I was talking to a colleague the other day about their dream of one day freelancing. I shared that I had done a four year stint running my own business and that sparked a long conversation about the decisions that had started and ended that chapter of my career. Mine is but one tale and should not be construed as a guide for lighting your own path.
For me, the conditions were right when I had honed my skills to such a point that they were in demand, I had a nice collection of projects under my belt that demonstrated my abilities, and a handful of good leads as well as a couple ready sources of projects.
To ameliorate some of the raw terror I had about becoming self-employed while paying my half of a mortgage, I also identified what it would take for me to look for permanent employment again. Part of what salved the fear was the knowledge that I had very marketable skills. But I was still worried that in the midst of going into the unknown I would lose the financial ground I had made. Thus I made an agreement with myself that I would look for permanent employment if a). I was threatened with the prospect of going into debt and b). I had less than six months of living expenses set aside.
What informed this decision was a book called Your Money or Your Life. As a young adult, through a mixture of necessity, stupidity and ignorance, I had run up an unhealthy amount of high interest debt. After a few years of paying off my debts, the two lessons that stayed with me were to consider money as compensation for life energy and to calculate hourly income by subtracting expenditures and debt from income. At my lowest point, I was making around $3 per hour and it certainly made me rethink frivolous purchases when I was faced with how many hours of my life energy it would cost to pay for something. When I became a freelancer, these same principles helped me arrive at a fair price for my services – one that was respectful of my life energy and fostered respect from clients.
Freelancing was a blast and very empowering. I was able to work on a wide variety of interesting projects and, while not all projects were perfect, there was nothing more satisfying than having a client gush about how much they appreciated my contribution. I loved having so much autonomy and control over the kinds of projects I could work on or turn down.
The downside? I never felt I could relax. Even while tucked into a project, I was always thinking ahead to what I would be doing next. In the four years I was self-employed, I took one week-long vacation, and even then constantly worried about missing an opportunity. It was very difficult for me to maintain a balanced work vs. personal life.
One thing I never expected as an introvert was loneliness. I treasure my alone time, but after I'd had my fill I also began to hate it. I very much missed having coworkers. The jobs I most enjoyed allowed me to spend time with a team or work closely with designers or fellow programmers. The majority of my work was spent in my home office – which probably sounds heavenly to many a beleaguered cubicle inmate – but I quickly discovered that my dogs and cats were poor conversationalists and contributed little to brainstorming, code reviews, or generating excitement about a project.
That is finally what triggered my decision to go back into full time employment and I have no regrets. Smashing Ideas not only provides me with constant challenges and opportunities to grow as a developer, but I work with some of the most talented folks I have ever had the privilege to know. They keep me humble, hungry, and energized. I hope in some measure I'm able to do the same for them.
So if self-employment is crossing your mind all I can offer is think about what you need to thrive and plan for it. Good luck and may you prosper and grow in whatever you choose to do.
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