Coursera

Plan a Successful Freelancing Business (Coursera)

Offered by California Institute of the Arts,
Plan a Successful Freelancing Business (Coursera)

The first course in the Building Your Freelancing Career specialization is focused on freelancers looking to define and solidify their philosophy, values and goals within their future business. Coursework will discuss the importance of understanding their competition and market position in a competitive business landscape, help them define what their unique value is, and how that relates to possible business approaches.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Course 1 of 5 in the Building Your Freelancing Career Specialization.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Course & Specialization Overview
This Specialization helps you improve your professional skills as a freelancer, solopreneur, or new business owner. Each course focuses on a new set of skills that build upon previous courses' learnings to strengthen your understanding of the fundamentals of designing and running a freelancing business. Course 1 is all about planning - we will explore your interests, skills, and talents in the context of market conditions and customer needs to design a valuable service offering.
Getting Started with Freelancing
Let's dive into the fundamentals of freelancing as career option, meet some successful entrepreneurs who started freelancing businesses, and examine whether or not freelancing is a fit for your goals.

WEEK 2
Designing Your Dream Business
Multi-talented people often want to "boil the ocean" or take on too much when they start freelancing. In this module, you'll consider different freelancing directions and decide which is the best fit for your goals. Let's create a motivating vision of your dream business!

WEEK 3
Develop Your Service in Four Steps
Now that you have taken a personal assessment of your interests, and have a vision for your freelancing business, it is time to design the details that will make your service offerings attractive to customers.

WEEK 4
What Goes Into a Solid Business Plan
Many businesses fail, partially because they fail to plan. In this module, you'll tackle the challenge of describing your business in a business plan and deepen your learning by critiquing your peers' business plans.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Decision-Making and Scenarios (Coursera) Coursera
University of Pennsylvania

Decision-Making and Scenarios (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Business

This course is designed to show you how use quantitative models to transform data into better business decisions. You’ll learn both how to use models to facilitate decision-making and also how to structure decision-making for optimum results. Two of Wharton’s most acclaimed professors will show you the step-by-step processes of modeling common business and financial scenarios, so you can significantly improve your ability to structure complex problems and derive useful insights about alternatives. Once you’ve created models of existing realities, possible risks, and alternative scenarios, you can determine the best solution for your business or enterprise, using the decision-making tools and techniques you’ve learned in this course.

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Models Business Strategy
Details
Habilidades humanas y de negocios para negociar (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Habilidades humanas y de negocios para negociar (Coursera)

Management & Leadership

En este curso los participantes analizarán los conceptos de efectividad de una negociación, que consiste en una interacción humana, y la satisfacción de los deseos e intereses en las negociaciones. Todos tenemos el deseo de mejorar y superarnos. La forma de lograrlo es conocerse a sí mismo y a las personas con las que se negocia o se interactúa.

Jun 8th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Business Negotiations Business Skills
Details
Conflict Resolution Skills (Coursera) Coursera
University of California, Irvine

Conflict Resolution Skills (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Business

Resolving conflict in a positive manner is a skill that can be developed and practiced. Being heard can be one of the most important goals of someone engaged in conflict. Knowing how to listen and deploy appropriate communication tactics is determinative of whether a conflict will have a positive or negative resolution. Examine listening skills, appropriate and strategic verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and how to assemble a conflict management plan likely to yield positive resolutions.

Jun 8th 2026
3 Weeks
Business Management Conflict
Details
The Power of Markets I: The Basics of Supply and Demand and Consumer Behavior (Coursera) Coursera
University of Rochester

The Power of Markets I: The Basics of Supply and Demand and Consumer Behavior (Coursera)

Business

This opening module of the Power of Markets course covers the basic assumptions about market participants made by economists, the concept of opportunity cost, and the key determinants of supply and demand. We will then learn how to use the supply-demand framework to explain and predict market outcomes and to show how government policies affect those market outcomes. We will look at how quantity demanded and supplied respond to their key determinants in quantitative (elasticity) as well as qualitative terms. The last two weeks of the first module will investigate consumer behavior more closely and show how consumer choices are driven by the interplay of preferences and budget constraints.

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Markets Supply
Details
Shaping Your Professional Brand (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Shaping Your Professional Brand (Coursera)

Management & Leadership

You've thought about who you are and how you want your career to be. You have some skills to deal with situations that could cause problems. What about the team around you? How do you build functional and constructive professional relationships? How can you add value? What do employers look for when they are promoting?

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Career Branding
Details
Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Business

We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers and employers, among others. Negotiation is also the key to business success. No business can survive without profitable contracts. Within a company, negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement.

Jun 8th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Business Strategy Success
Details
What is Social? (Coursera) Coursera
Northwestern University

What is Social? (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Marketing & Communication

The “What Is Social?" MOOC is for business owners, executives, and marketing professionals who want to significantly improve their abilities to grow their social strategy using effective, proven methodologies. This hands on, "how to" program won’t just tell you how to grow your professional persona using social – you will actually do it! This course is the first in the six-course specialization, Social Media Marketing: How to Profit in a Digital World.

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Social Media Social Networks
Details
The Business of Social (Coursera) Coursera
Northwestern University

The Business of Social (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Marketing & Communication

In a 2014 study of CEOs and CMOs, IBM found 63% wanted social strategies which generate business metrics while only 20% of businesses worldwide actually have them. This means strategies which not only grow your company’s social footprint but link to your sales and marketing systems. With this critical linkage, your social and mobile strategies will provide you with the ability to engage consumers at a 1-to-1 level and measure your social investments in terms of costs, revenues, profits and ROI. In this fifth MOOC of the Social Marketing Specialization - "The Business of Social" - you will learn how to transform your organization's social marketing from an untracked investment to an integral part of your company’s marketing strategy.

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Management Strategy
Details
The Power of Markets III: Input Markets and Promoting Efficiency (Coursera) Coursera
University of Rochester

The Power of Markets III: Input Markets and Promoting Efficiency (Coursera)

Business

The final module of the Power of Markets course begins by further exploring firm behavior in imperfectly competitive market settings: how firms with monopoly power can increase profits through price discrimination; and the price-output combinations we can expect firms to select in cases of monopolistic competition and oligopoly. We will also analyze monopolies from an efficiency perspective and look at the effects of imperfect information on firm and consumer behavior. We will next turn to exploring input markets and what determines the demand for an input by a firm, an industry, and the overall market.

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Markets Pricing
Details
The Power of Markets II: Market Structure and Firm Behaviour (Coursera) Coursera
University of Rochester

The Power of Markets II: Market Structure and Firm Behaviour (Coursera)

Business

In order to maximize profits, firms must ensure that any given output level is produced at least cost and then select the price-output combination that results in total revenue exceeding total cost by the greatest amount possible. With this in mind, this second module of the Power of Markets course addresses how firms can most effectively convert inputs into final output and then covers determining the best price-output combination for a firm and how this varies depending on whether the firm is operating in a perfectly competitive or imperfectly competitive market setting.

Jun 8th 2026
4 Weeks
Business Markets Production
Details
Introducción a las Finanzas (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Introducción a las Finanzas (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Economics & Finance

En este curso estudiaremos el objetivo principal de las finanzas, la importancia en la creación de valor y mantenerlo a través de un uso eficiente de los recursos financieros. Además, incluiremos algunas herramientas básicas que te permitirán crear un plan financiero con el que podrás establecer objetivos y metas claras, identificar qué factores pueden afectar el rumbo de tu empresa o idea de negocio y saber si estás aplicando los recursos de una manera eficiente.

Jun 8th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Finance Business Financial Planning
Details