How To Start Freelancing With No Experience

Gaurav Upreti 16 February, 2025

When hiring professionals, companies often look for people with years of experience and an extensive portfolio.

This can be intimidating for freelancers with no experience, leading to lowered morale and overwhelm.

Even more baffling is competing for projects against freelancers with thousands of reviews when you’ve just started!

As a beginner, it is essential to understand that freelancing is not limited to being exceptional at the skills that you offer.

Before you showcase your abilities, you must grab attention, pitch your service, and win the proposal.

A skilled and dynamic beginner can indeed beat an experienced freelancer by making a winning bid, as long as they know how to sell themselves to potential clients.

If you want to start freelancing with no experience, you’ve come to the right place.

This step-by-step guide offers tips and tricks that can make you stand out amongst the competition.

Find Your Niche

Freelancing platforms cater to professionals from varied industries.

From software development, data analysis, and web development to writing and graphic design, there’s work available for everyone.

To identify your ideal clients, you must first define your services and skill level. Whether you want to be a creative freelancer or a technical one is totally up to you.

Some questions that will come up while finding your niche are, ‘What am I good at?’ or ‘What skill do I want to offer?’ or ‘What do I see myself doing in the long run as a freelancer?’

And so on.

Take your time and choose a field that fits your overall professional experience, knowledge, and career expectations.

Also, research the market and consider the demand for the chosen skill to ensure that you have a smooth inflow of projects and income.

For example, if you’ve previously worked in digital marketing, you’re likely to have some experience in SEO, Google Analytics, Email marketing, Influencer marketing, Ads, Content, and so on.

Out of these, you can choose the skill you’re best at and one that is in high demand and create your freelancer profile around it.

steps to finding a niche and start freelancing with no experience

Learn or Hone a Skill

Clients seek freelancers because they either lack the resources to hire full-time employees for the role or need highly experienced professionals.

In any circumstance, the level of your skill matters a lot. Before you set out on your freelancing journey, ensure that you are highly skilled at the service you’re offering.

Being good at what you do will also enable you to confidently pursue high-paying projects and outshine the competition.

Taking up online courses on platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, etc. can be a great way to upskill. Since your service is the product, ensure it’s worth the clients’ money and time.

Build a Portfolio

Freelancers with no experience feel that they have no way of presenting their skills in a quantifiable manner to potential clients.

They treat their inability to present previous work as a handicap. Moreover, clients often demand sample work before they go forward with a freelancer’s application, creating a mindset that no experience equals no work. It is not true!

A company outsourcing work cares less about which companies you’ve worked with and more about what you’ve done for them.

Before building references, it’s crucial to build a portfolio that speaks for your skill. That distinguishes you from the competition and wins the clients’ confidence.

Irrespective of whether you’re not in the industry or a veteran, making a portfolio is not as difficult. The simplest way to build a portfolio with absolutely no experience is by creating your prompts and working on them.

For example, if you’re a writer or video editor, start a blog that serves as your portfolio. Not only does this present your skills, but you can put your best foot forward by choosing exactly what type of work will go on your portfolio.

Tip for making a portfolio:

Use platforms like Behance (for designers), WordPress (for writers), and GitHub for developers to make a professional portfolio.
Add 3-5 high-quality work samples that showcase your skill level.
Modify samples if you cater to a particular industry. For example, if you are exceptional at writing technical content, include similar samples when applying for technical writing roles.

Select a Freelancing Platform

We live in a world that is more active online than offline. With multiple freelance marketplaces available with both free and premium plans, we don’t see why anybody with no experience would begin their freelancing journey solely dependent on their social network.

Joining a freelance platform like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour, and so on can expose you to a plethora of active projects with one click.

Not only do these platforms offer plentiful projects, but they also provide features like secure payments, a user-friendly interface, direct communication, and marketing aid.

Selecting a freelancing platform must be done after careful consideration. Some things to consider to make your selection process easier:

The platform you decide upon should offer a higher number of projects in your field. For example, Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer cater to diverse industries. However, they have a lot of competition. The top 3% of freelancers from fields like software development, design, and finance prefer Toptal due to its high-paying projects by prestigious companies in IT. Similarly, freelancers in creative fields like design and marketing find great projects on PeoplePerHour.
Service tax charged by platforms should not be overlooked during the selection period since it has a significant impact on earnings.
It is integral to determine whether the type of platform meets your needs. Some platforms have a bidding system like Upwork and others allow freelancers to sell their services through predesigned gigs like Fiverr.
Most popular platforms have a secure payment partner to ensure the safety of their users. However, it does not hurt to check before you sign up and start working.
Free subscription accounts on freelancing platforms offer limited benefits to users. It is imperative to check the freemium offerings of the platform along with the monthly and annual subscription costs.
Additional services like marketing features, job filters, user interface, and so on must also be explored beforehand.

Join a Freelancing Course

Online courses for freelancers cover skill knowledge, freelancing platform interface tutorials, tips to become a successful freelancer, how to earn more money freelancing, and more such information on freelancing.

Often curated by successful freelancers, these offer insight into what works and what doesn’t when freelancing with a particular skill.

Some of these courses are specially designed for beginner freelancers with no experience and are godless. They’re easy to understand, include practical assignments, and focus on the logistics of freelancing.

Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare, Smartbloggers, LinkedIn Learning, Upwork Academy, and Fiverr Learning are some popular sites where you can access freelancing courses.

As a freelancer with no experience, these courses can guide you through the steps of setting up your freelancer account and winning over clients.

They include tips on creating a professional freelancer profile including how to write an attractive bio, making a portfolio, pricing your services, writing a proposal, maintaining client relations, upskilling, and getting client testimonials.

These courses can help you pivot in your freelancing journey and gain momentum in the very beginning.

Price Your Services

Pricing services is a step that most beginning freelancers struggle with. Without prior experience in the industry, the chances of underpricing and overpricing your services are extremely high.

Unless you have learned the art of pricing for your niche industry from an online freelancing course, you’ll have to invest your energy in market research.

View profiles of other freelancers to understand their pricing and experience read articles that discuss the demand of services being offered, opt for projects with hourly prices, join platforms with a good minimum pay, and most importantly, know your worth.

It may help to discount prices to your first few clients until you have secured enough reviews to pitch more confidently to potential clients.

Don’t go overboard with the discounts, since it may lead to dissatisfaction and burnout. Remember to modify your prices, according to market fluctuations.

Become Pitch Perfect

When embarking on a freelancing career, being able to sell your services is just as integral as being highly skilled. Your level of skills is pretty useless unless you can convince clients to give you an opportunity to work for them, especially when you have no testimonials to vouch for you.

It takes a certain level of confidence, professionalism, and industry know-how to get through to potential clients.

More than that, it involves the capability to understand the client’s needs and present yourself as the best candidate to meet their requirements. Write a to-the-point proposal that outlines your value and ability to contribute to the project.

Pitching clients is done differently on platforms. Some platforms have the option to bid on projects, while others involve showcasing your skill and letting the client approach you instead. In either case, you must actively sell your service for them to see your worth.

Focus on Quality

At the end of the day, quality is key. If you’re a master of your skill, nobody can stop you from being a successful freelancer. As long as you provide quality work and keep the clients happy, the opportunities will flow in, experience or no experience.

Before submitting work, check that all the project details have been met. Keep upskilling and learning new ways to keep your work fresh. Commitment to skill development not only shows your enthusiasm towards work but also translates into more creativity.

Once you’ve secured your first client, your main focus must be to ensure that they are satisfied with your work. A satisfied client is likely to seek your services again and will potentially leave a good review for you. From there, the only way is up.

Collect Reviews and Testimonials

A freelancer with no experience can only become a seasonal freelancer once they have worked with multiple people and secured a good reputation on the platform.

Nothing screams a good job like hundreds of reviews by successful clients on your freelancer profile. A 5-star freelancing rating is the best way to become a favorite candidate for high-paying projects on any freelancing platform.

But how will you do it?

Keep communications polite and professional.
Ensure quality work and on-time submissions.
Go the extra mile by offering revisions and review support.
Be creative and even offer suggestions to improve the work.
As for a review once they have confirmed that they are satisfied with your work.

Develop the Right Mindset

Developing the right mindset is a crucial step that is essential throughout your freelancing career, especially during those first weeks and months when you’re grasping at the straws. As a freelancer with no experience, you must prepare yourself to meet a few roadblocks along the way.

The best way to navigate the challenges that come with freelancing is to communicate with other freelancers. Many freelancing platforms have pages where freelancers can express the challenges faced by them and learn from others. Moreover, many successful freelancers have designed courses to develop the right mindset for freelancing.

It is important to grow a thick skin and not get disheartened at the slightest inconveniences. Freelancing is like running your own small scale business, it may seem difficult at first but is highly-rewarding and worth pursuing.

Conclusion

Remember, everyone starts somewhere. Irrespective of whether you have prior experience or not, as long as you have the zeal and are willing to work hard, you can make it. However, it is essential to equip yourself with the basics of freelancing and how it works before you start freelancing with no experience.

A common misconception that destroys most freelancing careers before they can even take off, is that ‘All you need to become successful is being good at the service that you offer.

Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth. Market research, high level of skill, ability to sell your services, enhancing communication, and developing the right mindset are the cornerstones of a successful freelancing career.