How to land a remote freelance web development job in 21 days without a fleshed out portfolio Derick Sozo Follow Aug 2, 2018 · 4 min read

A lot of new developers will often email me, “Hey Derick, I’m a new developer. Can I land a remote freelance job too?”

My response is always, “Different projects need different levels of experience. What projects do you have under your belt?”

When I ask that question, some developers might get the idea that they need to have full-blown apps or websites created to showcase to a client. They think that if they don’t they won’t get taken seriously.

Here’s the reality: Most clients don’t ever fully go through a portfolio anyway.

The client’s main objective is solving a business problem. Most portfolios don’t have case studies. What is a client supposed to think about a project? Even when a portfolio does have case studies, it’s usually written from the developer’s point of view. Some developers write about what they accomplished instead of how that project can help the client.

In this article, I’m going to knock out the myth that you need a full-blown portfolio website full of completed case-studies. Here’s what you can do instead to start landing remote freelance web development projects.

Clients don’t want to read a resume. They want a business problem solved.

The only question that is going through a client’s mind is: Can you help me solve my business problem, fast?

If your goal is to land a remote freelance project you want to quickly showcase to the client what you’re capable of creating as soon as you contact them. And, you have to do it in a way that the client can easily understand how it helps them.

Build small components that you can create within a day

The best way that I’ve found to do that is to build a series of small, understandable projects that a client can look at without much effort.

And then in the email cover letter that I send I explain those projects in how they can help the client rather than what I accomplished.

When clients are looking through an email cover letter they want to quickly understand how you can help them accomplish their business project.