On one year of freelancing

It was just over a year ago now that I abruptly left my job at a flashy downtown ad agency. This was a pretty stereotypical agency at the time, gleaming hardwood floors, casual dress code, rows & rows of macs and had plenty of perks like a gaming area and the occasional 2 hour patio lunch. In short it was the dream job I had fantasized about in college, it was hip & urban, the average age was below 40 and we played great music all day. It felt a lot like a college dorm, except we were all being paid to be there.

Rather then go into details about why I left that job I’ll just say it was a combination of egos, lack of new work and differing opinions. In short it was time for a change, so I gave my resignation in November of 2008 and immediately started working on my portfolio.

Now when I left this flashy job my original intention was to wind up in a very similar job with a different company. I figured I’d re-do my website, send out some resumes, do some interviews and be back in another shiny ad agency by February.

But the economy had other things in mind, namely the massive cuts to the advertising industry as a whole. Within 2 months of leaving my position most of the co-workers I had left suddenly found themselves without work as well. The agencies that weren’t doing layoff in ’09 were considering themselves lucky and they certainly weren’t in the hiring mood.

Hey, want a side job?

To rewind a bit to the day I initially left my job, a coworker of mine sent me a message asking me if I wanted to take on a freelance project he didn’t have time for. After all he still had a job and I did not, so I said “sure, that’ll fill in the gap while I look for work just fine” So I took on his client, did their site and continued looking for work in the meantime.

As mentioned earlier most of my old coworkers would find themselves unemployed by early January, so this was not a great time to be looking for work. I however got lucky and managed to secure a part time job for 2-4 days a week. It wasn’t perfect but I figured “no biggie, it’ll cover the bills and I can freelance the other two days a week”.

Oddly enough this arrangement worked out great, it made the transition from full-time employee to freelancer rather easy. I had a steady source of income and the freedom to be somewhat picky about my side jobs.

Since I was now relying on freelancing for about a 1/3rd of my income at this point it was time to get a bit more serious, time to print business cards, get a filing system in order and get my home office in order.

Passing the freelance threshold.

I continued in this part-time employee/part-time freelancer arrangement for most of ’09, it wasn’t until the two world’s started to compete with each other in fall of ’09 that the scale started to tip towards self employment.

Previously I had been fairly selective about my freelance projects, if a client approached me with a project that would require my full-time attention I would politely decline and only accept projects I know I could complete on a schedule of 1-2 days a week. But as my part-time hours at the office started to dwindle I started entertaining the prospect of taking on larger projects.

The pivotal moment for me came when I was doing some book keeping and suddenly my freelance income had surpassed my payroll income for the year. Better yet I was now booked up for the next 2-3 months and found myself turning down work until the new year.

Looking back.

As mentioned before it was never my intention to end up in this position, I had always quite enjoyed the security the agency jobs provided as well as the camaraderie with my co-workers as we hammered away on mountains of work.

But honestly, I’m still highly satisfied with where I’ve ended up, there’s a great freedom that comes with being your own boss. Setting your own hours, directing your own work, and having the ability to call in snow day and hit the slopes midweek.

Big Thanks.

I’ll stop tooting my own horn at this point and just take a moment to thank the clients/friends/colleagues whom have made this transition possible for me.

Flipp Advertising
Cam Hoff
Dan Rigby
Joshua Pinter/Oxygen Webs
Climbing Mojo
Austri Alpin
The Shagbots
Troy Davis