A Little Less Foolish in the New Year

Another year past and it seems as though so much has changed and so much more is to come. Starting the New Year with a fresh start is always rather refreshing – it seems as though “refresh” is going to be my theme for 2007. This year I will no longer be working with The Motley Fool as their Art Director. As many of you close to me know, I’ve been contemplating leaving for several months now – however, admittedly they did beat me to the punch. I was officially “let go” upon my return from holiday – Merry Christmas and an unemployed New Year.

This didn’t come as to much of a shock to me as I was planning on resigning shortly after the New Year. Perhaps I was to obvious with a clean desk and a pre-packed white cardboard box all ready before leaving for holiday. The Motley Fool’s official reasoning was, “we know you’ve been unhappy and rather bored … it is no secret that you’ve been actively job hunting”. I am the 7th person to leave or be let go within a 12 month time period – this from a group that was only comprised of 6 people when I was hired a year ago; retention not being top-of-mind I suppose. That actually isn’t a fair statement – The Motley Fool’s “creative” team has been in a bit of hibernation for several years; but they’ve managed to build a large and talented team within the past 12 months; of whom you should be expecting to see amazing things. It is a growing team with managers with little management experience building teams which have never existed – the transition seems rough and exciting all at the same time. With rapid growth comes high expectations, unexpected consequences, much knowledge and unfortunate rapid turn-over – it becomes challenging to juggle the ambitions of the company, the team and individual talent.

I’ve never been fired before – I actually look at it as more of a mutual break-up. You know when your girlfriend finds out you are about to dump her, then she rushes over to break-up with you first — immature, but business can be that way sometimes. I didn’t really have any of the feelings that one would associate with being fired. I wasn’t upset, angry, scared or nervous – more relieved; I suppose that is because I spent most of my Christmas writing a resignation letter, one that never got delivered. I hold no resentment towards the Fool – I will remain a fan and be watching for their continued success.

So, what is on the horizons for me? Well… The Motley Fool was only partially correct – I did send my resume out to a few big names in the industry; but I haven’t been actively job hunting aside from that. What I’ve been doing for the past several months is preparing. I’ve always wanted to try a stab at the full-time freelance thing. Could I handle it, would it bring in enough income, is it stable? All questions that scared me and until now have kept me from pursuing this dream. Many of you close to me are probably saying, “oh, that explains all the damn questions lately.” In the later part of 2006, I setup a limited liability corporation; Creative Refresh, LLC. I’ve been working as a freelancer on the side for several years under the name “MarylandMedia.com” – but now am taking it to that next level; going a little more legit and getting much more serious.

I made a little over $40,000 in freelancing within 2006. Pretty impressive I believe, especially from someone who didn’t seek out many clients and only worked a few hours a week on what was more of a hobby than a business. My goal is to take the 4 to 6 hours a week I’ve spent freelancing and multiply that ten times with the hopes of at least doubling my revenue from last year. My revenue expectations are conservative – my goal is simply to bring in at least what I was getting paid on a full-time salary; roughly $86,000/annually. Many of you doing the math right now realize that overall this will be a significant income loss from last year – where I had both a full-time salary and freelance income coming in together. But, this isn’t just about the money – it is about seeing if I can do what I’ve always said I wanted to do; start a creative firm from scratch and make it successful.

There comes a time in your life when you realize if you don’t take an opportunity there won’t be another. I’ve always been scared to quit my job and start a creative consulting firm – now that my job has quit me, I am excited as hell. I am going to try this out for a bit and see how much I like it. I will continue to selectively apply for full-time positions (always keeping an eye out for that “perfect” opportunity). You’ll notice a slight shift in my attention within this blog – I plan on highlighting my steps in building a successful creative consulting firm one client at a time; and yes, I’ll be sharing my failures as well (expect many).

Happy New Year!

Enlarge