Going Solo Escape the corporate world and into freelancing.

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hello. UX Designer, Technologist & Brand Consultant

@jameschrisa jchrisa.info

Hi.

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WHAT IS IT? Work for yourself. Plain and simple.

Full Time Entrepreneurship You are not moonlighting anymore. You are a freelancer, an entrepreneur. You leave the corporate world behind and devote yourself and your services available for contract work.

Expert For Hire You are the expert in a specific field that people and organizations want to hire to solve their problems.

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WHY DO IT? It’s risky, but life is about risks and rewards.

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Changing Labor Market To keep up with disruptive upstarts, corporations are modifying their organizations to be more agile and lean. This means a smaller workforce.

Rewards of Entrepreneurship Corporate loyalty is scarce. You have the potential to reap the rewards of self-employment and building something that is meaningful to yourself and others.

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ADVANTAGES The reason why freelancing is cool.

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Be You’re Own Boss. You’re accountable to yourself and in control.

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Manage Your Time. Allocate you time as you see fit.

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Work Anywhere. You often have freedom to work from anywhere.

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Pursue Your Passion. Do the things you love to do.

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Expand Your Skills You get to work in different roles of running a business.

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DISADVANTAGES The parts that suck about freelancing.

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Single Point of Failure If you are responsible for the success and failure of your personal enterprise.

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Time Management You’re time is precious and you will have to devote time to building your business which can cut into your personal time and freedom.

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Market Realities In a down market, getting clients will be tough and startups generally have a low probability of survival compared to larger organizations which can survive market turbulence.

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Stretched Thin You have you hat in every role within the company which consumes your time to focus on the things you do best.

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OPPORTUNITIES Surmounting the challenges of freelancing

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Federate & Mobilize Think beyond yourself as the only resource to scale your business. Enlist the support of other freelancers.

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Incorporate Services Besides enlisting other freelancers. Utilize SaaS and web based services that are ready to deploy and use out-of-the-box.

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Pivot Quickly You can move faster than the competition when things change.

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Scale Intelligently Because you contract with other freelancers, you don’t have to hire a staff quickly or regularly. You can expand and contract as necessary to meet the oscillations of the market.

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Capture the Big Elephants Find a client that is large enough to withstand the market shocks that way it can temporarily shelter from surprises. It can also provide a steady flow of consistent income and even more opportunities.

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Investing in Yourself Building your business is an investment in yourself. Your accomplishments are a reflection of yourself that you can trace directly to your efforts.

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…and thank you.

Get at it!