Roads to self-employment and beyond
All roads lead to self-employment
From my interviews, discussions and observations, I’ve found 3 paths that people take to independence:
Job > Freelancing with 9-to-5 skills > Agency > Products
People will work a full-time job for a few years and get tired of it. They build a comfortable cushion and then figure out freelancing. They scale by building an agency by hiring other people. Through servicing other businesses, they discover problems (that have demand) and develop solutions for them.
Job > Freelancing with 9-to-5 skills > Products
Same as before, but they freelance and develop products related to their consultancy or others.
Job > Build products on the side
While on the job, people develop products. This provides less flexibility depending on the job. It looks like it takes the longest because people have less incentive to “figure it out.” Because if they don’t figure it out, they are still comfortable in their job with a salary.
Based on my journey, 3 interviews and 20+ chats with mentors or other business owners, people take roughly 1-2 years to figure out a good rhythm with freelancing and building products before they ramp up significantly
Some people stay longer than others in the Freelancing/Agency phase, I’m personally not a fan of this approach. You’ll find a lot of people on Twitter who made 500k to a million on freelancing platforms. It looks like all they do is client work or at least a vast majority of their time goes into client work.
The agency route is an alternative to gain more money and flexibility (if you go on vacation, you can still earn). With that said, I worked at an agency and another agency-style company and felt like the leadership team was constantly working (night, weekends, etc). The constant grind doesn’t appeal to me.
My hunch based on my experience is that it takes a lot of momentum to get started. People might develop habits and not deconstruct them later on. There are people out there developing agencies sustainably with a more flexible approach that doesn’t require a constant grind. People I know in Vancouver actually train project managers to think like that and manage agency project with a humane approach. For example, don’t book a kickoff project on the 2nd of January. Let people ease back in. Check out their website here.
I’m currently in the freelancing phase. And even though, freelancing provides a ton of flexibility (for which I’m grateful), I’m still having the feeling that I’m juggling various smaller 9-to-5.
My goal is to raise my rates as much as possible while reducing freelancing hours to have:
More flexibility with family
Have more time to enjoy my life
Build products and lessen my dependency on client work
Right now, I have a bunch of work coming my way (too much), and I feel bad saying no to people. Actually, I don’t feel bad. I actually feel relieved when I say no because there’s just too much to handle.
I could take on more by hiring below but my rate is a bit too low to hire other people, and I don’t feel I have the mental capacity to hire more. It might be a belief and I probably could but I’d like not to raise the current amount of chaos in my life!
As a TLDR, most people quit with a cushion, sell their skills to get more flexibility and time to build products, BUT don’t stay stuck at that stage and build IN-DEMAND products!
3 findings of the week
Get a piece of the freelance cake with Austin
Very cool visuals to learn for new freelancers or people looking for an offering refresh!
The Ladders of Wealth Creation
Nathan Barry shares a cool roadmap to wealth on Twitter.
A successful entrepreneur lays down the path from 0 to 10k to 1M per month
It’s not your bullshit empty high-level. It actually is a comprehensive and insightful video!