My wife and I had a pretty awesome dream over the last three years. We were going to quit our cushy Silicon Valley tech jobs and see the world in a 10 month globe-trotting sabbatical. It took a lot of saving, a lot of anxiety, and a lot of planning, but we finally pulled it off — come February, we got on a jet for Mexico City and didn’t plan on setting foot back in the States until November.

Some timing, huh?

We made it about 5 weeks before the pleading of our families, our government, and common sense brought us home to the Bay. Doing some soul-searching, we decided that this would be a good time to try and get our freelancing careers off the ground. We put our heads together during our 14-day quarantine, figuring out the best way to get clients and make rent.

We’re far from out of the woods, but we’ve got a couple of successful projects under our belt and more in the queue. I thought it might help other fresh freelancers if I shared some of the strategies we’ve used to get clients during this time.