Freelancing: freedom and money

Ali Asgar Imrul Kayes Chowdhury

His life has changed in three years.
Three years ago he worked in several private organisations.
He did not have enough money to buy a laptop.
Now his average monthly earning is USD $3000-$5000.
Ali Asgar, a Bangladeshi freelancer said these in an interview with The Daily Star.
Nowadays freelancing has become a prime source of income for many people across the globe, in Bangladesh too.
There are so many people who are doing remarkably well in this freelancing field.
Asgar said one day he was browsing the internet he came to know about several freelancing websites where he found various types of job that he was interested in.
“That inspired me to become a freelancer,” said Asgar.
He instantly registered at freelancer.com. However, he got his first job through the site after a year. During this one year he just placed bids for job. “I never lost confidence and hope,” said Asgar.
His first job was to have at least 500 facebook fans for a US company. And it was a USD $30 project. He won the project competing with 17 bids from several countries.
With 2219 feedbacks and 100% reputation, he is now leading Bangladesh at freelancer.com. He is one of the top 3 successful users of site.
Most of Asgar's freelance jobs are social networking and internet marketing.
Asgar said although he works for companies across the globe his maximum clients are from US.
He said there are many freelancing site which are known as marketplace, among those Freelancer, Get A Coder, Elance, oDesk, 99 designs, Guru, Fiverr, Project 4 Hire, People Per Hour, Freelance Switch, Go Freelance, iFreelance, Logo My Way, All Freelance Work, Programmer Meet Designer are popular.
Asgar's favorite is freelancer.com
He said freelancing is not as easy as it sounds. It is a challenging job. “To get a project you have to place your bid, convince your client, maintain quality and deliver the project in time to keep good record to get future project.”
On payment methods he said there are several options for withdrawing money which include Payoneer Debit Card, Moneybookers or wire transfer.
“We (freelancers) are waiting for another important payment method-Paypal. I hope our government will take initiative in this regard soon.”
Asgar said there are few institutions in Bangladesh like BASIS, Creative IT and DevsTeam to help the freelancers.
“Unemployment is a huge problem in our country. If unemployed people start working as freelancers, they will be contributing to not only themselves but also to the country. And I believe all of us have skills to become a successful freelancer.”
He said to be successful in this field one should have goal, honesty, commitment
to clients, punctuality. One should also
work hard, maintain quality of work and according to him the most important thing is to go by the rules and regulations of the marketplace.