Who made this?

Hey there! 👋 I'm Jay Clouse.

I'm the creator of Freelancing School, founder of Unreal Collective, host of Creative Elements, and author for Linkedin Learning & Lynda.com.

And just like this profile in The Manual says, I want you to be your own boss.

I am obsessed with helping talented, creative people build the lifestyle that they want for themselves.

As a freelancer myself, I've worked with clients including Atlassian, Pat Flynn and Smart Passive Income, The Ohio State University, LinkedIn, and Lynda.com.

Most people start freelancing because we want control. We want control of our time, control of who we work with, and control of the work that we do.

And most freelancers aspire to creating things for themselves too – not just their clients.

Unfortunately, a lot of freelancers find themselves overworked and underpaid. Somewhere in the hustle of getting by, they lose all control and surrender all of their time to their clients.

The personal projects we are so excited about get neglected.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Over the years, I've helped my clients earn more, find balance, and create a more controlled lifestyle.

My story has a lot of twists and turns.

For several years, I was focused on building software products. I've learned how to build a product that people really want, and how to build a business around that.

In 2014, I joined the founding team of Tixers, a digital ticket marketplace. We raised seed funding, and were acquired a year later.

After Tixers, I joined a high-growth startup where I was a leader on the product team, building software products in the healthcare industry. To date, that company has raised $50M+.

When I left that company, I began my freelancing journey. I built Wordpress sites, dabbled in email copywriting, created marketing automations, produced podcasts, built community, and more.

About that same time, LinkedIn approached me about creating courses on their platform. To date, I've created 5 courses for LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com.

Through my accelerator, Unreal Collective, I've worked with over 100 incredible individuals who have had multi-million dollar exits, six-figure crowdfunding campaigns, left their jobs to go full-time freelance, and bootstrapped technology companies.

You can hear their stories below