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I love the culture that surrounds the web design industry.  Creative, free-spirited people who often work from home or freelance and work weird hours because they can and they feel like it.  Love it.  But I feel like there is alot of burnout and frustration because that same freedom often leaves people wandering about confused and purposeless.  I’m about to lay out some ideas that may seem like sweeping generalizations, however, I think if you consider them carefully they will bring a greater clarity and sense of purpose and direction to your work as a web designer / developer.

I am a freelancer, and like many other freelancers I have a fairly regular interaction with other web professionals through Twitter. As a result, I have a definite bias, but I see alot of freelancers suffering from burnout and having difficulty figuring out how to manage their time and balance their various roles and responsibilities in life. This post (at least in part) is my two cents on the whole phenomenon, which is very real.

Raises and Benefits

There is a group of web professionals that are very interested in security, stability, raises, and benefits. These people often have families that they need to care for and are under alot of pressure in that department of their lives. They are excellent at their trade but for them, it is a high priority that their work end at a certain time each day so they can invest in developing strong relationships with their spouse and children. Others in this category include those who place a higher value on relaxing and enjoying life than working hard.  That makes web design a great career for people with this personality type.  Being a web professional is a great way to get that freedom; you can even work from the road or while on vacation etc.

The struggle for this group of freelancers is that despite being sincere in their passion for their trade, they are more interested in web design / development than they are interested in business.

Ay, There’s the Rub

Being more interested in web design / development than business is a serious problem for many freelancers.  There’s something misleading about the term “freelancer”.  It’s not quite “self-employed”, not quite “entrepreneurial”, and just a bit vague.  If you’re a freelancer then you’re a business owner.  Period.  The question that really needs to be answered is this: “What is your dream?” 

If things like security, stability, and comfort are important parts of your dream, then it’s my humble opinion that the “freelance” (a.k.a. business-owner) lifestyle is not the one for you.

Why?  Because one of the basic tenets of business is “Work hard now, reap the benefits years later”.  If you want to be successful as a freelancer, it should be your goal from the outset to develop a strong brand and be developing a strategy to gradually turn your business from a one-man operation into a studio with specialists in a variety of industry niches.  I warned you at the start that I wanted to make some polarizing comments, but take heart, for there is hope.

Why We Do the Things We Do

I think it’s a great idea to sit down and make an honest decision, “Am I interested in security, stability, and comfort or am I interested in making a mark, sacrifice, hard work, and being a leader?”  I think taking the time to commit to one or the other could help many freelancers bypass years of confusion and frustration and ultimately, failure. If you’re doing the freelance thing right now make the best of it, but have a plan.  Is your freelancing a time to develop a strong portfolio and expand your knowledge / marketable skillset in hopes of landing a better full-time design / development gig?  Is it to establish a strong brand identity and a steady influx of clients to the point where you need to bring other people on staff in order to handle the influx work?

My personal goal is the latter.  Of course many people never have life circumstances align in such a way that they are capable of making the huge sacrifice to move from freelancer to entrepreneur.  I am very grateful to own two companies, a fitness & wellness company that is profitable to the extent that I am able to invest more time in my still-growing “DreamStar Studios”.  I’m currently mapping out a plan to make the transition from “DreamStar Studios – Freelance Designer Brian Feister” to “DreamStar Studios – Private Design Studio”.

Maybe it’s just my sense of adventure and romance, maybe it’s my unreasonable and silly love of a good challenge, but I’m going for it.  There are some of you reading this that should too!