Earlier this year I celebrated three years of being self-employed by offering 120 free 20-minute consults to visitors of this site. A lot of people wanted to talk to me about their side-gigs and how to go about working for themselves.
One of the biggest concerns people had was about making enough money. How do you even start to generate income when you’re on your own?! Completely legitimate concern. Your first weeks being self-employed are exciting, and nerve-wracking. And when you’re used to getting paid every other Friday, let me tell you, two weeks comes up FAST when you’re not getting a paycheck anymore.
I highly recommend saving cash as soon as possible if you think self-employment is on your horizon, but eventually you’re going to have to take that leap. When you do, consider these six things I did to earn money and begin growing my business when I started working for myself.
The Soft Quit
Work hourly for the place you just left
Did you leave your job on good terms? Any chance your old company will want to hire you as a consultant to finish up any projects you were running while employed?
In 2018 I ended up quitting two jobs. My departure from my second job was a bit unexpected for me and my boss, and I still had a couple projects I was running. Instead of him hiring someone new, or working overtime to cover my slack, he hired me hourly to help both of us ease the transition. So even though I was technically self-employed, I had 8 or so hours of billable work I could do every week.
Meet Contractors
Get to know a great lead source
You need to get your name out there.
My first day in business I drove around town handing out business cards to builders. Like, actually talking to people, in person. That was still a thing in 2018.
In the single-family residential game a lot of leads will come from contractors (as opposed to straight from from homeowners) so this is a good place to start. On my first day in business I went and talked to a half dozen builders. Some of them I already knew, but wanted to let them know I was now working on my own. Some of them I only knew by reputation, but wanted to meet.
As much as I believe in content-marketing, it takes time to build up, and the contractors that I know have been my number one source of leads over the last three years.
Productized Services
Sell your skills piecemeal
It might be a while before you land your first big project but smaller jobs are probably easier to come by. In his Architect+Entrepreneur Course, Eric Reinholdt talks about Productized Services. This basically means selling the different parts of an architectural job as individual products. For me, this was doing field-measures and existing conditions drawings.
A few other examples could be site surveys, historic review consulting, permit expediting, architectural photography, Drone-flying/imaging, etc.
Doing a field measure and documenting the existing conditions is without a doubt my least favorite part of any job, but when I had no jobs it was work I could do and more easily find. It even led to some actual design work projects.
A word of caution though, I think in this business you will reap what you sow, meaning if you start doing a lot of field-measures and marketing your field-measuring skills, you’re going to end up getting a lot more of this work. So be careful with this productized services idea. As you begin to grow and get the projects you actually want you will have to continuously weigh taking smaller jobs just to have something to do, against more speculative work like marketing yourself toward the bigger projects or spending time building your passive income stream (see below).
Reduce Cost of Living
A dollar saved is a dollar earned
If you won $1000 today, what would you do? Save it, invest it, pay off debt or buy something fun. All good answers, but the self-employed answer is this: That’s $1,000 that I no longer have the burden of earning. That’s 8 hours of billable time I don’t have to find.
That gem was from an old boss of mine, and if you think about your time in that sense you can really understand the value in reducing your monthly spending. Sure, this one isn’t exactly a way to earn money, but it’s almost as good.
My first year of being self-employed I decided to take care of my son one day a week. That was one day a week we didn’t have to hire a nanny, which translated into big bucks we didn’t have to spend every month. So while I couldn’t work that day and wasn’t able to earn anything, I was reducing our monthly expenditures by at least as much as I was probably going to be earning at first.
What expenses do you currently have that you think you could cut out when you’re working for yourself? Anything related to your daily commute is easy, but I bet you could find some bigger ones.
Generate Passive Income
Create an income source that is not dependent on your ability to find new architecture projects
This one is a long play, and if you think you might want to be self-employed some day then the time to start building your passive income is right now. Today. It will take time to build an audience and develop quality products and you don’t know for sure if it will work, which means this idea is very speculative.
The fundamental principle here is that if you are self-employed as an architect, your real job is entrepreneurship. It would be great if ALL your income came from architecture projects, but I think it’s smart planning to try to diversify your income streams.
This site launched in February 2018 as part of a 5-year plan for me to build a financial safety net to begin working for myself. Things changed, and by August of 2018 I was self-employed. At the time this site was generating about $10/day. That’s not paying the mortgage, but it covers a car payment and grocery trip! And with a bunch of extra free hours in my day I was able to devote more time to growing this side of my business.
So what can you do? The first thing to consider is the skills and tools you already use every day. Think you could build an audience for your Excel skills and time-saving spreadsheets? Do you make awesome greeting cards for your friends? Did you pass a tough exam and can help others do the same?! Other more typical passive income ideas are things like investment property (not affordable for me here in the DMV) or stock investing (risky). Any quick google of Passive Income ideas will yield dozens of websites with Top 20 lists.
I could (and will) do an entire post about choosing your passive income idea, but the earlier you start the better. Though I can’t guarantee success with whatever you choose, I do know the road map, and I’ve started writing about it in a free booklet, Intro to Passive Income.
Production Work from Other Architects
Gain experience and work on good projects
Another early source of income was doing projects for other architects. To be honest, this is STILL a good source of work for me. Similar to the soft-quit, once I was self-employed I reached out to some other architects friend/mentors that I knew and straight up asked if they had any projects they needed help with.
I began working for myself about 4 years out of grad school, and while I wasn’t an idiot, I also realized that I was missing out on a lot of experience. And now instead of being in an office with people to talk with and learn from, I was in my basement, all alone. Which is totally fine considering my highest goal in life is to be a hermit, but less than ideal when I had questions myself or wasn’t sure about the best detail to use, or exactly how the structure worked, or what the cost of something was, etc. Working for other architects lets me (you) keep my (your) autonomy AND learn AND charge more than if I were still employed somewhere.
Do you know other sole-practitioners or small firm owners who might need to outsource some work? Here are some of the reasons other architects have decided to let me do their construction documentation:
– project needs to be in Revit and they use some other software
– project is too big and they are overloaded with work
– client needs 3d and the architect hand-drafts or uses AutoCAD
– regular staff is overwhelmed and firm is looking for temporary assistance In my experience the jobs I do for other architects are all fairly large or complex. This is both by choice (mine) and also driven by the need of the hiring architect. While my own typical projects are more humble single family additions or new construction, the work I have done for other architects is all multi-million dollar whole-home renovations or multi-family work.
RESOURCES FOR YOUR NEXT STEPS
Coaching/Consulting
Spend an hour Zooming with me about your specific goals and challenges. I'll help you get started on the right foot.
Architect Entrepreneur Course
I am a big fan of all the Eric Reinholdt books and if you liked those you will love this course. I'm actually featured in it as well!
Hyperfine Blog
Read more posts about entrepreneurship, including interviews with other sole proprietors!
Intro to Passive Income
My free booklet will teach you the basics you need to turn your idea, sidegig or passion project into a revenue-generating business.