Hey all, it's been a bit. Figured I'd update, though I'll keep it brief:
- Got two more clients, bringing me up to a total of seven. Want to get to ten by the end of June and see how that feels.
- I have a lukewarm (tepid, really) and three warm leads, though I'm still building relationships and getting a feel if we're a good fit for each other.
- Revenue's up to just over $6k/month, still working on $7.5k/month. Mind you, this is just recurring stuff; I'll get a few ad hoc projects by current clients or one-off people who need help so that's about an extra $200 - $800 each month on average.
- Testing out my fifth writer-contractor and if he likes the work and does a good job, that's my writing team. All that'd be left is hiring an editor. Though one of the writers is interested in learning how to edit too so there's some flexibility there.
- My gaming Discord's starting to attract more creative/entrepreneurial guys lately. Even have an #entrepreneurship channel with 81 guys, accounting for about 16% of the server. People have been asking for help getting their Twitch and YouTube channels set up or asking about slapping my gaming site/community's brand on their channels to help support it which is kinda neat. I'm in no rush to monetize that community directly but am curious to watch as opportunities naturally bubble up -- the biggest one being merchandising which I'm toying around with during what little downtime I've had lately.
- Still figuring out what kinda content I want to produce for LinkedIn to attract people to me. I've been having luck with polls and using those discussions to prompt topics for blog articles later on but building a consistent presence and providing value on LinkedIn (and just leveraging that platform in general) is a new challenge for me so.. it's been fun but slow going.
People seem to really like the applied game theory for business/marketing strategy angle which is dope. Though admittedly, as far as business models go, I don't think I want to remain in just creating content. It might still be something I offer but I wanna figure out something of value I can productize to scale effectively. I got a few ideas for SaaS apps but I'm trying to get the current model about 80-90% automated so I can dedicate my time to fleshing out those ideas a bit better.
But yeah. All I've been doing is working lately and the strange part is that I don't really feel stressed or anything about it. It's challenging, sure, but it's been super fun working on tuning the process, meeting people, and just.. building stuff and being confident enough to reach out to people.
OH speaking of, I met one of my all-time favorite video game writers who accepted my connection request on LinkedIn. Gave me his email address and encouraged me to keep talking with him so that was kinda surreal since he's the main reason I even became a writer.
One last little nugget I wanted to share that I've learned over this year so far vs. all the other years I've been trying to scale and get this shit moving:
life is so much easier when you let go of the limiting self-talk that plays on repeat in your head. Sure, I still get doubts or wonder "am I good enough for x, y, and z things?" but I just shut those voices down and try to focus on the work. For instance, if I feel lacking in confidence or my anxiety/depression is telling me I don't deserve to be seen, I start adding people on LinkedIn, follow up on messages, and post stuff. If I start judging my writing, I just write something, clean it up, and publish it.
I don't have really any regrets in my life but the closest to one is not learning this and applying it sooner. So for real.. if you feel stuck, fight the urge to remain comfortable; we're tricked into thinking the comfort of what's familiar is more valuable than the discomfort that comes with the growth we crave. So don't fall for that bullshit.
