Why I Built This

I have been writing code since 1999. Over 25 years across web development, game development, database administration, internal systems for the medical sector, and senior software engineering roles in both the public and private sector. I have been freelancing since 2006.

In that time I have used just about every platform, tool, and service that exists for developers. And after all of it, the same problems keep coming up — everywhere, in every industry, year after year.

Platforms Take Too Much. Always.

It does not matter what industry you are in. If you create something and put it on a platform — a course, a game, an asset pack, a template, a service — the platform takes 40 to 70% of your revenue. Sometimes more.

Think about that for a second. You did the work. You built the product. You recorded the course. You wrote the code. You spent weeks or months creating something valuable. And the platform's contribution? They displayed it on a page and hosted the file. That is it.

This is not a niche problem. This is how every major publishing platform works — app stores, course marketplaces, game storefronts, asset stores, freelance marketplaces. The model is the same: take the lion's share of someone else's work, call it a “service fee”, and make it nearly impossible to leave because your audience and reputation are locked inside their walls.

Freelancing is Broken in Ways Nobody Talks About

After nearly 20 years of freelancing, I can tell you the platform fees are only the beginning. The real problems go much deeper.

I have had clients ghost me after delivery. Just vanish. Work done, approved, and then radio silence when the invoice is due. I have had clients file disputes — not because anything was wrong with the work, but because they decided they did not want to pay. And what do the platforms do? They issue refunds to the client and take their platform fee anyway. Zero protection for the freelancer. You lose the money and the time.

On the other side, I have outsourced work to other freelancers and had them act like the job was done when it was not even close. Delivering half-finished work, hoping you will not check properly, because the milestone payment is already in escrow. There is no accountability. No verification. No quality gate.

The People Who Shout Loudest Get the Work

There is another problem that nobody wants to talk about. The platforms are full of fake accounts. People with fabricated portfolios, inflated credentials, and five-star reviews from friends or other fake accounts. They present themselves as senior engineers with ten years of experience, and there is absolutely no verification. No checks. No proof. Just a profile that says whatever they want it to say.

Meanwhile, genuinely qualified and brilliant developers get buried. People who are actually exceptional at what they do but do not push themselves because they have imposter syndrome. They look at these inflated profiles and think “I cannot compete with that” — not realising that half of what they are looking at is not even real. The industry loses talented people because the platforms reward performance over substance.

This is why UnityFreak will verify skills through actual work — completed contracts, peer code reviews, course completions, and real project deliverables. Reputation built on evidence, not claims. If you say you know React, there should be proof — not just a checkbox on a profile.

Why Do I Need 9 Products to Do My Job?

Here is something that has bothered me for years. Before I can even start working on a Monday morning, I need to have open:

• A project management tool for tasks and sprints
• A git host for my code — with extra fees the moment my files get large
• A communication tool for team chat and calls
• A freelance platform to find and manage contracts
• A job board for hiring or finding full-time work
• A learning platform to keep my skills current
• A code editor and playground for quick tests
• A portfolio site to showcase my work
• A social platform to network and stay visible

That is 9 separate products. 9 subscriptions. 9 logins. 9 tabs open at all times. 9 different interfaces to learn. 9 companies with access to my data. And none of them talk to each other.

My project board does not know about my contracts. My git host has no idea which task a commit belongs to. My learning platform does not know what skills I actually use at work. My portfolio does not automatically update when I finish a project. My reputation on one platform means nothing on another.

That question is what started UnityFreak. Not a business plan. Not a market analysis. Just genuine frustration from someone who has been doing this long enough to know it should be better.

So I Am Building It. All of It.

UnityFreak is being built as a single platform where developers and tech professionals can do everything they need:

• ✓Build (live today) — project boards, sprint planning, OKRs, time tracking, and private git hosting with pull requests — all integrated
• ○Learn (on the roadmap) — courses, code playgrounds, certificates, AI-assisted learning
• ○Earn (on the roadmap) — freelance contracts with real escrow protection, milestone-based payments, and verified deliverables
• ○Grow (on the roadmap) — portfolio, social feed, community, marketplace, job board, company pages
• ○Teach (on the roadmap) — create and sell courses, assets, and templates

The point is that everything connects. Reference a task in a commit message and the board updates itself — that works today. And as each module opens, the connections deepen: complete a contract and it shows up in your portfolio, finish a course and your verified skills update. Your reputation stays yours — portable, verified, and built on real work.

90% Will Be Yours. Always.

When the marketplace, courses, and freelancing open, every transaction will follow the same rule: creators keep 90%. Whether you sell a course, complete a freelance contract, or sell an asset on the marketplace — the platform takes 10% and nothing more. That is the model these modules are being built around, and it is the reason they exist at all.

We are not backed by venture capital that demands we squeeze every dollar out of creators. We are not publicly traded with shareholders expecting fee increases every quarter. This is a developer building for developers.

Where We Are Now

UnityFreak is not launching all at once — and that is deliberate. Nothing kills a platform faster than opening the doors on empty rooms: a marketplace with no assets, a community with no people.

So we launched with the two things developers touch every single day: project management and version control. Real boards, sprints, and OKRs, wired directly into private git hosting — pull requests, code review, commits that close the tasks they reference, and unmetered LFS bandwidth for the large files other hosts bill you for. And one promise written into our terms, not a blog post: your code is never scanned, sold, or used to train AI.

The rest — learning, the marketplace, freelancing, community — comes online in stages, each module opening when it can launch with the depth it deserves. Nothing is cut, just sequenced. The order is public on our roadmap.

The platform is being built in the open — every feature, every decision, every line of code driven by the same question: would this make my life easier as a developer?

If you have ever lost money to unfair platform fees, been ghosted by a client with no recourse, wasted time switching between a dozen tools, paid one bill for your task board and another for your git host, or felt like your reputation resets every time you join a new platform — this is being built for you.

About the Founder

The Founder

Programming since 1999. Web developer, game developer, senior software engineer, database administrator. Built websites, internal applications, and systems for private and public medical organisations, online and offline games, and everything in between. Freelancing since 2006 across every kind of project you can imagine.

After 25 years of building on other people's platforms and watching the same problems repeat across every industry, I decided to stop complaining and start building the platform I always wished existed.

“I did not start UnityFreak because I saw a gap in the market. I started it because I was tired of the market treating creators like an afterthought.”