Forever solo

I believe there are a handful of folks who, whether they’ve openly declared it or not, intend on being self-employed and solo for the foreseeable future.

Some folks aspire to grow a team, or start a big company, or perhaps just add an extra person or two to their humble team.

I used to think I wanted this too, until I tried it.

Aside from leading creative teams inside of agencies, I’ve never had my own full-time employees within my business, but I’ve tinkered with variations: part-timers, contractors, interns, freelancers, consultants.

On two separate occasions, I tinkered with growing a team by attempting to replicate myself… if I could add 2-3 additional people, that’s 2-3x the output, with a 2-3x increase in billing (minus expenses), right?

Nerp. That math was so way off.

I sunk so much time in managing contractors – reviewing work, in-betweening for them and the client, project managing, chasing hours and timesheets… and I didn’t expect how little I’d actually be picking up the tools myself (either time).

A strong argument for this is if I’d committed to full-time employees instead of contractors, I may have had more commitment from them, plus I’d have been more invested in sticking with it and figuring it out. I didn’t roll with it long enough to smooth out the creases, but I think that in itself was a pretty strong signal.

Either way it blew up both times, but it was more than enough of a glimpse into an alternate reality that I realised (after the second time) that growing a team within my own service-based business was not my path.

I LOVED the idea of being able to hand-off the stuff I didn’t like, or wasn’t good at, or didn’t want to do.

And in reality, I can hand a few things off – bookkeeping and accounting for example.

But for other things like marketing, pricing, systems, selling etc, I just have to get better at them.

Forever solo: I believe it’s a commitment as big and deliberate as choosing to grow a company.