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Designing Your Freelance Business

10.0

(3 ratings)

·

5 Days

·

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!

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.


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 week together, you'll have built foundations for your business and have ideas for solutions to common challenges.


Workshop 1:

✦ Better understand biz setup, taxes, and insurance requirements

✦ Showcase your services to attract right-fit clients and source projects

✦ Differentiate between pricing models and determine what to charge


Workshop 2:

✦ Get tools to keep your business organized

✦ Design the client experience through all touchpoints: biz dev, to proposals, to onboarding, to handoff, to invoicing

✦ Build an end-to-end process for project management and execution


Workshop 3:

✦ Manage your time and design sustainable rituals for the average day, week, month, and year

✦ Set client expectations and hold healthy boundaries

✦ Tips for how to handle scope-creep, difficult clients, non-paying clients

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 for three (3) core workshop sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to see into my process, receive guidance, and actionable next steps to start building.

Templates made for personalization

Not only will you be able to see visual examples in practice, but you'll also build as you go, personalizing well-crafted frameworks and templates designed for this course (and curated from experimentation with over 90 clients!)

Access to LIVE coaching

This is not pre-recorded, this is "in-person" time together, plus coaching during office hours so you feel supported in making the jump to this new way of working. **BONUS: I’m offering quarterly 1:1 business coaching for 2023 for students in the first cohort!**

A cohort community of freelancers

Aspiring freelancers often wonder, will it be lonely? In this course you’ll be able to build reciprocal relationships, offering support, encouragement and accountability. You'll interact (via our breakout rooms and chat) with peers who want to carve their own path too.

Teaching from experience

Sarah Jutras

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).

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Designing Your Freelance Business

Course schedule

6 - 8 hours over one week
  • Workshop 1: Making it work, to design your life

    MONDAY, MARCH 20th @ 8am - 9:30am PST

    • Get checklists on how to setup your business with necessary registration, insurance, and taxes
    • Define your service(s) offering and find clients
    • Differentiate between pricing models and calculate your rate structures by outlining your ideal income and budget
  • Workshop 2: Designing your tools, business practices, and the client experience

    WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22nd @ 8am - 9:30am PST

    • Recommended tools for managing your projects, finances, clients and more
    • Discover Sarah's practices for running a smooth business
    • Construct the client experience through all touchpoints: biz dev, to proposals, to onboarding, to handoff, to invoicing
  • Workshop 3: Prototyping balance and boundaries

    FRIDAY, MARCH 24th @ 8am - 9:30am PST

    • Chart your time to manage your work schedule, which projects you take on, and how many
    • Build practices for sustainability through rituals for your day, week, month, and year
    • Implement boundaries with clients (and for yourself)
  • Join me for my "Tea Time" office hours

    TUE/THU, MARCH 21 & 23 @ 3pm - 4pm PST

    • Take a break in your day and join me in my afternoon office hours to receive feedback, additional guidance, "Ask Me Anything" (AMA)
  • + Templates and self-paced activities

    On your own time

    • Custom Figma & Notion templates plus a workbook designed for you to have a thoughtful foundation on which to build your business
    • Work on a timeline that feels right for you with forever-access to the material
    • **Quarterly 1:1 follow up coaching offered for 2023 for 1st cohort!**

Get a workbook of customizable templates

You'll receive an exclusive Notion workbook with access to checklists, scripts, templates, and more!
You'll receive an exclusive Notion workbook with access to checklists, scripts, templates, and more!

10.0

(3 ratings)

Join us in the freelance life

        For those of you who don't know, Sarah is an absolute master of her craft. Strategic, curious, smart, detail-oriented and sooooo much fun to work with. If you're considering making the leap to freelance (or have already and want to uplevel your business skills), I cannot recommend this human highly enough. GET IN ON THIS!
Sarah Sparks

Sarah Sparks

Creative Director and UX Researcher
        I’ve been successfully freelancing for the last year due in large part to Sarah’s guidance! She’s so knowledgeable about both visual design and how to run your design business. Whenever I speak with her, I come away with both guidance and clear actionable steps for how to improve my work and business strategy.
Janet Gonzales

Janet Gonzales

Freelance UX Designer
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Frequently asked questions

I work full-time, what is the expected time commitment?
Can non-designers take this course?
What happens if I can’t make a live session?
Pricing questions?
Additional questions?
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A one-size-fits-all career is a fallacy. Business as usual is bunk. Join the freelance life by Designing Your Freelance Business.