An Insightful Guide to Becoming a Freelancer
Monika Kanokova · Community & Content Strategist
A published author distills her own freelance playbook into 62 minutes, but the advice stays inspirational rather than operational.
What the course actually covers
Monika Kanokova built this class around the same interviews that became her book, This Year Will Be Different, and the course carries that book's DNA: personal anecdotes about other freelancers standing in for structured instruction. Across fourteen short lessons, the arc moves from self-reflection (the mission statement assignment) through practical setup (website, business plan, financial buffer) to ongoing practice (networking, customer care, social media, collaboration). The single assignment, a written freelancer mission statement built from four questions about skills, work preferences, output, and client benefit, anchors the whole course. Everything after it either reinforces or references that document.
The strongest material sits in the first half. The distinction drawn between listing deliverables ("you'll get blog posts") and naming actual client benefit ("you'll attract new customers") is a genuinely useful reframe for anyone writing website copy or a pitch. The repeated point that a website should function as a service explanation rather than a portfolio, front-loaded with what a visitor needs within two seconds, is solid, specific guidance that plenty of working freelancers still get wrong.
Where it thins out
Past the halfway mark, the lessons lean heavily on anecdote instead of method. The business plan lesson name-drops the Business Model Canvas and mentions European funding options, then moves on without walking through either in detail. The financial buffer lesson offers two illustrative stories, a bar-industry designer and a copywriter who saved before quitting her job, but no formula, savings target, or timeline for a viewer to apply to their own situation. Sections on networking and social media stay at the level of "which platform for which discipline" (Behance for designers, LinkedIn for keyword-based discovery) without covering outreach scripts, rates, or how to actually convert a contact into a paying project.
The course also never engages with pricing, invoicing, taxes, or contracts beyond a single line recommending that friends and collaborators sign something in writing. For a class explicitly aimed at people trying to make a living freelancing, the absence of any number, whether a rate, a savings target, or a timeline, is the clearest gap. The class works better as a motivational primer than as an operating manual.
Bottom line
At 62 minutes, this is closer to a well-organized pep talk than a skills course. Someone who has never considered freelancing, or who is stuck in the "how do I even start" phase, will likely find the mission statement exercise and website advice worth the hour. Someone already juggling clients, or looking for the tactical mechanics of pricing, contracts, or lead generation, will finish this course with the same questions they started with.
The standout
The four-question freelancer mission statement exercise, which forces a clear answer to how clients actually benefit from your work rather than just what you deliver.
What you will learn
- How to write a personal freelancer mission statement covering skills, work style, output, and client benefit
- Why a side project builds the reputation and reference work that lands first paid gigs
- A basic framework for structuring a business plan, including the Business Model Canvas
- How to build a financial runway before or during the transition to full-time freelancing
- What a client-facing website needs: an about section, services, contact info, and results-focused case studies
- Where to network in person and online, including meetup platforms, niche events, and social channels by profession
Best for: A creative professional, such as a designer, writer, or consultant, who has never freelanced and wants a motivational overview of the mindset and first moves.
Skip it if: Anyone who already has clients and needs pricing formulas, contract templates, tax guidance, or a marketing plan with concrete numbers and deadlines.