Tallinn,  November 18th, 2020.

Mario Alejandro Sanchez Maselli was born in Guatemala but has been all over the place since then.

He also lived in Spain and is now living in Tallinn, Estonia with his family.

He has worked at several agencies such as Havas and Bond but since March he decided to become an independent developer, working for clients from around the world.

In an interview with TIA, Sanchez Maselli described the transition to working for several clients as an independent developer, a new role he has enjoyed so far thanks to the freedom and the flexibility.

He highlighted the benefits of living in Tallinn, a city packed with startups and tech companies, and looked at some of his recent work for agencies in Canada.

To kick things off please can you tell us a little bit about your city and why is a great place to work?

Currently, I live in Tallinn, Estonia. It is a super small city in the Baltics with less than 500k people. So if you have lived in a big country or a big city you will feel that Tallinn is like a town in terms of size but with the commodities of any European big city.

I believe that if you are in the tech industry you will definitely earn well your life in Tallinn. There are a lot of startups and they are doing a great work. In terms of bureaucracy, I think this is one of the best places to live, given that everything is handled online.

For example, I’ve opened my business in 15min online and tax declaration takes around 10min. From electing a president to consulting your health data everything can be done online. And if you get tired of all this tech stuff then 50% of Estonia is forest.

What’s a regular day like in Mario’s shoes?

I wake up in the morning with my kid’s foot in my face. My wife or myself dress him up and then I take him to the pre-school which is super close to where we live. I come back and we have a coffee and some breakfast.

Then I take a shower and after that I start working. Usually from 9-10AM till 6-7PM sometimes a bit later (if the wife or the kid let me). I usually have 1-2 projects at the same time + support from previous clients (this is not every day though). I prefer to have only 1 project at a time, but this rarely happens. After work, my wife comes with my son and we have dinner all together. After dinner, I play with my kid sometimes or we watch a Netflix series. Then I put him to sleep. And that’s it.

What made you decide to become a freelancer?

I’m pretty sure that everybody in this industry had the feeling of “have you seen what this guy or this company is doing? It is just so cool, I wish I would be doing something similar.”

I think this is the main feeling of what made me want to be a freelancer. The freedom to decide what project I want to be part of and what direction I want to follow, so that I can feel that at the end of a project I’ve achieve something that I’m proud of.

And of course not all the projects are like that at the beginning of a freelance career, but that’s the goal, at least for me. This feeling and the freedom is what drove me to become a freelancer.

COVID-19 is a first-of-its-kind disruption, one that leaves no community, government or business untouched. What challenges were you facing before the pandemic and how are you dealing with them right now?

I started being a full-time freelancer on March this year, basically when everything started. I’ve already resigned my previous job at Bond some months before, but I was just waiting for the “right” time to leave them.

I decided that after the awwwards conference it will be the best for me. When I came back from the conference I left the studio and this is when COVID started hitting Estonia, so I can’t say that I had any challenges pre-Covid. And as soon as I started I had a contract right away for 3 months for a project, which made easier the transition for me in terms of work and not being stressed out that the current situation will affect me much.

Currently one of the challenges is being at home 24/7 which is definitely hard on both mental & home / work boundaries, given that when your office is your home it is difficult to separate them as I used to before. Still figuring this one out.

What do you feel are the keys to success when working remotely with a client?

I would say that it depends on the client a lot. And rather than the client maybe the country or nationality / culture. For example, in some cultures, constant feedback and having 2-3 video call meetings per week for updates is something that is “natural” for them and expected because that’s the way that they are used to work. In some other cultures just an email at the end of the week that everything is OK is more than enough.

So understanding what communication strategy to use is a key. Communication is what makes all the parties involved to be aware of what is going on and what to expect.

The perfect client brief: Does it exist?

I think that it does exist, in some way at least. In most cases I think that the client and the freelancer / agency are not necessarily in the same place. A company as an individual grows in terms of knowledge of design and branding and what’s best for them or at least what they think is best for them.

But it is not necessarily going to align with the freelancer / agency so this is where “conflicts” could happen. Research and trust are always the best solution for this. On both sides.

So before choosing a designer / developer checking out their work and what can they do is a key. Talking to the designer / developer, seeing if the communication aligns to both parties, being honest about everybody’s expectations of the outcome is extremely important.

Beyond the brand story, where do you tend to find your inspiration?

I guess the usual places. Instagram, Dribbble, Behance and magazines.

Tell us about a recent project you’ve worked on that you’re proud of. What particularly brought out the best in you?

It was really nice working with this Canadian agency Domain7. Actually it was my first experience working with Canadians and it was great! First the company was super multi-cultural, something that we do not have much here in Estonia so it was nice to see so many different colors in their team.

I think the communication was efficient even when everybody was in the lockdown, working remotely & +10hrs time difference but we made it work. The project took a bit more time than expected but I think everybody was happy with the final result which is what you are looking for at the end of the day: that your client is satisfied with the work done.

Their site is content oriented, so I made several customizable components on the backend with WordPress & flexible layouts. This way they had a great control over their content. And to make the site more interactive we added some small animations per component. This way every time a new component is added all animations will be translated accordingly.

Three top tools you can’t live without?

Slack, Visual Studio Code, Wakatime

In this industry or in life, have you had any particularly influential mentors?

Not really. I actually have learned everything on my own, so if there is any influential mentor out there please call me.

I studied Electronic engineering but at some point in that path I realized that I liked more developing / designing websites. So I took a book and started reading & I think that from that day reading and learning new things has been a big part of my day to day life.

What’s one thing most people don’t know about you?

I’m a bit of a workaholic which means that my job is also my hobby.

Thanks Mario!

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