I attended the Start Small:Stay Small session today. The focus was freelancers and how they can grow their business. I thought this was a particularly relevant session for this site as I am sure most bloggers are freelancers (with the odd exception of those who blog for their companies).

The panel consisted of four people all of whom had been or were currently freelancers. Three of the panel had been freelancers but their businesses had grown so much that they became agencies and hired other people.

The dicussions were lively and focussed on whether a freelancer should stay freelancing or should try and develop enough business to justify hiring other people, and if so, what was the best way to go about that.  The panel all agreed that the first step in freelancing is of course, finding work. All of them had at one point been in the employ of a company and had either lost their job or quit. Those that had quit had taken the time to develop contacts first and even get a few jobs on the side before quitting. Those that lost their jobs were not so fortunate.  They took the route of either Friends & Family or very local businesses to find work - all of the panel were either writers or designers.

What was interesting to hear was the similarity in the stories, and to find that Roger Black, who was on the panel shared the same experiences. For those of you not familiar with him, he is responsible for the redesign of Bloomberg.com, and is currently redesigning the Washington Post both the physical newspaper and the online site. He started out more than 30 years ago as a freelancer.

The common theme was, if you want to stay a freelancer, then do that. If you have ambitions beyond that, go for it. But don’t feel the pressure to do one or the other, do what is right for you.

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