Find freelance jobs in Canada and build your freelance network
If you are thinking about starting freelancing or you are looking for new ways to connect with other freelancers to collaborate and grow your business than this community is made for you.
What is Unicorn Factory?
Unicorn Factory is a freelancer directory that was originally founded in New Zealand, and we are now launching in Canada. Unicorn Factory connects businesses to local freelancers without acting as intermediary. Our dual mission is to make hiring and finding great local talent as accessible as possible, and secondly we want to empower creative Canadians to do what they love for a living.
Last year, we helped over 1500 New Zealand businesses find and hire local designers, marketers and developers. Unicorn Factory New Zealand is now home to 500 freelancers and we hope to grow the Canadian community to be just as great.
How does it work?
Unicorn Factory is a directory of Ontario's best freelancers. It makes it easy for businesses to find and hire local talent for their projects.
Have an online presence as a Canadian freelancer
Your profile page contains all the info, clients need to make sure that you are a good fit. We also allow you to publicly display case studies of your work to inspire clients to get in touch with you.
When a client contacts you through your profile, we automatically forward all the information onto you via email.
Find clients through our job board
If a business can't decide on what freelancer to contact directly, they will post a job to our community job board. If you are interested in working on that project, you let us know and we will introduce you to the client.
Connect with and get advice from other freelancers
Besides creating work opportunities for you, we also connect you to other amazing freelancers that you can collaborate with, ask for advice or just have a chat with.
Who can sign up to Unicorn Factory?
Unicorn Factory is best suited for people who are serious about turning their craft into paid work. We are looking for people who are creative, but most importantly, people who are willing invest in themselves and their freelance business.
🚀 Newbies
- You are passionate about your craft and you see freelancing as an amazing opportunity to get paid to do what you love.
- You haven't had your first paying client yet. Maybe you have been held by the fear of finding clients, failure or being judged.
- You are willing to take freelancing seriously from day one, and want to invest time and money up-front to set yourself up for success.
- Who hires Newbies on Unicorn Factory? Small local businesses, like yoga studios or cafes, often hire our Newbies because they are the most cost effective option, while still getting quality work.
- Newbies usually charge our an hourly rate between $35 - $45 per hour.
😎Side Hustlers
- You are currently in a full-time job but love the idea of using your skills and knowledge to help local businesses grow.
- You might be working on your own startup and want to freelance on the side to keep cash coming in while you are building your business. (That's how I started)
- You also love the idea of having one or two freelance clients to make a bit of extra money on the side.
- Even though you freelance on the side, professionalism and delivering value is important to you.
- Who hires Side Hustlers on Unicorn Factory? Early-stage startups and small local businesses are the most common clients for our side hustlers. These are often one-off projects with a fixed project rate.
- Our most popular services for Side Hustlers are copywriting, branding and strategy.
💵 Pros
- You have a well established freelancing business and have been self-employed for a while now.
- You consider yourself a full-time freelancer, consultant or coach.
- You specialise in a specific area of design, development or marketing. You may work with a specific niche, but are open to working with businesses who are looking for your expertise.
- You currently have no employees or business partners, but you sometimes hire subcontractors to help with bigger projects.
- Who hires Pro Freelancers on Unicorn Factory? Pros are our most hired group of freelancers. They work with all types of businesses from small local businesses to government agencies and large corporations.
⚡️ Studios
- You run your own agency or studio, and have between 1 - 5 FTEs. You also frequently hire freelancer for their specialised skills to help out on projects.
- You see Unicorn Factory as a way to connect to more local businesses who may need your services.
- Who hires Studios on Unicorn Factory? Often larger Kiwi businesses, government agencies or funded startups hire studios because they can take on larger projects and deliver a wider range of services.
How much does it cost to join?
While we are building up the first few cohorts, Unicorn Factory will be free to join. In the future, we will be introducing membership fees before we will let you know well in advance before we introduce that.
Apply to joinWant to join?
Step 1: Apply to join
Create an account and complete the application form. Once approved, you be notified by email
Step 2: Add Case Studies
All you need to do then is add two case studies to your profile.
Step 3: Get Started
Once they have been reviewed and approved, we will publish your profile!
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to be based in Canada?
Yes.
Am I guaranteed leads?
For obvious reasons, we can't guarantee you any work, but we will make suggestions on how you can be improve your profile if you don't get a lot of enquiries. On average (at least in New Zealand) you will get 1 enquiry for every 100 profile visits and (on average) convert 1 in 5 of those leads into a paying customer. If you fall too far out the realm of that we will get in touch.
I have never freelanced before? Can I still join?
Absolutely! One of the things that gets us most excited is helping freelancers get their first job.
I am not sure how I should price my services?
Don't worry. We have a community forum where we help you answer some important freelancing questions, we will also be supporting you through different education content on the website in the future too.
How much traffic/leads do you get through this site?
Since I am starting here in Canada, I can't tell you for certain how things will go, but I have a plan and if New Zealand is anything to go by then we should do well. In 2019, we got 682 direct enquires through the website. In 2020, we got 2337 direct enquiries. At any given time, we have about 500 freelancers on the site, and how well you do on the site really depends on what you do and how well your profile presented.
How do you eventually plan on charging freelancers?
In terms of the eventual costs... I am not 100% set on a pricing plan yet. My plan was to let it run for a while, get some leads for freelancers and then ask them what they think would be fair. Either way, I plan on having a free plan no matter what. I don't want money to be the thing that holds people back from starting freelancing.
In NZ, I introduced a bunch of little add-ons that I charged for like getting intros to clients who posted to the job board. That was really good because freelancers who didn't need any extra work at any given time wouldn't have to pay. I also make money through the site when businesses want me to handpick them freelancers and I plan on doing some paid partnerships with services that might useful to freelancers like lawyers and accountants.
So, in short, it's still undecided, I will talk to talk freelancers once we get a bit of traction and go from there.
What types of businesses hire freelancers on Unicorn Factory?
Because we are just getting started in Canada, we can't tell for certain who will be using the site most often, but in New Zealand, we have a range of businesses that use our site to find freelancers.
Most enquiries come from smaller local businesses like accounting firms, consultants, yoga studios or early-stage startups. But we also have a lot of agencies and studios that hire our freelancers for their own client projects.
We have also received enquiries from government agencies or larger corporations, but they usually hire very specialised freelancers like Webflow Developers, UX Writers or Poster Designers.
A big contributing factor to getting very specific clients to reach out is to write your bio in a way that appeals to them. A few New Zealand freelancers have done that successfully for Health startups or business coaches.