How many projects do you need in your portfolio?

This question seems to be a hot one right now with people working on their portfolio's before 2024 so I thought it would be healthy to explore. If you're anything like me, you're probably doing projects for friends and family and made up passion projects while also trying to attract clients by cold outreach. It can be insanely stressful trying to build your portfolio while also trying to earn your first freelancing money.

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We'll cover:

1) What portfolio pieces do you make?

2) How many projects do you need in your portfolio?

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What portfolio pieces do you make?

Rather than telling you what to make, I'll give you some thoughts to chew over:

• What are you passionate about?
• What unique advantages do you have?
• What particular skillsets do you want to highlight in the portfolio?

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What are you excited about?

Paul Graham, founder of Y combinator talks about pursuing what your excited by:

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”There’s a kind of excited curiosity that’s both the engine and the rudder of great work. It will not only drive you, but if you let it have its way, will also show you what to work on.”

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Tambien studio's founders, Alex & Balerein, in episode 48 of Webflail, talked about how they choose which companies they want to work with - they are vegans so if a vegan food company came to them, it would light them up! They want to "design the change they want to see," and all their projects reflect that.

Just to reiterate, we want you to feel happy, engaged and full of passion for what you do creatively. So ensuring that you are focussing on whatever excites you and doing more of it is really important.

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So make, make make armed with excited curiosity.

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What unique advantages do you have?

Ran Segall talks about this consistently on his incredible FLUX academy YT channel but essentially, all of us have unique advantages wherever you are from and whoever you are which can influence where you focus you portfolio creation.

• Perhaps you have an interest in fashion because your mum/dad is a fashion designer and you have always grown up inspired by colours and typography so this naturally gives you tonnes of leverage through contacts, unique insight and skillset.
• Perhaps you have a podcast and you're interested in content creation as much as web design so naturally, you have unique insights that makes you a natural choice in that niche
• Perhaps you had a job in a chemical engineering firm and have an interest in this niche but want to switch to Webflow - you have unique advantages in this sector!

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How many projects do you need in your portfolio?

There is no set number but imagine this scenario:

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You're an NFT studio and you want to find a freelancer to make you a website. You want to hire a freelancer you trust can do your website so they need proof that they have done it before and ideally, they’re passionate about your industry so they already know the ins and outs of what you do.

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You find various different candidates - some have years of experience across all sorts of different industries, different design styles, different website requirements but there is one that has 3 projects that are all NFT projects which are similar to the needs you require.

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The freelancer not only has work and case studies of each but articles showing how to NFT websites can be improved, favourite NFT collections and even has their own small NFT collection.

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Too often, portfolios become random work mosaics, lacking focus. Remember, your vibe attracts your tribe. A jumble of bakery logos, hairdresser websites, and wrestling insignia hardly showcases your true passions or value.

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Which portfolio would you pick if you were to hire someone?

I would argue you will be far more likely to hire someone who has a portfolio of work with only 3 projects that are all NFT projects than someone with 10 projects of all sorts of different industries, styles and for different purposes.

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Even with only 3 focussed projects, I would argue you have a stronger portfolio than one with 10 random projects

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Now niching is a hot topic and I don’t suggest that niching by industry is the only way to niche. You can choose to niche by industry (real estate, dentist, yoga), by tool (eg webflow, wordrpress, framer) or by particular skillset (SEO focus for webflow clients) or particular depth of skillset in a tool stack like Wized in Webflow. There are also plenty of examples of agencies and freelancers that haven’t necessarily chosen a super narrow niche - Ilja Van Eck is a great example.

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As ​Connor Finlayson mentions in episode 36 though​, niching helps you to know who you are marketing to as much as it helps clients know who you are for them. If you say you can help anyone with any website, it’s not terribly compelling for a prospective client. However, if you decide you love NFT’s and that’s what your interest is in, you will know exactly who you’re trying to attract, where that audience hangs out online and in person and what content to make to attract them potentially.

If you are starting out in the Webflow space, it can be hard to differentiate unless you have a narrower focus. Naturally, over time, you can choose whether this will widen as you work with more and more people and figure out who you are, your particular interests and who you want to work with is. 📈

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If you’re not sure what you’re particularly interested in and thus which audience you can serve best, Emily Giordano suggests guessing by exploring. On episode 21 of the podcast, Emily talked about contacting real businesses that perhaps had websites you think could be improved and then making a Webflow template that improves it.

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You can even go one step further by speaking to that business, and others in that niche, and understanding their pain points.

This will not only potentially give you your first clients but it will help you understand the problems of a particular industry, whether you want to be a freelancer that is an expert in that niche and also the kind of people you might be working with! They will also be real projects that you can potential get testimonials from too AND you might even be able to sell the template to make passive income. Isn’t that a genius idea from Emily?!

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The point is though that in order to get client work, it’s helpful to make the work you want to get.

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Conclusion

Less quantity, more quality could be the way forward. By the way, if you're worried about boxing yourself in to a niche, just remember that you can always change. I wanted to be a yoga instructor Webflower for a while. After 6 months, I realised it was a terrible idea and I pivoted. Nothing is forever and certainly not your portfolio.