The Freelance Life, part of Gigabites, is a series of short interviews with top Rafiki freelancers in Africa. We recently caught up with Aisosa Obasohan, a Nigerian Product Designer to hear about his journey into freelancing, his favourite plugins or freelance tools, and any freelance trends he's noticing.
Why did you decide to become a freelancer?
Freelancing gives me the flexibility to work on projects that closely align with my values and career goals while giving me total control of my revenue income.
What’s something you wish you had known when starting out as a freelancer?
One thing I wish I had known way before starting as a freelancer are the opportunities that come with building in public and having an online presence. I have realised it’s way easier to get clients to reach out when you build in public and put your best work out there to your targeted audience. This way you get to attract clients based on your perceived value without even applying to gigs. So I would say, it would have been way easier to transition if I had started building my personal brand and target audience before starting my freelance journey.
What’s the biggest bit of advice you’d give to up and coming freelancers in Africa?
Build your online presence and branding as a designer or in whatever you do from the onset, this way you get to have more opportunities based on your visibility. Maximise your social presence if you are just starting, share your growth journey by putting your work out there early on. Times are changing and you have to adapt.
What’s your favourite plugin, tool, or software right now?
Favourite Plugins:
- Tailwind Css Generator - For Generating colour styles
- Autoflow - For design specs
Favourite Tool:
- Figma
Favourite Softwares:
- Notion
- Spotify
What’s a trend you’re seeing within freelancers, or prediction you have for the year ahead?
With the massive layouts currently happening in the tech ecosystem, new freelancers and design agencies will emerge. Also, in the year ahead more companies will move towards embracing fractional teams as a way of building products. So yeah, the freelance space will be more competitive than ever, hence the need for trusted communities of freelancers will also emerge.
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Our flexible approach to working with teams by integrating fractional talent into in-house teams, or building from the ground up, saves time, money, and derisks operations substantially. Brand design, custom Webflow development, and growth marketing specialists.
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