It has been a minute since I last posted. So much has happened!
My company has officially been in business for 6 months – depending on the paperwork you look at — and it has been a roller coaster. I knew starting a company wasn’t gonna be easy, but it didn’t fully hit me until we hired our first two employees and fired a client that I realized how hard it actually is.
For those just joining the ride, in October of 2016, I quit my well-paying job to go freelance and pursue my dream of being a game writer. Through a series of events, I went from freelancer to editor-in-chief in 2017 at Roger Wilco to CEO of Something Simple Services (S3) in March of 2018.
My business partner and creative director, Michael Jones, and I have been through what feels like a whirlwind of success and failures. We learned some hard lessons about business and balancing the creative process. Blending the technical and the artistic bits is no easy task when you’re a content marketing firm.
It’s safe to say we’re a startup on the cusp of being a small business. The difference, in my eyes, might be minor but important. As a startup, there’s this constant struggle and sacrifices, a constant hustle that freelancers are very familiar with. It’s the panic of, “where’s my next paycheck coming from this month?” The startup phase is also where the biggest failures happen. It’s where the idea doesn’t take off and you’re left scrambling to find a job to keep the roof over your head.
Mick and I figured out our roles in the company pretty quickly. I would run most of the day-to-day boring business stuff and handle the majority of the customers, while he owned all the creative work. We brought in someone to take over managing the writing department that was passed off to S3, so I got to bring with me people that have been amazing to work with while I was with Roger Wilco.
Tack on an office assistant who’d eventually go on to become our business dev and a web developer I’ve known since college, we were ready to take on anything that came our way.
Four employees, 12 contractors later, S3 has fought its way to this moment. 6 months of business and the party bus isn’t stopping here.
I am an openly gay, female CEO and super proud to have gotten to this point. I have had the absolute pleasure of working with incredible people. I look forward to sharing this new adventure with everyone and hope that I can give some good advice along the way.
