The first year as a full-time self-employed web designer / web developer is behind me. In this year there have been some ups and downs that have taught me a lot.
In this video I talk about my experiences in my first year of self-employment – okay, strictly speaking, I already registered my business 5 years ago – but at that time actually only to implement the one or other web project in the evening or on the weekend in addition to my employment in an advertising agency.
At that time it was not the plan at all that I would ever become completely self-employed. But times change and my desire for flexibility and independence of location grew with time and so I simply took the step into full-time self-employment and today, after more than a year, I can’t imagine it any other way.
I have also created a video on this topic (german – but you can turn on subtitles!)
If you prefer to read on, scroll down.I have also created a video on this topic.If you prefer to read on, scroll down.
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The year before (2021) I had after the dismissal in the employment first the first few months a little freelance – I was already active with my business as a small entrepreneur – and partly lived from my savings. But before I decided to really work as a web designer and developer on my own, I took a course at the Business Start-Up Program – UGP for short – to prepare myself. In the UGP you can participate in different courses and lectures, which prepare you optimally for self-employment. One part at the beginning of the course is the business plan. This is discussed and optimized with the assigned UGP consultant. The other courses cover various topics such as accounting, time management and self-organization. During this time I have filled my own portfolio website with freelance projects little by little to be able to present my work to my future clients to get new orders.
After finishing the UGP I switched to full-time self-employment on 1.1., which was the beginning of my new life as a self-employed web designer. Everything before that I only count as a bit of freelancing. The step into this direction also entails higher costs, which I didn’t have as a small business owner. These costs include higher health and social security, for example. Some costs like commercial insurance and also many small amounts like licensing costs for software I had somewhat underestimated in advance. Many small amounts also add up to a large sum in the end. And all these costs must of course also be included in the hourly rate.
What if I don’t get any orders?
At first, many new self-employed people are afraid that they might not get enough orders. How will I pay my costs then? I didn’t have these worries, as the order situation and new inquiries never really worsened throughout the year. My advantage was that I had freelanced on and off before, building up a small client base. In my case, the best advertising was referrals and my network. Through good work and nice projects, I was recommended and new requests arose. I have also built a small network of graphic designers, photographers and marketing experts, whose customers also always need websites or webshops and so I was also here the first contact person and so I was mediated further orders.
At some point everyone reaches their limits
So I wasn’t at all afraid of a possible bad order situation. On the contrary: I reached my limits in the middle of the year until about fall. As a one-man show, you just can’t split yourself up. Projects were well planned, but there are various reasons why project starts can be delayed, and then it happened that a few projects together were postponed into a period that was already blocked for other projects.
But what now?
Many people might say that I could hire employees when the order situation is so high. But that is fundamentally not my goal. I want to remain as flexible as possible, and after all, you have to pay an employee when the order situation is no longer so good.
Therefore, the alternative was to outsource certain work on projects to freelancers or other self-employed web designers.
My tip: Build up a network of people from your industry early enough who can support you in an emergency!
But the cooperation with some freelancers did not always work as I had wished. In the end, it can happen that a lot of time goes into checking the code and the quality of the implementation, coordination and corrections, and the time saved is not very great. I also had this case. Fortunately, you can also find good people with whom I still enjoy working today.
So my plan in this very stressful time was to finish all projects as good as possible, but still the quality must not suffer, so I sacrificed for weeks my complete free time for work to reach a normal state again. So the plan …So my plan in this very stressful time was to finish all projects as good as possible, but still the quality must not suffer, so I sacrificed for weeks my complete free time for work to reach a normal state again. So the plan …
If I do not change anything now – nothing will happen
Instead of slowly completing the too many projects at the time, as planned, in order to achieve normal working hours again, it went exactly in the opposite direction. In addition to the ongoing projects, new – often urgent – work from existing customers was added daily, which of course slowed down the timing of other projects.
After about 2 months, it was clear to me that I couldn’t go on like this and I took another look at the whole thing from above. Exactly that was a condition I do not strive for. The goal of independence was flexibility and independence of location. Planned leisure activities were almost all canceled and trips were postponed. This clearly had nothing to do with flexibility. Therefore, I had to do something – not only project-related, but also for myself.
I had booked a flight to Morocco – to live and work again as it was the original plan. As soon as I arrived there, my head was clear again and suddenly several opportunities had arisen to get the ongoing projects all back under wraps. More about this workation can be found here.Instead of slowly completing the too many projects at the time, as planned, in order to achieve normal working hours again, it went exactly in the opposite direction. In addition to the ongoing projects, new – often urgent – work from existing customers was added daily, which of course slowed down the timing of other projects.After about 2 months, it was clear to me that I couldn’t go on like this and I took another look at the whole thing from above. Exactly that was a condition I do not strive for. The goal of independence was flexibility and independence of location. Planned leisure activities were almost all canceled and trips were postponed. This clearly had nothing to do with flexibility. Therefore, I had to do something – not only project-related, but also for myself.I had booked a flight to Morocco – to live and work again as it was the original plan. As soon as I arrived there, my head was clear again and suddenly several opportunities had arisen to get the ongoing projects all back under wraps. More about this workation can be found here.
So I came back from this three-week trip with fresh thoughts and brought back to the original goals of my new lifestyle and reset my goals with the end of the year: Don’t take on every project, just the ones that feel really good. Likewise, allow more generous buffers for timings.
My first year was very turbulent in summary. It started with high motivation but enough flexibility and then peaked to also show me my limits as a one-man-show. But that was also my plan in the first year, to work as much and as well as possible to first see what is really left at the end of a year minus all costs and taxes. In the end, after one year I had already achieved a goal that I had only set for the following year – namely to reach my salary from my last job. To reach this goal already in the first year – I was already proud of that – but it was also hard work. The most important goal for my second year is above all not to slip back into the same situation, but to put flexibility more in the foreground again.
I hope you enjoyed my insight into my first year of self-employment and that it may even help you if you’re currently on the verge of starting your own business yourself.
I am happy to receive comments 🙂
