4 Years of Freelancing in India Taught Me Why the System is Broken

I started freelancing 4 years ago.

Video editing. Photography. Videography.

I was good at it. Clients liked my work. I was getting gigs consistently.

And yet, almost every project had a moment where something went wrong.

Not because of my work. Because of the system around it.

Or rather, the complete absence of one.

1. The Payment That Never Came

Two years into freelancing I was fully in it.

Me and my friend got connected to a startup founder. Seemed legit. Confident. Well-spoken.

He had a lot of work. We said yes.

For an entire month we worked on multiple things for him. Design. Video. Content. Whatever he needed.

He had one condition, he could only settle finances at the end of the month.

We said okay.

We trusted him.

End of the month came.

He paid us a fraction of what we were owed.

Then blocked us.

Both of us. Same time.

No explanation. No negotiation. No nothing.

Just gone.

That was the day I realised something I should have known from day one.

In Indian freelancing, if there is no system protecting your payment before work starts, you are betting on a stranger's character. Every single time.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you get blocked.

2. The Day I Arranged Shoes at a Wedding

Before that, there was the green jacket incident.

I got called for a photography gig. Pre-wedding shoot. Extra photographer. Easy money.

I showed up in a green jacket and a blue cap.

Found a house full of family members. Fully dressed. Fully decked out.

The middleman who got me the gig stopped picking up my calls.

They didn't need a photographer that day.

They needed someone to arrange shoes. Hand out chai. Move stuff around.

I did it because I didn't know how to leave.

3 hours. Full chores. Green jacket. Wedding house.

Never got paid.

This is the middleman problem nobody talks about. Someone connects you to a gig, takes their cut, and disappears the moment anything goes wrong. Zero accountability. Zero protection.

3. Scope Has No End When There's No Structure

Here's a pattern I saw on almost every project.

Client comes in. Needs one thing. You agree on a price.

Then, "can you just also do this small thing?"

Then another small thing.

Then a complete rethink of the original brief.

Then revisions. Many revisions.

You can't say no because you haven't been paid yet.

So you keep going.

The project has no finish line because nobody defined one at the start.

I've seen a logo project turn into a full brand identity, 3 social media templates, a pitch deck, and a business card. For the original logo price.

It happens slowly. Then all at once. And by the time you realise, you're too deep in to walk away.

4. Why Indian Freelancers Undercharge Themselves Into the Ground

This one is uncomfortable to say but needs to be said.

Most Indian freelancers, including me early on, charge less than their work is worth.

Not because we don't know our value.

Because we're scared.

Scared the client says no. Scared they find someone cheaper. Scared we lose the gig entirely.

So we price ourselves low. Hoping to make up for it in volume.

It doesn't work.

You attract clients who expect more for less. You burn out. You start resenting your own work.

The irony is, clients who pay well rarely argue about price. They argue about quality. That's a conversation worth having.

5. The Beginner Trap Nobody Warns You About

"No portfolio, no clients. No clients, no portfolio."

Every beginner hits this wall.

Platforms make it worse. They rank by reviews and completed projects. Beginners have neither. They're invisible.

So they take any gig. For any price. Just to build something.

And often those first few gigs are the worst ones. Low pay. Difficult clients. No structure.

The people who need the most protection in freelancing are the ones who get the least of it.

6. What 4 Years Actually Taught Me

After all of this, here's what actually works.

Get the scope in writing before starting anything. Even a WhatsApp message counts. Something. Anything.

Take an advance. Even a small one. It filters out bad clients immediately. Anyone who refuses to pay anything upfront is telling you something important.

Break projects into milestones. Deliver one piece. Get paid. Then the next. Never deliver everything before you have anything.

Define revisions upfront. "Two rounds of revisions included" changes everything.

And most importantly, never let hope be your payment protection.

Why I Stopped Freelancing to Fix This

I spent 2 years fully freelancing.

Then I spent the next 2 years thinking about why every single pain point I experienced came from the same root cause.

No infrastructure. No system. No protection for the people doing the work.

Other countries have this figured out, at least partially. India doesn't. Not for our market. Not for our scale. Not for the millions of students, beginners, and professionals who are trying to build a living through their skills.

So I started building Huzl.in.

A platform where:

Payment is secured in escrow before work starts. Nobody runs. Nobody ghosts.

Scope is defined upfront. Milestones agreed. Revisions locked. No infinite loops.

Trust is built into the system, not assumed from strangers.

Everything in one place, proposals, chat, milestones, payments, reviews.

Not just a marketplace. A trust infrastructure for freelancing in India.

We're still building. Still learning. Still talking to freelancers and hirers every day.

If any part of this story felt familiar, I'd love to hear your version of it.

And if you want to be the first to know when Huzl.in goes live
huzl.in

Abid Ali - Co-founder, Huzl.in Videographer turned builder. 4 years freelancing. Building the fix.