After I quit my own company - Moontara Technovations, in July 2013, I started looking for a stable job. I updated my CV & uploaded it to few job sites like Naukri, Hasjob and AngelList. The next three days, I got calls from 18 different companies expressing their interest. Interviews were scheduled back to back, somehow, I managed to crack few of them, finalized one and moved from Bangalore to Chennai to join the company.

Everything was going great until I was thrown out of the same company on April 27, 2015.

I will probably write another post detailing the lay-off process and the aftermath. If you are wondering, why do I even want to talk about my firing in public, do yourselves a favour and checkout Firing People post of Zach Holman from Github.

Having two marriages (one in Korea, one in India) scheduled just ahead, the firing took a bit of toll on both my personal and professional fronts.

I decided to explore freelancing, as it looked like a viable option. I thought I could get enough breathing space to travel, take care of pre and post marriage activities and at the same time, earn some money.

I updated my CV again, uploaded to all the job sites, but this time - as a remote contractor, and waited for my 18 calls. I waited a week. I got ghanta (zero) calls. I called up few recruiting agency heads whom I was close to. They said they cannot help me as they don’t operate in the freelancing space. That’s when I realized that I have to do things slightly differently.

Having started my own company, I always knew having a good mentor helps. So, I digged deep into my network and I could get in touch with Abhishek, the one and only full-time freelancer I had ever met in my life.

I travelled to Chennai to meet him. He gave lot of valuable information on the ups and downs of freelancing and how to cope up with them. Also, being well connected as he was, he referred me to one of his clients.

The client got in touch with me, there were a couple of interviews and boom!! I started working for them from July 6, 2015 for 75% of what I was earning as of 2013.

So, here am, celebrating my 1st year anniversary in the form of a blog post hoping to help people like my past-me gain more insights into the chaotic world of freelancing in the Indian software industry.