Surviving Q1 as a Solopreneur.

It’s April 1st and that means I’ve survived my first quarter as a full-time contractor — no joke.

Part of me can’t believe it, and the other part of me feels like there was really no other road to take.

As I write this, I’m sitting on my couch, “Shark Tank” is on, and I’ve got coffee and Blanche right beside me. I’ll admit, it was hard to get out of bed this morning — mainly because work is a little slow right now, and I’m driven by deadlines.

But I’m up, and have already crossed a few things off my to-do list. Is working for myself perfect? Of course not, no job is (at least that is my firm belief). But it’s figuring out what you’re willing to put up with, versus what you’re not.

I was done with working for people who didn’t share my values, done with dress codes, and office politics.

In trade, I have to send my own invoices, occasionally I get rude emails, and I have learned to suspend the worry that my bills may not get paid. Yes, there’s a chance they won’t, but it hasn’t happened yet.

There’s things I could do better — I could chase leads, reason with clients that offer low-pay, put in more hours, hound clients that have an unpaid invoice.

But I don’t. I’ve been fortunate enough to have 99% of my work come right to me, I don’t take jobs that don’t pay what I am worth, I stop working when I feel like I’ve done enough, and after one reminder on the invoice, I simply stop working for that client.

So far, these methods have worked for me. I’m certainly not rolling in the dough, but I have paid all of my bills and taken a really nice vacation. That’s about all that I can ask for.

There were weeks in this first quarter that I worked my ASS off. And while I appreciated the pay day, my goal for this second quarter is to “work” a little less.

By that I don’t mean sleeping more or binging on more “Shark Tank”, instead, I mean that I want to spend more time working on my passion projects — like this blog, my blog class, writing more for pleasure, and dare I say… work on a screenplay??

One thing I’ve been fortunate enough to do this quarter is work with other women entrepreneurs. As a woman in tech, I feel it is important to lift up other women in business.

I’ve worked with women who also own their own companies, they’re building apps, creating websites, they’ve taken their side-hustles and turned them into brick-and-mortars.

And, many of them have suffered the consequences of working in male-dominated industries and/or companies. They’ve been reprimanded for speaking up, fired for holding multiple jobs, and made less money than what they’re worth.

At this point, I don’t know where the rest of the year is going to take me. But I do plan to keep working with as many women as possible — maybe even solely by the end of the year, maybe even hiring a few to work with me.

I hope I can continue to inform and inspire any of you who may be grinding on a side hustle, or thinking about going full-time with your passion. Keep going!

Here’s to the second quarter of 2019!