Freelancing Series - 1 - Just Getting Started

New site, new series, renewed dedication to content.

This series is about my ongoing process of quitting my last full-time job to work independently, and what I hope is my LAST LAST full-time job, as in last ever.

So backstory: I used to work at this amazing company, Sumo.com. I was doing outbound sales there for basically all of 2017. This was my 2nd SaaS sales job in 2 years, and I just wasn’t feeling like it was my end game, and my individual performance wasn’t spectacular. Spoiler alert-I always want my performance to be godlike.

I learned a ton there though – both from people within the company and people outside. I worked with a lot of amazing eCommerce entrepreneurs, listened to their stories and helped them grow their email lists. Getting so close to the ground with them gave me a lot of confidence around if I was capable enough to make something like that happen.

Internally at Sumo, we ran an amazing ship. Even though I’ve worked the fastest growing SaaS company GLOBALLY in 2017, Sumo was far better run. The systems, the processes, the inter-team dynamics were just so good. I think it has a lot to do with the managers and where they came from, but it was just damn good.

I had some health issues through 2017 with my back, and despite spending quite a bit of time and money on healthcare, I couldn’t get back to 100%. In December of 2017, I missed our annual company retreat and enough was enough. I had to take time off and heal, so I did.

Many thoughts of the value of a sabbatical overall, but I did one out of necessity. In the month of January, I healed. I relaxed. I didn’t drink. I didn’t socialize much. I was in the gym doing rehab, I was reading, and watching a shitload of Netflix. Man, I love Netflix! It was really hard not to work, but it was also an amazing chance to recharge. 

By Feb 1, I was riproaring to start working, and actually was able to pull in an old Sumo client, PhalanxFC to let me take on some of their digital marketing. I knew I could run their Sumo, help them with email marketing and get involved with Paid Social & more if we had proper budgets. Everything was lining up, I didn’t have any expenses yet because I was living at home until March 31. 

At this point, things were looking awesome. I had Cardinal Designs, the eCommerce Web Dev business, a nascent marketing business, a healthy body, and more energy than I’d felt in months. But, things change. More in the next post!