How to Craft Your Personal Business Model

For me, the most remarkable aspect of being a freelancer is the power to decide what projects I’ll work on and which ones I won’t. If you’re reading this, chances are it is for you, too. Being in charge of exactly what fills each workday is a pinch-me privilege. It’s also a pressing responsibility.

As an employee, the Pointy-Haired Boss gives you a desk, a computer, a dress code, a time to show up at the office, a time to leave, and projects to work on in between. When you don’t have that any more, you realize it’s not that bad a deal. Not having to make those choices about what to work on every day makes life easier because you don’t have to think. When you’re a freelancer, you’ve got the decisions to make AND the work to do.

Most freelancers have some mix of high-paying drudge work and low-to-no paying interesting work. (The lucky ones snag high-paying interesting work, and only the dumb ones do underpaid drudgery.) But it’s important to strive for a good balance. In this terrible economy, it’s even more difficult than usual to make clear-headed decisions about what’s the best way to spend your time. With constant talk of rising unemployment, it’s easy to fall into that trap of taking any paying work that comes your way because “I should just be grateful to have work at all.” Gratitude is a good thing, but doing anything anyone is willing to pay you for isn’t. As a freelancer, you’ve got to give every incoming opportunity some careful thought before you accept or turn it down. The projects you turn down say more about you as a professional than the work you accept.

Making these decisions can be overwhelming–even if you’re a veteran. This past January, for the second time in my career, I abandoned a comfy full-time gig and jumped whole hog into a completely open calendar. Coming up on my last day as an employee, I couldn’t wait to be free again. I felt like queen of the world: I had potential clients offering me paid work, volunteer opportunities to dive into, a long list of new skills and technologies I couldn’t wait to teach myself, and a calendar full of free time. It felt great.

Then I spent my first day as a freelancer wrapped in a blanket, wide-eyed and paralyzed, wondering what in the world I’d gotten myself into. That didn’t feel great.

It was time to do some soul-searching. I picked up a notebook and pen and got to teasing out a bigger vision that would help me make sense of the smaller decisions. I jotted ideas, made lists, and to make myself feel extra legit, I even drew pie charts, just like the one you see here. All of it was an attempt to answer that big question that everyone from my mother to my hair stylist was asking: What was I going to do? Even though I hate applying corporate terminology to human beings, I’ll say it: I was crafting my personal business model. Traditionally a business model is a company’s plan to generate revenue. While I do plan to make money as a freelancer, my ultimate goal is to generate satisfaction. (While money is a part of that, so is learning, service, and creativity, so we’ll just use the umbrella term “satisfaction.”)

A few exercises helped me nail down my ultimate satisfaction-generating personal business model.

First, I made a list of role models—people alive or dead, fictional or historical, in my industry or not, who I admire. Underneath each name I listed the reasons why I admire this person. After getting down about 20 names and a few reasons per name, patterns started to emerge that gave me some extra information about the things I value. (For example, I tend to admire underdogs who come out on top, innovators, “comeback kids”, and habitually creative people who consistently turn out quality work.)

Second, I listed all the projects in my life and career I loved working on the most. The list ranged from the first short story I was ever proud to show my creative writing teacher (fifth grade) through my professional career. Underneath each I listed what I loved most about working on it and what I was most proud of about the results. Here there were lots of clues pointing me towards the most satisfying kinds of work I should pursue now.

Then, I tackled the big question: What do I want to accomplish as a freelancer? For me, the answer turned out to be three-pronged: I want to make stuff that’s meaningful, learn new skills, and make some money.

Finally, because an open schedule and an inbox full of inquiries were staring me in the face, I charted out what my ideal work mix would be. That’s the pie chart you see above. For me, in a perfect world, 30% of my work time will be on projects I’m doing primarily for love, 30% primarily for the education, and 30% for money. The final 10% is for boring but necessary administrative work like invoicing, filing paperwork, and backing up my computer. Of course there will be lots of overlap–some jobs will be educational, paid, interesting, as well as require boring administration. But every opportunity rates highest on one of the three scales–love, money, and learning.

My 30/30/30/10 business model is not the most conventional one you’ll ever see; and truth be told, most days it’s more of a far-reaching ideal than a reality. Yours will look different than mine, and likely mine will change over time. But once you can say with certainty how you want your freelance career to align with your values and goals, it becomes much easier to put on the boss hat and decide whether or not work is worth taking on day-to-day.

Gina Trapani is the founding editor of Lifehacker.com, a daily blog on software and productivity. After four full-time years, she stepped down from Lifehacker’s lead editor position to be an independent blogger, freelance coder, and magazine writer. She authored a book based on the web site which is in its second edition, entitled Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better (Wiley, 2008).

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Gina Trapani is the founding editor of Lifehacker.com, a daily blog on software and productivity. After four full-time years, she stepped down from Lifehacker's lead editor position to be an independent blogger, freelance coder, and magazine writer. She authored a book based on the web site which is in its second edition, entitled Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better (Wiley, 2008).

How to Craft Your Personal Business Model

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