At the beginning of 2018, I resigned from my last “regular” job. Since then, I’ve been navigating the bumpy road from freelancing to becoming a business founder.
Being a Freelancer is Nice
I started as a freelancer and loved it. I was fortunate to quickly earn enough money to pay all the bills while doing what I enjoyed.
Learning was a significant part of my freelance journey. Courses, experiments, and personal challenges: it wasn’t always easy, but I embraced it. Three months into freelancing, I discovered my new passion: teaching. Three years and thousands of students later, I can confidently say I love teaching.
My freelance period was fantastic, but over time, some concerns emerged…
Long-term Risks of Freelancing
Over time, my wife and I identified several risks associated with my freelancing lifestyle:
- It all depends on me and my health.
- My learning curve flattened.
- I grew bored with my projects and gigs.
- I overcommitted to teaching and burned out.
- It requires a lot of intrinsic motivation, which I sometimes lacked.
Being a Founder Means Working on the Business
When I started EVERYWOW, my agency for authentic videos, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a founder. I approached it with a freelancer mindset, seeing myself as the one who needed to work on projects. My wife often pointed this out — half-jokingly, half-seriously: “Stop holding the camera. That’s not your job.” She was right.
Reading Michael E. Gerber’s book “The E-Myth” taught me that being a founder means working on the business, not just on projects.
What are the goals of the business?
What is the strategy to achieve them?
Whom should I employ?
How should we handle marketing, sales, and operations?
I need to remind myself of this lesson almost daily — it’s easy for me to revert to the freelancer mindset. These questions require headspace and a different kind of thinking, which is challenging to combine with project work. However, they lay the foundation for long-term success and help mitigate the long-term risks of freelancing. And I love this challenge.