In our Freelancer Course, we guide you through a hands-on process of defining your service offering, developing client relationships, and establishing the foundation to thrive as an independent contractor. This course is 6-weeks long and is well suited for individuals seeking self-employment in a personal or professional services industry, or as an independent artist.
Before I started Uptima, I wasn’t sure I had all of the components in place to begin freelancing, marketing myself and taking on work. Uptima’s freelancer course takes a thorough week-by-week approach to covering everything—from clarifying my service offer, to building a website, to understanding the legal aspects of running my business and preparing contracts. In two months, I was up and running and have been self-employed ever since.
One practice that changed in my business is assessing my capacity to work with prospective clients. Now that I have a greater understanding of what I offer as a service, I can determine which clients are mutually beneficial for me to work with.
The freelancer program helped me determine how much my time and skills are worth to me as well as to gain certainty about what my other personal and professional values are. This gave me the confidence to charge the appropriate rates to make my freelance practice sustain and thrive, and to give myself raises as necessary. Uptima taught me how to create client packages and begin to market myself and my work beyond my existing relationships.
Unit |
Topics Covered |
|---|---|
| Introduction |
|
| Business Model |
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| Money Matters |
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| Protect Yourself |
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| Get Clients |
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| Achieve Balance |
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Must have at least 3 months of experience (either as an employee or through self-employment) providing the personal or professional service, art or music you seek to offer through your self-employed business.
Average time commitment for our Freelancer Course is 10 hours / week dedicated to building your business, and includes the following weekly activities:
Title |
Weekly Activity | Weekly Commitment |
|---|---|---|
| Background Materials |
|
1-2 hours / week |
| Workshops |
|
3 hours / week |
| Business Development Activities |
|
2-10 hours / week |
| Peer Mentoring |
|
1 hour / week |
| One-on-one Mentoring |
|
30 minutes / week |
Our Freelancer course is offered at the following locations.
The cost of our Freelancer Course consists of a course fee of $600. For San Francisco entrepreneurs, the course is free through a grant from the City and County of San Francisco’s Office of Economic & Workforce Development.
We charge a $25 deposit to reserve your space in the class. This deposit is credited against the payment of your course fee, where applicable.
Because we believe in entrepreneurship as a means to close the racial wealth gap, we offer financial assistance programs for entrepreneurs of color.
For entrepreneurs of color in Oakland, San Francisco, and Boston, we offer financial assistance covering 100% of your course fee, regardless of your household income and the number of people in your household through the end of 2020.
This course is also available for free to all San Francisco-based freelancers regardless of race in 2020.
Be Your Own Boss Class 
