rituals
Get a workbook of customizable templates
You'll receive an exclusive workbook with access to checklists, scripts, templates, and more!
9.9
(9 ratings)
Join us in the freelance life
Janet Gonzales
Ryan N.
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Lucy D.
Poppy Lynch
Sara G.
Learning is better with cohorts
Active hands-on learning
This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects
Interactive and project-based
You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you
Frequently asked questions
Can non-designers take this course?
What happens if I can’t make a live session?
Pricing questions?
Additional questions?
A one-size-fits-all career is a fallacy. Business as usual is bunk. Join the freelance life by Designing Your Freelance Business.
A one-size-fits-all career is a fallacy. Business as usual is bunk. Join the freelance life by Designing Your Freelance Business.