The Freelancer Life: Meet Dave Smyth
Meet Dave, an independent web designer and developer and founder of Work Notes, an amazing resource and community for freelancers.
Dave loves having control over the type of work he does and when and where he does it. We talk to Dave about freelance life, his home-office set up and what drove him to start Work Notes.
“Freelancing is glamorised as a panacea for all sorts of work issues and it’s not that simple. But, if it is the right choice, it can be a wonderful thing.”
Hey Dave, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and how long you have been doing it for.
I’m an independent web designer and developer. In other words, I design and build websites for small businesses, I’ve been doing this since 2013.
When and why did you first become a freelancer?
I’ve always been freelance, but I haven’t always been a web designer. I trained as a musician at University then Music College. As a musician, you learn many of the ins-and-outs of working for yourself: accounts, expenses, running things on a super-low budget.
I started learning how to build websites in 1999(!) and I’d always built them for myself. In 2013, I decided to start taking on clients and I’ve gradually built the business since then.
What’s your home office set-up like? Talk us through it!
I’m actually on a timeshare with my son! He’s about 18 months old and his cot is in my office. If he could talk, he might say my office is in his bedroom…
Over the years, I’ve pieced the office together. I started with an iMac and some Grovemade stands/accessories. Those are pricey, but they’ve been great for getting my monitor to the right height and make the desk look really nice.
I also bought a second-hand Herman Miller chair fairly early on. I have longstanding back issues (from carting drums around), and that gives my back some much-needed support.
After years of talking about it, I finally bought a sit-stand desk this year, too. It’s great to be able to work standing up or sitting down, and that’s the last big purchase I’ll be making for a while.
I’ve got a couple of prints I’d like to hang, but it’s difficult when renting. For now, I’ve got a Brendan Dawes and Frank Chimero print on my desk.
Work Notes is your baby and such a wonderful resource for freelancers - we’ve directed so many people new to freelancing to your freelance pricing guide - what drove you to create it?
Thank you!
Work Notes grew from a few pieces I wrote on my web design blog in the summer of 2018. Eventually, I’d written enough articles that they needed to be grouped together and easier to find, so that’s when I built the site.
Pricing is such a tricky thing: I’ve read and heard so much about pricing over the years. When I started, I had no idea how to price my work: there were calculators and rates surveys, but there was always an assumption or something missing that made the calculated figure irrelevant to me.
The guide takes a look at working out what a minimum rate should be, factoring in everything that needs to be considered. It doesn’t tell anyone what to charge: it’s there to help freelancers work out practical minimum rates that will work for them.
A few years ago, I read a piece that showed “the mean annual self-employment income is somewhere around £16,000”: this was in 2017 around the time of the proposed rise in National Insurance Contributions for the self-employed. Of course, this is just an average and it doesn’t take into account the number of freelancers who operate through a limited company. But that number is still very low.
It struck me that there’s very little in the way of guidance or training for freelancers, except for (often expensive) courses. That also became a driving force behind creating the Pricing Guide and the wider Freelance Guide I’m writing.
“It struck me that there’s very little in the way of guidance or training for freelancers, except for (often expensive) courses.”
Share your struggles - what do you find hardest about working for yourself?
Switching off. That’s partly because I’m in the habit of creating too much extra work (through side projects), but I’m trying to change that. I read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism recently, and I’m trying to practice some of the ideas in there.
Share your perks - what do you enjoy most about working for yourself?
There’s so much, but if I had to pick one it would be the flexibility. I love having control over the type of work I do and when/where I do it.
What are your top tips for anyone thinking about working for themselves?
This is a tough one, too. I think it’s important to think through all of the implications of self-employment: I’ve written about some of the questions to think about in the first section of the guide.
Freelancing is glamorised as a panacea for all sorts of work issues and it’s not that simple. But, if it is the right choice, it can be a wonderful thing.
For anyone starting out, I’d always recommend:
Using a contract (no excuses!)
Get a deposit every time
Work out what you need to charge to make a profit
Keep things as lean as possible to begin with
Find freelance communities
What themes and issues are you seeing come up time and time again for freelancers? Has this changed at all since lockdown?
Rates and the availability of work are always key concerns, and lockdown has put pressure on both of these. The financial support that has – or hasn’t – been made available to freelancers only reinforces how precarious this career choice is.
It will be interesting to see what the long-term implications of lockdown are. Now that many employees have spent months working from home, I’d hope attitudes around home working will change.
If the lockdown results in employers becoming more open to more flexible working options, that would be a great thing, too. Lots of people with caring responsibilities choose self-employment as it’s difficult to find employment that’s flexible enough: that shouldn’t be their only option.
“It will be interesting to see what the long-term implications of lockdown are. Now that many employees have spent months working from home, I’d hope attitudes around home working will change.”
What are your top 3 recommendations - podcasts, books, people to follow, sources of inspiration and why?
Being Freelance: It’s fascinating to hear all the stories of how different freelancers got started.
Paul Jarvis: His Sunday Dispatches emails are always interesting, and the Company of One book is a must-read.
Work For Money, Design For Love (David Airey) is a great read. Aimed at graphic designers, it talks through many of the issues of setting up a business. I was lucky to stumble across such a useful book so early into my freelancing journey.
What is the best project you’ve worked on since going freelance?
This is a really difficult question and I don’t think I can name one. I like the variety in my job. I recently redesigned my accountant’s website, and that was a lot of fun.
What were you doing this time last year? What have you learnt or how have you changed since then?
My son was about six months old, so I was trying to juggle working from home around a baby and everything that involves.
Towards the end of last year, I significantly increased my rates. I hadn’t increased rates much for a while and it felt like the right time. There’s a perception that as you get more experienced, or develop your skills, everything gets quicker. I’ve realised recently is that this isn’t strictly true…for me at least. There are some parts of the process that I spend significantly longer on now than I used to. I want and need the time to think things over and consider the best approach: rushing it could have a negative impact on the whole project.
Earlier this year, I also became an official Statamic partner. I used to develop sites solely on WordPress and I’ve really enjoyed seeing how clients respond to this different content management system.
Want to learn more about Dave? Take a look at his website websmyth.co and give him a follow on Twitter @websmyth.
Or you can find Work Notes at worknotes.co.uk, @_worknotes on Twitter and @_worknotes on Instagram.
