Going solo as a Webflow designer and developer | Matthias Cordes Fractional by Swarm

Matthias Cordes is a Web Designer and Webflow Developer. He runs his own freelance business and creates high converting websites for fast growing technology startups. Matthias had his first freelance “gig” as a designer after highschool and while traveling around Australia and Bali. After graduating with a degree in Creative Technology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, he pursued his passion by working on his agency full-time. Now, he supports tech companies as a team of one, with a specialty in Webflow development.

In this episode, we talk about becoming a specialist in Webflow design and development, building trust and reputation as a freelancer, writing his case studies together with a copywriter, his design collaboration process with clients, ChatGPT for web development tasks, and so much more.



00:00 - LinkedIn videos

01:48 - Going freelance straight out of university

02:45 - Deciding to build a freelance career

05:17 - Client RED FLAGS

08:45 - Becoming a Webflow professional partner

11:41 - Results > Credentials

13:02 - Recent project + cool tricks

15:48 - Why his case studies are so good

18:15 - Basecamp for managing projects

22:00 - What clients did Mattias start with?

24:10 - "find a real job at a real company"

25:43 - The agency he started

28:11 - Professional video set up

29:48 - Video marketing for his freelance practice

31:41 - Web development vs. web design projects

34:54 - cheese with holes

36:14 - Switching from Sketch to Figma

38:00 - The adrenaline from collaboration

39:11 - What do you do when you get stuck?

40:17 - Using ChatGPT to build websites

42:21 - Coding as a non-coder

43:45 - Matthias' piece of advice