The Freelance Life: One Man's Journey To Becoming His Own Boss

When Brooke Dixon move to New York and began looking for work a few years back, the Web developer turned to freelancing to earn a living and found himself in demand. But he quickly discovered that there was a downside: getting paid on time -- or at all.

Dixon (pictured above) says he was hired to build a new website for a well-known multimedia company, which he prefers not to name because he was working for a subcontractor. After four months of nonstop work, which he valued at about $50,000, he was paid just $15,000, he says. ("I was so frustrated by it.") On another project, the Long Island resident says that he was paid just $10,000 of an expected $30,000 after the startup that hired him ran out of money.