Tell me your story
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- popovich
Here is the story. I've left a cosy paying place at an employer to start my own thing. While smoking a cig just now I realized (again), that the sun doesn't shine all day long and it made me a bit melancholic. I am taking a pause to focus my thoughts on how I proceed and the time I have is slipping away — I have probably a year or so when I will be getting some help from the state, but then I am all on my own. I have a wife and a kid to feed.
So tell me your story. How did you start your own business? Was it straight out of university, with no commitments and debts to pay? Or was it a family of 4, a good job and then one day — just rented an office and got straight into money gulf? Or is it that you are now sitting in the woods, feeding youself off the ground, enjoying birds and bears and doing art instead of commercial stuff (because you were failing all the time, so you just showed the world your middle finger)? Can you support your family with the money you get from the freelance? Or is it not paying off at all? Is your agency a one-person story? If not, at what point did you hire your first employee?
Share it.
- pascii0
– too many people forced me to spend too much time to work on projects which were not the tiniest bit planed or was there any brain involved. which made me first scared, angry and apoleptic. in the next step, i learnde a lot about myself and try now to keep my shit together which mostly works. it took me 10 years to see what i am capable of and i hope for everyone new in the communication business that they stop working theiir asses of for people who do n o t think.
- GeorgesII0
I'm juggling through my day job and my freelance jobs, Luckily I don't have kids yet but I'm seriously planing in having some. I believe last year was my most successful year since I landed in this hell hole (no offense). This year started slow but if I keep my rhythm I may do better than 2009 which work wise was hell.
I'm sick of working in the advertising field, too many people who have no clue what they are doing and think facebook is the golden goose. Yesterday while I was out of town, I realised one of my friend for which I had done a free wordpress site ( i even paid for it because the project looked good in my portfolio) decided out of the blue to become a web designer and loaded a free template cancelling more than 2 months of work, without even asking me. I'm still pissed
- GeorgesII0
btw: I forgot to respond.
I work for myself, registered my studio a year ago and started on a pretty good base.
I don't know if were you live you can work for more than one agency as a in house whatever. I'm lucky I can juggle my freelance with my day jobs and still go around to look for more in this time of crisis. I may say it is always useful to be able to code, print, design and do video depending of the client request. I'm a one man studio and even if I don't have a site online, people always find me somehow, thanks to the word to mouth. So far don't have an employee because I can't even support myself somedays so don't want to make victims. I'm entering my 11th years as a designer and want out, eheheh Am I repeating myself?- Davvero?ItalianStallion
- si, l'anno scorso è andato proprio bene per me.GeorgesII
- Bene bene, anche qui niente male il 2009, quest'anno siamo partiti lenti pure noi però... plurale maiestatis ovviamente!ItalianStallion
- blaw0
A few years ago, when freelancing was filling every evening and weekend, I decided to quit my full-time position. The plan was to work out of my home office and use any down time to work on my house.
What I didn't anticipate was the volume of people I'd met or worked for/with that, upon hearing of my availability, would contact me with work. Very quickly I found myself in a position to either start turning down work or expand the operation.
It was my opinion at the time that not everyone gets this chance, so I decided on the latter. I started shopping for real estate, found a run-down building I could get for a song and set about remodeling/repairing it with my wife and the help of family and friends.
We opened the doors in 2008 with me and an entry-level designer I'd hired. In 2009 the day-to-day management was getting out of hand, so my wife quit her job as a software developer and works as our project manager/office manager/developer. We've just began the recruitinig process to fill another position.
I never did get that much work done on my house.
- sounds sweet. everything all right with you and the missus working together?Amicus
- formed0
Started my company due to layoff's (many years ago). 2 degrees in architecture, UF and UCLA (and the loans to go with that).
Everything was more or less circumstantial and slowly grew. Ups and downs, for sure, but far better than what I imagined.
We do everything from 3D to video/motion to web to graphic to architecture to development. I am grateful to be able to work in several fields creatively. While design is my true passion, I also have found running a business surprisingly fulfilling.
Have been on here since before it was NT (under various names, since I can't ever seem to get passwords emailed!).
- trooperbill0
From the age of 9 i wanted to be a designer when asked why i remember answering 'because everything needs designing' which everyone seemd to think was a pretty smart thing for a 9 year old ginger kid to say.
i took art and technical drawing classes for GCSE and then moved to 2 diplomas in graphic design at college, then a BA Hons degree in multimedia.
i left uni and wanted to set up an online portfolio (this was back in 1998) having been given no guidance on how to start looking for a job at uni so looked for a isp. i found a shop on a highstreet that sold 'internet access' and went in and stated my spec' they asked why do you need all this stuff so i told them i was a designer wanting to create websites and needed portfolio space.
the next day they hired me to create websites for their clients. 6 months later i poached their technical guy and sales guy and set up my own little studio... we hired, we fired, went through 2 bubbles, the sales guy left leaving me to do all of the customer facing stuff 7 years on i split from the tech guy as he preferred to get drunk and roll in late every morning and let project scope creep and project timeframes run way past due leaving me as the customer facing guy to take all the shit.
now i work in the private sector and loving the steady pay cheque, lack of customer facing duties and 9-5 working hours... oh and i moved from design to seo as theres more monies in it lol.
i did everything backwards lol.
- you were wise at 9!
also, I miss the 90s, too. that was a crazy time and I had to devote it to studies...popovich - on a side note: do you SEO guys guarantee anything to your clients? I had one inquery, they asked me that question.popovich
- no no guarantees as i dont know what google is going to do in the next few days let aklone this yeartrooperbill
- you were wise at 9!
- Stian0
I started my business in my second year of high school. I shot some local bands/artist, and the agencies started to pay attention to my work. After finishing high school, I went right into business school (marketing and economy) where I stayed three months, got sick of it and dropped out. Been doing photography full time ever since. 2009 was my first "real" year with a decent income (could easily support a family with it). 2010 got kickstarted, and I'm already a loooong way ahead where I was in the same time last year.
I'm a one-person business working with advertising photography in Norway.
- I'm 22 now by the way.. still pretty fresh in the game..Stian
- Love your work, keep up the hustle.Andrew_D
- Kristiansand is a nice looking town http://drugoi.livejo…popovich
- Thanks! :) Kristiansand is a fantastic place to be, especially in the summer time. We´ve had snow for two months now. Can´t wait for spring!Stian
- wait for spring to arrive!Stian
- OBBTKN0
More than 15 years on this.
Since this... i´ve worked for the press doing ads and infography; prepress jobs in printers; video and animation for Media; Illustrated books; Done Comics; Owned a company; Gone bankrupty on 2001; Worked for 3 different agencies since this; Gone married; Grow 2 kids... and still working on site like CD and freelancing.
Still draws a smile on face when some kind of projects falls on my hands ;)
- fugged0
my story is like a tragic comedy, but it's not ready to be told yet...
- popovich0
more stories tonight?
- danielajurcevic0
did you ever have success with that cheesy pickup line?
- popovich0
let's see.....
no.
