Amber Tuttle is an entrepreneur who likes to keep it in the family. From multi-level marketing, to geocaching events and now to website design and building, two main factors have been key foundations to her success: the close network of family and friends who have joined her ventures, and her passion for “pursuing the opportunity.”
Amber, her husband Jesse Tuttle, and her sister Laura Lindsey have come a long way in 3 years and describe the Freelancer platform as “Amazing!” Freelancer has been instrumental in their entrepreneurial journey to what they call a “wonderful, wonderful lifestyle.”
Their web development business is called FullStackology and they love Freelancer so much that it’s the only freelancing platform they use. Even if a client lands
on their website, the only option is to contact them through Freelancer.com and hire them that way.
Image: FullStackology Website Hompage
But their story starts way before they got involved with the freelance web development, graphics design, and product sourcing that now forms the backbone of their empire.
In fact the story really begins with, of all things, geocaching. Even before they got involved in geocaching in 2013, Jesse, Amber, and Laura had got a taste for the benefits of self-employment and were “always seeking out opportunities.”
At the time, they were building a network marketing group together while Amber also worked for a Fortune 500 as a Graphics Technician where they lived in Cincinnati Ohio.
Many of their friends and family were active geocachers, so they decided to join some friends for a weekend adventure to find out what all the fuss was about. Expecting to find around 50 participants, they were amazed at just how popular geocaching was. Their interest was further piqued by the thought of geocaching tourism.
And you can’t keep a good entrepreneur down.
Within months, Jesse, Amber, and Laura were organizing their own geocaching events – but they took it to a whole new level. Using Jesse’s and Laura’s technical skills and Amber's eye for design, they began to create high tech geolocation based activities, websites and merchandise for the events.
They collaborated with other organizers who were impressed with the quality of their work and requested help with their own activities, websites, merchandise and designs to promote events all over the world.
Pretty soon, Jesse, Amber and Laura were the talk of the geocaching scene.
Their crowning glory came in 2018 when they rented out Coney Island, an amusement park in Cincinnati, and put on an event that attracted more than 12,000 participants. It was the culmination of years of effort, and with friends and family members who helped bring it to life, it was an immense source of pride.
Their involvement in geocaching remains to this day and they currently lead a team that runs similar events every year.
But, after working 7 days a week over the preceding 18 months, they were keen to look at other possibilities and see what else they could accomplish using their skill set. And, of course, they brought their friends and family along for the ride too.
That’s when they began building their freelance empire on Freelancer.com.
Even though Amber is a designer and Graphics Technician specialized in Adobe Illustrator, she is highly engaged in the technical builds using her talent in Databases/SQL and APIs. Jesse is the team's system designer and holds several cyber security certifications. Laura, is a frontend expert specialized in WordPress.
But the family connection doesn’t end there.
Reesë Tuttle, their 16 year old daughter is a developer. Reesë is a 4th year Computer Science student at a University and works a paid internship in the R&D department at a Fortune 500 in Cincinnati. She recently launched her first startup, a web hosting platform that is already home to more than 1,000 sites.
Image: Amber's daughter Reesë Tuttle with WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg
Clearly, she has inherited her mother’s zest and entrepreneurial spirit!
Samuel Bengtsson and Muhammad "Sib" Sibtain are long time friends of the family and partners. Samuel, from Sweden, has been a PHP developer focused on Enterprise use of WordPress in cloud environments since 2011. Sib, from the Middle East, is a PHP developer that has worked on thousands of sites using WordPress since 2008.
It’s a close-knit team of talented individuals, pooling resources and working as a ‘family business’ in the traditional sense.
Amber, though, is the face of the team on Freelancer.
She began by offering services on several platforms, but soon concluded that Freelancer.com was the most favorable. Freelancer, she says, allows you to “choose your own jobs, make money as you want, and work from anywhere in the world.”
She is keen to point out that many of the 50 million+ freelancers on the site are individuals making a living from freelancing and not just supplementing their income with a side hustle.
A lot of Amber’s work comes through what she describes as the “four big points”:
Being a Preferred Freelancer
Being a Verified Freelancer
Achieving high scores on Freelancer.com exams
Having a track record of working on corporate accounts
These accreditations highlight individual freelancers as experts in their field. As a Preferred Freelancer, Amber benefits from recruiters on the platform who seek out jobs that fit her skill set.
“There are more than 50 million freelancers here, and less than 1,000 were Preferred when I was accepted to join the Preferred Freelancer Program,” Amber said.
According to Amber, this shows the full value of the Preferred Freelancer Program. Clients are able to quickly see who the top performing freelancers are. And freelancers have the opportunity to have their profile highlighted by Freelancer’s professional recruiters.
This service alone was enough to convince Amber that Freelancer is the best platform for freelancing as it negates the need for her to spend time trawling through the site to find work.
Instead, the work comes to her.
She is also a Verified freelancer which means her ID has been confirmed by the platform and she has gone through an interview process to establish her credentials.
Amber absolutely loves the exams available on Freelancer. In her eyes, exams benefit both freelancers and clients. “By being tested on their skills, freelancers are able to link the credentials to back their abilities,” she said. “This enhances the prospects and portfolios of the top echelon freelancers.”
“Exams give freelancers the opportunity to demonstrate they know their stuff and highlight their skills,” Amber said. “This makes the process easier for employers when reviewing bids and deciding which freelancer is the right for their project.”
From their days geocaching right through to their current design and website work, they have enjoyed the freedom that freelancing gives them.
“We love to travel and the ability to literally work from anywhere in the world is just so liberating,” Amber said. “Of course, Covid has prevented us from traveling and getting the maximum benefit from our working arrangement.”
“But the increased demand for freelancers and remote working brought about by the pandemic, along with the access to clients from around the globe that Freelancer provides, has allowed us to continue working through those tough times.”
“We feel incredibly lucky to have been able to carry on our work through the pandemic. Now we plan to hit the road again and indulge our love of travel while continuing to work and grow our business.”
And we wish them all the best!