5 South African Freelancers you need to know

South Africa spots the largest and arguably the most developed economy on the continent of Africa. Years of Apartheid have given way to a growing market structure where businesses contribute to the creation of value and jobs.

The business of Freelancing in South Africa is advanced. There are a number of job sites and platforms that bring together service providers like freelancers and clients. If you want to kick-start a career in freelancing in South Africa or you are looking for inspiration/mentorship, the following freelancers in South Africa aptly fit the bill:

1. Rebecca L Weber
Rebecca L Weber is among the authoritative voices in the freelancing sphere in South Africa. She is, at once, a Journalist, content marketing writer, a writing coach, an editor and a published author among others. Want to know her list of clientele that she provides content for? The formidable list comprises CNN, Discover, Dwell, Marie Claire, the New York Times, USA Today as well as the Wall Street Journal.

A visit to her website reveals the availability of tons of useful material to help emerging and established freelance writers. The most notable is the resources ‘5 proven steps to writing queries that sell among others. Included in her impressive freelance resume is visiting over 40 countries and gleaning stories from four continents. For a list of her articles, do well to visit here.

Jacob Mcmillen
Jacob’s freelance journey characterizes the typical tale that comes with discovering one’s passion for a career perchance. Formerly a graduate of Accounting, Mcmillen best tells his own story in the following words:
‘…I got my start in direct sales, which I used to pay my way through college. To be honest, I hated it, but I was a damn good salesman, and it’s hard to call it quits when you’re doing as much as $3k per week as a formerly broke college student.
With school finished and paid for, I said bye to sales and jumped into SEO. I discovered the world of copywriting within the same year, and I knew copywriting was the career path for me. I had always had a natural talent for writing, and copywriting meshed that talent with my favorite parts of the sales process.’

Mcmillen’s mesh of writing talent and copywriting has resulted in 5 fruitful years of freelance copywriting. Within that time, Jacob has churned out high-converting copy materials for industry-leading law firms, nationally-renowned marketing agencies, SaaS companies, massive startups, small businesses among others. His list of formidable clients includes E-commerce Consulting, KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg, Conversion Sciences among others.

You will be glad to know that one of Jacob’s core assignments is teaching freelancers & aspiring marketers how to forge epic careers in a digital world! Sounds interesting? Then head over to his pages here and here.
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3. Sebastian Van’t Hoff
Do you need a cogent reason in keeping up with the activities of Sebastian Van’t Hoff? Well, the most important consideration is the fact that Sebastian works as a freelancer that creates opportunities and employment for other freelancers. He fulfills this important function at NoSweat, an online freelance platform that connects clients with proficient freelancers, in executing any creative project. In more detail, NoSweat provides a no fuss, easy to use and fully managed experience between freelancers and clients. All administration cum job placements are handled by the NoSweat work web application, mostly automated and completely transparent.

NoSweat began operations in September 2015 and in this space of time, has served national and international clients including DDB, Net#work BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather, Publicis, McCann, Base2/ Wunderman, Grey, Riverstone, Etiket, the Promise Group and Hogarth & Ogilvy Cape Town among others.

Sebastian Van’t Hoff receives high praise being able to combine creative flair and corporate insight incredibly. He is also multilingual; fluent in languages such as English, Dutch, and German.

As at the last count, over 4,500 freelancers work on the NoSweat platform, offering their expertise in areas covering advertising, design, digital, marketing, content creation as well as the media industry.

4. Wilfred Grayling
Wilfred Grayling comes across as a Business Architect. Do you want to know what the term means? In simple terms, Wilfred is hailed as possessing the ability to get straight to the heart of the problem and suggest workable solutions to problem areas in businesses and enterprises.
With this impressive skill set, Wilfred partnered with Sebastian Van’t Hoff in founding the growing freelance platform, NoSweat in 2015.

Before then, Wilfred had cut his business and freelance teeth with stellar performances at business/enterprises such as Ogle Cafe, Telamon Business Architecture, Consilia Consult among others.

At NoSweat, Wilfred saddles himself with helping freelancers build a formidable web presence, learn the basics of being a freelancer, come to grips with the workings of the NoSweat platform as well as building proficiency and skill sets.

5. Marius Vosloo
Marius Vosloo comes as another shining light in the freelance stratosphere in South Africa. He is at once a provider of freelance services as well as a liaison for businesses seeking professionals to execute projects/tasks. For the latter endeavour, head over to Freelancecapetown, where Marius runs a platform that enables any person with any skill or services to advertise themselves and showcase work they have done within their profiles.

Marius established freelancecapetown.com in 2015, and he initially struggled to make headway in the competitive job placement market. However, with persistence and focus, Marius has built a platform that serves over 300 freelance professionals and contributed over R1 million to the regional freelance economy in 2016.
The ongoing targets for Marius and freelancecapetown.com are improving the functionality of the platform and re-engineering its corporate outlook and thrust.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this piece. If you do know of any other South African freelancer(s) we should know about, feel free to leave your contributions in the appropriate section below.