On twitter he is known as @andysowards and is one of the most famous and followed Web developer programmer together with being such a great person, always ready to help everyone, his name is Andy Sowards.
Hello Andy, first of all welcome to TheLanceLife and thank you for this interview. Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers telling us something about you and when you decided to be a freelance and why?
Thanks very much, I am glad to be here! About me? I am 24 years old, Happily married to a beautiful woman and a great Mother, we have 3 beautiful baby boys as well, a 3 year old, 2 year old and a 7 month old.
Yes, we have our hands full haha. When I first decided to be a freelancer was because of my intense passion for web design and development and helping people achieve greatness over the internet.
I also decided that while I do all of this, I wanted to be my own boss and eventually be able to spend more time with the family.
What’s your usual day like being a freelance, a husband and most of all a father?
Every day is a new day full of opportunities, challenges and rewards.
The typical day starts off with a baby crawling into the bed and asking for Juice. After the boys are settled the actual work starts with the good old email box (that’s right, no breakfast for me haha).
Typical days have a few projects scheduled to be worked on in a specific order depending on due dates, complexity of the project etc. Of course there are always emergencies from clients, new requests, and all those other fun little things that pop up at any given moment through the day and of course, there is some time set aside each day for twitter(a Must) and blogging.
What about past and present project you are involved into ? Any spoiler about future ones ?
One of my most recent large projects was http://virl.com/ it was a very fun and creative project, I basically designed the site and did a good amount of programming in the back end to accomplish the final product.
As of late I have been working on some smaller projects with clients and set aside a good amount of time to redesign http://www.andysowards.com as well, which is still in Phase 1 of the redesign, Phase 2 is launching very soon.
As for future projects, there are some big ones coming down the pipe, but can’t really say much about those unfortunately. Guess you’ll have to wait and see eh?
How did you manage to become well known and get hired? Did Twitter helped?
Twitter helped give me a tremendous amount of credibility.
Being able to help people with web design/development and programming really helps people to realize your talents and before you know it, if you help enough people, you turn into the “Go To” guy for your particular field.
I highly recommend twitter and engaging with your audience. Its all about helping others, and sharing your knowledge.
Do you think having a blog like www.andysowards.com is something important for someone wanting togo freelancing nowadays?
I believe it is important to have your own site to showcase your skill set and portfolio. It helps a ton to have a branded online presence for people to track and keep up with as you and your business grow.
This is by no means a requirement, I know several successful web companies that don’t even have a website (somehow). So to each his own, if a blog isn’t your thing, static sites work too.
Although I believe the whole blog aspect brings in a while new element to your online presence, and keeps people coming back to see what you are up to and what new things you have to offer
What can you suggest to someone wanting to go freelance?
The road to freelancing success is not an easy path, but it is a very rewarding path.
If you are willing to work hard, stay focused, and constantly improve your skills and knowledge, then you will be just fine.
Some very helpful sites to guide freelancers on this path are http://freelanceswitch.com/ & http://freelancefolder.com/.
A big thank you to Andy for letting us have this interview and if you need to contact Andy for anything you like just here they are a few addresses :
blog : http://www.andysowards.com
twitter : http://www.twitter.com/andysowards
linkedin : http://www.linkedin.com/in/andysowards
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/andysowards
blip.fm : http://blip.fm/andysowards
flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29725796@N05/
Tags: coding, freelance, Inspiration, interview, switch, thoughts, twitter
The Author : WPstudios
WPstudios is a graphic and coding agency specialized in web design, print design, logo and branding, wordpress customization, PHP and Javascript coding, 3D graphic.
September 3rd, 2009 on 16:33
nice interview guys… Andy, keep up the good work!
September 4th, 2009 on 03:21
Can I just say two things?
1. Nice article/interview.
2. I can’t stand to read your text. It’s very hard to read on the black background. It made my eyes tired and I couldn’t even finish the article. Sorry. Good luck in all.
September 4th, 2009 on 07:46
Preston Lee :
Thank you for your comment and thank you for pointing out the difficulty to read text on black background, anyway this is a good point to tell you all that we are going to make a huge restyle to TheLanceLife soon, new graphic,new theme, new sections, new custom made funtionalities, just stay tuned and we hope you all will enjoy the new TheLanceLife.
Thanks
September 4th, 2009 on 16:26
have to agree with preston couldnt read the whole inter cos it was pain in the eyes cheers
September 4th, 2009 on 16:41
Ben Rama:
Thank to you too for feedback, as already said we are actually going under a complete restyle phase for TheLanceLife so we will keep your advices in mind.
July 9th, 2010 on 02:02
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