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How long does it take to get clients...
Thread poster: DAlonso
DAlonso
DAlonso  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 10:05
English to Spanish
+ ...
Oct 8, 2009

How long does it take to get sufficient work to get a proper business going and make enough money to live on (comfortably)?

My significant other and I have been planning our future and he is going to start a MA in Translation and work as a freelancer. I wonder how long will it take him to have enough work to start our future together.

How long did it take you?
 
Aguas de Mar (X)
Aguas de Mar (X)
I am afraid I do not understand Oct 8, 2009

You mean to say that you cannot start your "future together" until your significant other gets "enough work"?

One has to first define "enough work"; then, one has to be aware that it make take several or many years to reach the self defined goal, or that it might never be reached. Why make a "future together" depend on such an arbitrary thing, and not in a couple's willingness to share a life, I wonder?
 
achisholm
achisholm
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:05
Italian to English
+ ...
In my case, Oct 8, 2009

six months.
I started accepting jobs in May and was lucky to have a client who gave me almost enough work to survive on, but I continued with my "day job". The reason was that, even though the volume of work arriving was sufficient, I didn't want to make the "leap of faith" with just a single client - if anything goes wring, you loose everything.
Over the six month period I gradually accumulated clients and had enough work, and a large enough client base to go it alone.
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:05
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Six months to a year Oct 8, 2009

DAlonso wrote:
How long does it take to get sufficient work to get a proper business going and make enough money to live on (comfortably)?


Books and practical courses for aspiring translators say between six months and a year. In the light of the global recession you might want to go for the year figure, to be on the safe side.

I myself took the leap from salaried to freelancer after having done part-time freelance work for about 5 years and having built up relationships with a number of clients, and I had save up 3 months' living expenses, and a regular client landed me a job of 500 000 words, to be paid for in installments. That was enough for me. As it happened, the client took 6 months to pay the first installment (not his fault, the poor thing), but I was able to keep the ship afloat with quicker paying jobs from other clients.

My significant other and I have been planning our future and he is going to start a MA in Translation and work as a freelancer. I wonder how long will it take him to have enough work to start our future together.


How long are his studies? Is it a 1 year MA or a 4 year MA? I would suggest that he starts doing part-time freelance work as soon as possible, to build up a client base.

Samuel
 


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How long does it take to get clients...







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