GENERAL QUESTIONS
Freelancing means that you work as an independent business rather than as an employee of a company owned by someone else. Freelancers are self-employed one-person businesses that are often hired for short-term work for bigger companies or agencies. Some freelancers work for individuals as tutors, teachers, or coaches of some sort.
Freelancers are typically paid project by project and do not enjoy the benefits of normal employees. Freelancers have to manage their own insurances, retirement plans, vacations, and taxes on top of the day-to-day business operation.
Independent contractors are similar to freelancers but typically work on long-term contracts rather than short-term gigs.
The core of freelancing is your own skill that creates great results for your clients. Without skills, freelancing is an inevitable because the only selling point would be a lower price than what other freelancers without specific skills can offer. This leads to working for peanuts or even for free.
The other important factor is time management, a highly efficient personal work process, and project management skills. Without the ability to promise realistic deadlines for clients and to deliver as promised, freelancing can become a nightmare and a bad career choice.
Next comes the ability to tolerate uncertainty. Particularly when starting up, before having a reputation that does your marketing and a clear sales process for landing projects, jobs tend to come randomly and income is unstable.
On top of the above, there are a number of practical things needed, such as a website for showcasing your skills and prior work (e.g. portfolio), a professional profile preferably on multiple sites to create a good online presence and reputation, and a way to calculate your earnings and costs (accounting) so that you can file your taxes right.
Whether or not freelancers are required to register a company depends on the legislation of each country and perhaps the residence status of the person. However, it is recommended to register a company to keep the business finances and private finances apart. For this reason, many freelancers set up a simple sole proprietorship or some other lightweight company form.
A practical reason for separating personal and business finances is accounting. When all business expenses and income are visible in one bank statement, accounting is much easier and faster than when trying to find and categorize all business-related transactions from the statements of your personal bank account.
Some freelancers set up a Limited Liability Company or a similar structure, or even a Private Limited Company to separate the legal responsibilities of the individual (the names of the company types differ between countries, but the structures are nearly identical). For most freelancers, a simple company form is adequate even if it does not provide any separation of the legal responsibilities. Few freelancers end up in lawsuits with their clients especially if the two are located in different countries. The cost of filing a lawsuit in another country is likely to be higher than the benefits of winning it for the client.
It is also possible to register and manage companies in other countries than where you reside, which can be a big advantage for digital nomads who prefer to change their physical location frequently. Eg. Services such as FirstBase and StartGlobal allow you to set up a business in the United States as a foreigner without the need of being physically in the country.
Yes, of course! However, building your skillset alongside your business is extremely challenging. But it can be done! The fastest way to get started is to work with a senior freelancer as an apprentice of sorts.
Beginners with no experience often face issues in finding suitable clients, particularly if the work is mainly done online. Many people exploit the need of young freelancers to have their first notable projects finished and offer very low pay or ask them to work for free to prove themselves.
A practical way to start as a freelancer with no experience is to specify a very niche service that is not highly competed and has a very short learning curve (some months only). Getting the starting point right with minimal expertise allows you to grow the skillset over the years so that you can reach higher earnings eventually.
It is easy to start freelancing as a student but it is difficult to get notable income from it. This is because every client will know that the freelancer is not yet a professional and will not trust significant tasks to be executed by students. Therefore, almost all student freelancers get simple lowly paid assignments that could be handed to just about anyone else.
The world is loaded with such small gigs that are easy to find on freelance sites like Vaska, Fiverr, Freelancer, Guru, or Upwork. However, there are millions of other students on those sites which makes getting the first couple of gigs on a freelance platform a Mission Impossible for most. It takes a lot of effort to learn business basics and professional communication, and master a marketable skill that convinces the first clients.
To get your first clients, you have to make at least a simple business plan first: who are you after as clients, what can you offer to them, and what is a suitable price for your services? Once this is clear, you should decide whether or not you should start locally in your hometown or go online and face the global competition. Going online or offline defines what approach you must take.
Starting offline, most freelancers ask for their ex-employers, friends, and contacts for small parts of their work to be their first gigs to build up an initial portfolio to be shown to truly new clients. This approach can lead to getting a couple of projects quite easily as you have built trust with the people you already know from your prior career. Working with local clients can be easier than working in the global markets in many ways, but it is also bound to the local rates that may become a bottleneck for growth sooner or later depending on the freelancer’s level of expertise.
Starting online, the key is to define a very specific niche offering that has very little competition that the number of attempts (proposals, gig description iterations, etc.) before getting the first paid project remains reasonable. Many freelancers, even experienced ones, tire themselves because of not finding a specific enough niche which leads to constant competition with too many other freelancers with similar skillsets.
Freelancers get paid according to their expertise. The higher the expertise and its impact on the client’s business, the better the pay. Depending on the contract, freelancers usually get paid by the hour or by a fixed price agreed with the client. Successful freelancers may charge a 25-50% advance fee before a huge fixed price project work starts to guarantee commitment from the client. Some charge the whole work upfront. Starting freelancers who lack reputation and social proof may not be able to ask for advance payments.
All freelance work should be done under a signed contract that defines the duties and deliverables of the freelancer as well as the obligations of the client to make payments (the amount, the payment schedule, and the payment method). Without having a signed contract, the freelancer risks not getting paid. In some cases, a purchase order may suffice for making a written agreement on the business terms.
Those working on freelance sites have to charge according to the contract types available on each site.
Regarding payment methods, most freelancers use global payment platforms such as paypal, paystack, flutterwave, mobile money services etc. together with online banking services.
Most freelancers, particularly the ones starting up, experience the search for good clients being the biggest challenge. Many spend even more than half of their time on the client hunt which means they have quite a big problem in their marketing, branding, and sales.
To make sure you don’t spend all of your time searching for clients, you will need to build your reputation fast. Those working in the IRL local circles tend to invest their time in networking with people in the target industry, giving talks at events, etc. which makes their potential clients see them regularly which helps in creating perceived expertise. Online freelancers tend to spend their efforts on creating stunning profiles and creating a strong online presence. In both cases, every freelancer should have at least some level of personal branding so that the client hunt doesn’t take most of the work hours.
Yes, freelancers need to pay taxes just like everyone else. You need to declare your income that is subject to the tax in your country of residence. It is a good idea to estimate your taxes and put aside a suitable sum every month to avoid surprises when the tax filing deadline comes. Those with more formal company structures, e.g. LLC and LTD owners, also need to take care of all taxes applicable to the company type.
In countries where tax filing is complicated, it is a good idea to hire a local tax consultant at least for the first year to get everything going on the right track from the start. Incorrect tax filing or delays in doing it usually result in fines.
Vaska can be a very good platform for those freelancers who know how to use it efficiently for building their professional reputations. The best freelancers on Vaska are in high demand, charge hundreds of dollars per hour, and get to pick their clients after getting numerous invitations or orders.
Those who do not invest their time in learning how the platform works, and how to attract clients with minimal effort, lose all that time without gaining anything. About half of the new freelancers who join Vaska do not make a single dollar because they cannot get through the global competition. There are millions of freelancers on Vaska.
For clients, Vaska can be a very good platform as it offers freelancers of all skill levels to choose from, and in general, the terms of the platform favor those who pay, i.e. the clients.
In the case of fixed-price projects, you can access the funds 5 days after the client has accepted the milestone (or after 14 of the submission of the work in case the client is unresponsive) and withdraw them to your bank, Paypal and mobile account etc. You can redraw your money by clicking on the balance and invoice in your dashboard. Note, balance less than $20 cannot be redrawn, also transactions that commences on our platforms are monitored. Notifications and invoices will be sent to the emails of both parties indicating their transaction.
Technically, yes, but practically, it depends. Payment Protection only works when you do everything according to the recommended process.
If you have a fixed-price contract and you send results as attachment files in a normal message, and the client chooses to vanish, you will not get paid. If you have an hourly contract and you don’t track your work hours there is no guarantee that you get paid at the end of the week.
Additionally, clients can request refunds or launch a dispute if the work is not done by the freelancer. Clients should not ask for refunds if they “don’t like the work” and there is evidence in the system that the freelancer has completed the work requested.
ACCOUNT SECURITY
Documents of a specific type and nationality are needed for our ID verification. Vaska must check the information that its users who plan to utilize the platform have submitted. National identity cards, driver licenses, and passports are examples of supported documents. To be fully verified by Vaska, individuals must also finish the email verification process. Account is verified manually by Vaska after submitting your particulars and we will put a notification badge symbolizing verification.
Our first concern is protecting crucial data from loss, corruption, and compromise while also enabling data restoration. Additional security is provided by features like Google Recapture and SSL on our platform. Malware detection on our server is constantly monitored and maintained by our support team.
Incase if the password is forgotten, select the forgot password and enter your valid email. A notification will be sent to your email to set your new password.
The account may be suspended either temporarily or permanently. This choice is completely based on rules and regulations on Vaska platform are not followed. Any act of flouting rules may lead to suspension from the platform e.g., making transaction outside the platform.
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
There are three levels for all freelancers. These are starter (level 1), Plus (level 2) and Pro (level 3) base on their experience and expertise respectively. Once users are verified, they can grow to achieve higher levels. freelancers must first earn the verification badge before being awarded any of these membership level. This has the mark icon, green background color with white text.
After logging in, you may modify your personal information through your account dashboard. Please be aware that after you have created an account, you cannot modify your username.
Users who wish to delete their accounts should send a request on their dashboard to follow the prompt.
what are the requirements to create my free account?
Email
Username
Password
Full name
(Select am not a robot for human verification)
Valid ID (for freelancers or sellers)
Good customer relations, positive customer feedback, the ability to meet order deadlines, a good response rates, little to no order cancellations are all desirable to grow your earnings.
5 days if the seller does not accept the order, your money will be refunded back to your account.
PayPal, Flutterwave, Paystuck and Bank transfer are all means of transactions on the platform.
Users must go to their dashboard and request for withdrawal. Users must follow the prompts and provide accurate information on their payment details.
Receiving payments outside the platform contradicts the policies of our engagements and may lead to account suspension.
- Legalities –
Can I sell already made solutions?
Freelancers can proceed to sell already made solutions as long as it doesn’t infringe on copyright issues. Note that freelancers must engage with their clients before undertaking this initiative. As long as it doesn’t conflict our policies and guidelines, you are good to go.
Can I exchange money on Vaska?
Exchanging money on the platform contradicts the policies of our engagements and may lead to account suspension.
What are the T and Cs applied?
Users of the Vaska platform are encouraged to go through our policies to know the terms and conditions guiding all transactions and the use of the platform.
What are the Penalties involving in Vaska?
Administrator’s findings on all misconduct are subject to investigation. Account may be banned or suspended if rules and guidelines following the Vaska platform are not followed. Any act of flouting rules may lead to suspension from the platform.
A freelancer owns right to his work from commencement of a gig to handing over to client. At that level all rights cease from the freelancer and all products and services are owned by their clients.
Work may be terminated when an offer is initiated. Notifications will be sent to the freelancer when an offer is being made. Freelancers should engage with the clients and can terminate the work before approving to commence.
One can win a bid through visibility on the listings on the homepage, good reviews, sponsored ads. Etc.
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