Become a Freelancer & Start Your Own Business: Career Roadmap

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ No fluff. No outdated tutorials. No overpriced Bootcamp. This Freelance Career Path is your step-by-step roadmap to go from beginner (at any age!) to starting your own freelancing business. You’ll be guided through our curated curriculum of courses, workshops, challenges, and action items to build your skills, portfolio and experience to become a Freelance Consultant, Developer, or Designer.

Become a Freelance Consultant, Developer, or Designer that can get clients and impress with your work Start your own freelance company and be your own boss Learn all the modern skills to build beautiful Mobile and Web Applications Create a beautiful set of projects on your portfolio website that will wow future clients How to get more clients & be able to charge a higher rate This Career Path includes: Exact steps to go from an absolute beginner to a confident Freelance Consultant, Developer, or Designer Access to our supportive Discord community of 1,000s of students, alumni, TAs and instructors Projects that will challenge you and make your portfolio and resume stand out Unlimited access to all courses, workshops, career paths and resources 195.5 hours of video 8 courses 40 projects 2 workshops 2 blogs 1 code challenge 5 actions

How to Start A Freelancing Business & Get Clients

Your career path

What You'll Learn

Become a Freelance Consulatant, Developer, or Designer that can get clients and impress with your work
Start your own freelance company and be your own boss
Learn all the modern skills to build beautiful Mobile and Web Applications
Create a beautiful set of projects on your portfolio website that will wow future clients
How to use A.I. tools & skills to supercharge your work and projects
How to get more clients & be able to charge a higher rate

Course

Beginner

12 Hours ·82 Lessons The Complete Guide to Freelancing in 2025

Start a career or earn a side income by becoming a Freelancer. No experience needed. You'll learn the exact steps to get high-paying clients and live your dream life.

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Course · optional for you

Beginner

5.5 Hours ·110 Lessons Learning to Learn [Efficient Learning]

Become an efficient learner and best version of yourself. You'll learn scientifically proven strategies, techniques & skills used by the world's top performers!

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Course

Beginner

40 Hours ·401 Lessons The Complete Web Developer in 2025: Zero to Mastery

Learn to code from scratch and get hired as a Web Developer in 2025. This full-stack coding bootcamp will teach you HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Node.js, Machine Learning & more.

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Action

Create Your Freelance Profile

Now that you have the skills necessary to get clients, your task is to create the first version of your online profile/portfolio. There are a number of platforms you could use but I recommend you start on Upwork. Make sure your profile is completely filled out and that you showcase the projects you have built up until this point. Once your profile is done, you'll be ready to start applying for freelance jobs.

Start Upwork Profile

Course

Advanced

5 Hours ·48 Lessons Consulting: The Complete Freelancer's Guide

Use your existing skills to create a career or earn a side income by becoming a Freelance Consultant. You'll learn the exact steps to get high-paying clients and build an exciting career.

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Course

Intermediate

5 Hours ·80 Lessons Career Guide to Your Dream Job: Resumes, Interviews & Promotions

Learn how to take the next step in your career. Whether you’re job hunting or aiming for a promotion, this course gives you the ultimate career advantage no matter your industry or experience level.

Course Details Take the Course

Action

Apply To 5 Clients

Believe it or not, you now have enough skills and an online profile so that you can start applying for client jobs and get hired! This process usually takes a while and it's good to start even if you don't feel "ready". Apply to 5 jobs online right now (on Upwork or elsewhere) and see what happens. You don't even need to "want" these jobs. The goal is to practice applying and practice going through the interview process with potential clients. Once you finish applying to 5 client projects (you don't need to hear back), move on to the next step in this Career Path.

Action

Developer or Designer?

Do you have an idea of whether you want to focus on being more of a "Designer" or a "Developer"? If you know what you want to do, only do 2 of the 3 upcoming courses:

Designer focused: Take the UI/UX Product Design Bootcamp followed by the CSS Bootcamp
Developer focused: Take the CSS Bootcamp followed by the JavaScript 20 course

Course

Beginner

29 Hours ·285 Lessons Complete UI/UX Product Design Bootcamp: Zero to Mastery

Go from beginner to hired as a UI/UX Designer in 2025! This is the only design bootcamp you need to learn and master web design, mobile design, Figma, UI & UX, and HTML + CSS.

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Course

Intermediate

42 Hours ·238 Lessons The CSS Bootcamp: Zero to Mastery

Learn everything from CSS basics to advanced CSS techniques by completing 100+ exercises and projects that will wow users and prospective employers. Become a CSS Pro and create beautifully designed apps.

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Course

Intermediate

34 Hours ·257 Lessons JavaScript Web Projects: 20 Projects to Build Your Portfolio

Get hired or your first client by building your dream portfolio of modern, real-world JavaScript projects. Never spend time on confusing, out of date, incomplete tutorials anymore!

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Course · optional for you

Beginner

8 Hours ·98 Lessons The Complete Career Toolkit: Personal Branding, Resume Building & More

Let's get serious about reaching your career goals. We'll help you set yourself apart from everyone else by building your personal brand + a professional resume, cover letter & portfolio website that make you STAND OUT.

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Course

Intermediate

3.5 Hours ·3 Lessons Designer to Developer Handoff: Build a Project from a Design File

Learn how to turn finished Figma designs into fully coded projects. Master the essential skills to bridge the gap between design and development, and bring creative visions to life with code.

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Course

Beginner

12 Hours ·155 Lessons SEO Bootcamp: Learn Search Engine Optimization for Google & LLMs

Learn SEO best practices from scratch. Easy to understand and simple, actionable steps to start driving organic search traffic to your website. This is an essential skill to add to your toolkit.

Course Details Take the Course

Action

Apply To 5 Clients You Really Want

This time around, you have more knowledge and more practice. It's now time to take your hunt for clients seriously. Find 5 clients/jobs that you REALLY want and make a serious effort applying to these jobs based on the tips you learned in the previous lessons. Don't take no for an answer and see if you can land an interview/project with one of these clients you chose. Once you have an interview lined up, move to the next section.

Action

Take Your Next Step

Now that you have completed this path, it's time for you to specialize and upgrade your skills into a specific market. You are now at the point where you need to decide what you want to do in your career. Take the career path quiz again and update your answers based on your newfound knowledge from this path. We will generate a new personal career path for you to take based on your new interests and skills.

Take Career Path Quiz

See less career path

Still have questions?

Who is this Freelance Career Path for?

Anyone who wants a clear step-by-step guide to start their own freelancing business. You will learn to code, learn to design, and other consulting skills to become a self employed Freelancer from scratch and actually get clients to pay you. Oh ya, and you don't want to waste your money on overpriced bootcamps and degrees.

Also, let's be honest. Some of the topics can be a little dry. So, we're even going to have a bit of fun along the way. No way! Crazy right?!

This Freelance Career Path is perfect for you if:

You're a complete beginner (of any age!) and want a full bootcamp curriculum and experience without having to pay $1,000s
You don't want to waste your valuable time. You want to learn everything needed to become a Freelance Developer, Designer, or Consultant in one place
You want to build real-world, full-scale projects that will push you, challenge you and make your portfolio and resume stand out to future clients
You don't want to learn and take this journey alone. You will learn alongside 100s of other students at your same level and 1,000s more that are just a few steps ahead of you
You can handle our amazing sense of humour (it's not spelled wrong, we're Canadian... well, some of us... see what we mean... you've been warned)

And it's definitely for you if you're sick of:

Outdated coding tutorials
Free courses and tutorials that don't go beyond the basics
Learning topics and concepts that are mostly irrelevant in the real-world
Courses with no community or support system
Tutorial hell
Feeling like you're going in circles with no clear path or end in sight

Let's be 100% clear. You aren't going to do 100 coding challenges or 50 projects. That's a waste of your time. We are going to teach you just enough so that you can start earning money for building projects.

Why become a Freelance Developer, Designer or Consultant?

Everyone has their own reason(s) as to why they want to star a Freelancing business. But here are a few of the best reasons:

Endless jobs available. It's hard to estimate the number of Freelance Developer and Designer jobs available. But just think about the possibilities of ways you can earn money as a Freelance Developer / Designer. Customizing websites for friends, family and clients. Get work on freelance platforms like Upwork. Even companies like Google hire Freelance Developers & Designers for projects.
No degree required. There are an endless number of Freelance Developers & Designers getting paid a lot of money and working on amazing projects without having any college degree.
Work remotely. Most freelance jobs are remote. Work from the comfort of your own home, a coffee shop or even while travelling the world. Work on your own schedule.
It's fun. And rewarding. You get to have a real-world impact. The work you're doing on a daily basis can have a huge impact on hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. You also get fast feedback loops on your work. Within minutes you can make a change to a website or app and your Mom could see it live in the real-world. How cool is that!

How long does it take to become a Freelance Developer, Designer, or Consultant (and complete this Career Path)?

Everyone is different. So it's hard to give a specific amount of time. The two biggest variables are the number of hours per week you're dedicating to completing the steps in the Career Path and your current experience level.

Don't hold us to it but here's a rough guideline based on feedback we've received from past ZTM students on how long it takes to become a Freelance Developer, Freelance Designer or Freelance Consultant:

20-40 hours a week = 4-6 months. Students who have started from scratch as complete beginners (no matter their age!) and spend a few hours per day.
40-80 hours a week = 2-3 months. Students who are able to learn basically full-time and/or already have some experience (ex: CS students / Coding Bootcamp grads).
0-10 hours a week = 7-12+ months. Students from all experience levels but are only able to dedicate a few hours a week.

What’s the ZTM Discord community and how can it help me?

The ZTM Discord is our exclusive online community for ZTM students, alumni, TAs and instructors.

How it helps you, short version: Increase the chances that ZTM students achieve their current goals and help them continue to grow throughout their career.

Longer version: Learning alone is hard. We've all been there. We've all tried to learn new skills and struggled. It can be frustrating, daunting, and just plain challenging, especially if you're trying to change careers.

We feel strongly that the Zero To Mastery Discord community is an essential part of the learning experience and greatly increases the chances for students to achieve their goals.

It's crazy to think that Colleges and Coding Bootcamps charge you tens of thousands of dollars to provide you with this type of experience. It doesn't have to be that way!

In fact, ~20% of ZTM students are also enrolled at a College or in-person Coding Bootcamp but feel like they just aren't getting all of the skills and support they need. But with ZTM, they do.

Within the Zero To Mastery Discord community, you can:

Connect with other Developers, Engineers, Data Scientists, Designers
Form study groups and complete ZTM Career Paths and Courses together
Ask questions and get advice from other people at your same level as well as more experienced professionals
Get feedback on projects
Meet other students around the world (and likely even someone from your hometown!)
Learn how to answer questions and help other students which will accelerate your own learning
Get help from others with questions and exercises
Work on coding challenges and real-world open-source projects with other students

It’s pretty awesome to see many ZTM alumni also active every single day, continuing to engage with the community, give back, and level up their own skills and career.

Are there any prerequisites for this Career Path?

A computer (Windows/Mac/Linux) and access to the internet. That's it! No previous experience is needed.

If you haven't already, take our tech career path quiz. We'll give you our recommendation for which path is the best fit for you.

How is a Career Path different from a course?

Career Paths are like a full College curriculum. Our Career Paths give you the exact courses, workshops, challenges, articles and actions to take to go from absolute beginner to getting hired.

Career Paths start with ensuring you know the foundations from scratch. But they go far beyond by teaching you advanced topics and non-technical skills that are essential for your career but aren't taught in Computer Science Degrees or Coding Bootcamps.

Courses are more focused. Different courses have different goals. Some courses are a great fit for experienced Developers, Engineers and Programmers who want to level-up their skills in a specific topic or framework. Other courses cover a wider range of topics teaching the foundations and fundamentals for beginners.

Can I change my Career Path?

Yes. You can change your Career Path anytime. As a member of Zero To Mastery, you have unlimited access to all ZTM courses, workshops, challenges, articles and other materials needed to complete any of the ZTM Career Paths.

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Never worry about staying up to date with the industry again, for life. You'll get access to all ZTM PRO features and future courses for life.

Become a Freelancer & Start Your Own Business

Earn on average $75,183 per year

5 Months

Your career path

What You'll Learn

Apply To 5 Clients

Developer or Designer?

Apply To 5 Clients You Really Want

See less career path

What ZTM students are saying

Meet your instructors

Andrei Neagoie

Paul Mendes

Scott Stockdale

Daniel Schifano

Still have questions?

Who is this Freelance Career Path for?

Why become a Freelance Developer, Designer or Consultant?

How long does it take to become a Freelance Developer, Designer, or Consultant (and complete this Career Path)?

What’s the ZTM Discord community and how can it help me?

Are there any prerequisites for this Career Path?

How is a Career Path different from a course?

Can I change my Career Path?

Invest in a better you. For less than a coffee a day.

Only pay once, ever