Charging by the project rewards you for efficiency. If it takes someone else 10-15 hours, and the client pays based on that, but you can do it in 5 hours, you come out ahead. It also forces you to cut unnecessary parts of the project so that you don’t spend hours and hours on something that has a fixed price.

It is mostly Excel knowledge. Most people are horrible at Excel and don’t even know the main shortcuts that you use all the time, so it takes them forever to do simple things like adding or deleting rows.

Beyond that, it’s mostly knowledge of 3-statement models and how expenses and revenue flow in.

The work could get more advanced in some contexts, such as if you’re the “part-time CFO,” but if you’re working with early-stage startups, real estate people without much finance knowledge, etc., it’s not too complicated.

regarding the financial modeling freelancing: what are the main skills you need to set it up? Is it specific excel-knowledge that is key or is it more the understanding of how things work (like how do you build a model in excel most efficiently, DCF, Financial Planning, DSO/DPO/DIO, LBO-stuff & so on)…

Thanks. I do try to mix it up occasionally. But at this stage of the market (very mature, 10-15 years into it), you are indeed correct that revamping and reorganizing older content produces a higher ROI than publishing completely new interviews… in most cases.

Sorry for the broken english

Definitely your time is better spent on revamping old posts for SEO value but glad to see you entertain your newsletters subscribers that aren’t spending money with you anymore.

This is not a good strategy to win an initial internship in IB, even at a boutique bank. First off, they will be doubtful of your modeling skills if you haven’t yet had full-time experience in the industry (no, not everyone who worked in banking full-time knows modeling that well or at all, but the probability is higher).

Second, you sort of “devalue” yourself if you try to offer your services as a freelancer because they could just keep you as a freelancer indefinitely, with no intent to bring you on full-time or even for an internship.

So… I don’t recommend using this approach unless you just want to earn extra income while working on other projects/ventures and your goal is not a full-time career in IB/PE.