I quit my job to become a full time artist - A self employment Q&A

i have a funny feeling this video is going to be a long one so grab a cup of tea and let's get into it so today's video is going to be a little chatty one i've set us up all nicely in the office i moved these flowers from over there to here just for the setup to be nice so i hope you appreciate it um yeah i wanted to do this video for a long time and that is a video all about setting up my online shop and becoming self-employed and taking that leap and all that kind of stuff okay super quick pause i just realized i never even introduced myself or said what i do now so my name is laura i'm an artist and illustrator based here in dublin and i'm running a very small operation out of spare room of my mom's house where i get to draw and design prints like the ones you can see behind me and custom portrait commissions and lots of other fun projects so if you want to keep up with my work and just in general what i get up today today you can follow my instagram okay i hope you enjoyed the video and let's get back into it so i went on instagram and did like a questions poll and asked you guys to send me any questions you had about self-employment setting up a shop all that kind of stuff and i got quite a lot of questions so thank you for those and also i will probably end up having to make a few different videos because there was so many different topics that were asked about i'm going to try and cover as many of them as possible in this video but this is going to be kind of like an overview q a and then if you have a topic that i talk about here or that i don't talk about that you want me to make a full video on just comment it down below and i can kind of revisit that and maybe make another one of these because it's quite enjoyable i'm already i'm already enjoying this got like chilling out with cup of tea and a bit of a chat so i'm going to be answering questions based on my own experience over the last six to 12 months of being like fully invested in this whole thing i'm not a professional i didn't go to business school or do a business degree i'm just speaking on my own experience and hopefully that will still help i was working in an ad agency as an account manager before this and i was working there for two years really didn't like the job but it was good money and i liked the people i was working with so i stuck there for two years that was a job i got while i was in college and i studied communications in college so it was very much a businessy ad agency type job that was kind of the route we were ushered down so i definitely thought it was going to work in an office or a kind of a media social media type of corporate world well i just found it just wasn't for me i'm much more suited to do my own thing i'm i just yeah so yeah in short worked in an ad agency for two years and decided to go self-employed and about six months ago officially and i have not looked back since thankfully so the first question was when do you get your job and what gave you the push to do it so i quit my job in march 2020 uh to become self-employed full-time which was also the very start of lockdown here in ireland which was weird timing i'll admit i've been very lucky that it hasn't worked out too badly but i was very afraid to quit my job when i did so far it's worked out thank god i've been very lucky but i was working on all this stuff just part time and like in my evenings and in my weekends since october 2019 so i officially registered as a business in october 2019 and started doing commissions mainly on the side so all my weekends and my evenings i'd spend drawing portrait commissions i loved doing it i loved the idea of being able to be a part of that gifting experience and somebody getting a portrait for a gift like my main thing in 2019 was christmas i did a big uh commissions thing for christmas where i did portrait commissions for christmas gifts and that went down so well i got so many orders i was blown away and i ended up making more in the month of december from my commissions than i did from my work my my actual job at the time which kind of gave me the push to really look seriously at possibly quitting my job i need a drink so the next question was all about startup costs was it a risk to quit your job did you have to save a lot before you quit what was the startup investment like all that kind of thing short answer to all of that is yes yes and yes it was very much a risky decision and one i had to take very carefully and and if you're thinking about it too definitely mull it over for a long time give yourself the chance to really think about all the possible pros and cons and once i kind of decided that it was something i wanted to do just in terms of i thought it was gonna definitely suit me and my personality to be self-employed i started looking at practical ways that i could maybe make that happen someday i didn't think i'd be able to do it as quickly as i was but the way things worked out i just took the opportunity when i did and it's worked out so far but yeah in terms of savings and all that kind of stuff what i did was when i first decided that okay going self-employed is something i definitely want to do let's try and make it happen i sat down i got my all my accounts out i went through all my finances like with a fine-tooth comb it was not a pleasant experience uh and i just found out the exact numbers i needed to cover my essentials at that time and i'm extremely lucky i'm living with my mom so my rent is quite low and i don't have kids i don't have a lot of debt i'm pretty okay financially so i was in the privileged position to be able to look at that and get a number that i could possibly attain to i put my notice in in january and at this point i had saved up just putting bit by bit away to have about three or four months worth of wages saved which again very privileged thing to be able to do i didn't have a lot of high expenses so i was able to put that little bit away each month so when it came down to it when i was leaving my job in march i was leaving with about three months worth of wages saved that was hopefully just an emergency fund it was also going to be my startup fund so i was going to use that to buy all my packaging materials to buy um to like pay for my website and all this kind of stuff and also it was uh obviously to keep me going if the business ended up failing thankfully it didn't but that was that was there so i did definitely save my own deal breaker as well was that i had three months worth of my wages saved up to keep me going and that if i didn't make that money through the art stuff within those three months then i was going to get myself another job and just do the art stuff part time again and that was that was like a deal i had with myself next question was where my family and friends supportive or uneasy about me going self-employed generally speaking i had a lot of support especially towards um the end of my kind of at the end of my job when it was actually genuinely happening happening my friends and family were really supportive about it however initially when i did vocalize i do remember a few people being a little bit worried because the job i had was a well-paying job and it was the kind of job that if i quit and then tried to go back to it and even in in the industry i would be starting at the bottom of the ladder again and but over time as the art stuff started taking off and becoming more and more successful and also the more they saw how unhappy i was in the other job they were a lot more supportive about the idea of me leaving and trying this out because yeah they want the best for me which is amazing a great support network so overall since i've left they've been amazing and super supportive so yeah i can't really complain there next one was how did i get the word around about what i was doing in the beginning so marketing and all that kind of stuff honestly it was all instagram and word of mouth which i know is probably not the most helpful thing to hear in the world but what i accidentally ended up doing which i think was a very smart move which was not intentional so i don't get any credit for it but i found a product service that i could sell that was a very shareable thing if that makes sense i was selling custom portraits and most people when they get a gift like that of a portrait of themselves the first thing they want to do is share it with people whether it's showing their mom showing their friends in their group chat putting it on their instagram story whatever it is it's something that people like to show off and so accidentally that ended up helping me get known more than anything because you know once once one person shares it to their friends their friends might get one and then they might share it to their friends and the pool just widens and then obviously the more portraits i was doing the better i was getting at them so people were liking them more and yeah it just kind of snowballed naturally like that now when i say snowballed it was slow from the beginning i had that my art account i think i've had it for definitely two and a half years now or something like that it's it's been a while and i've only seen growth properly in it since i went full-time uh self-employed so since march my followers have like gone up steadily but before march it was pretty slow about 500 followers up to about a thousand followers was like an extremely slow process and my first 500 followers were mainly family and friends that i kind of forced to follow the page so don't be discouraged if your growth on your page is a little bit slow to start because i think any person on instagram that's starting out just the way the algorithm works it's just impossible to get seen unless people literally share your page on their page that's why like if you're watching this just as a person that enjoys art but have no intention of setting up your own art business one of the best things you can do to to support smaller businesses is to share their work on your stories and to share their pages with your social media followers even if you if you never buy anything it's extremely helpful when you share stuff because that's what gets more eyes on that person's work and then one of those eyes might decide to buy something and so it really really helps the more people you get to share your stuff next question this is gonna be such a long video i'm so sorry next question was how did you make your website where did you make your website how long did it take to make your website what platform do you use all website related stuff again this is probably one of those topics that i should make a whole video about and i might do especially if squarespace sponsor me a girl can dream so for 2019 i was selling through instagram and like paypal links and stuff like that and the more that was growing the more unsustainable that was like i couldn't keep up with the messages and everything and it wasn't an official receipt system and all that kind of stuff and i just wanted some sort of hope that was legit and reputable for people to go and buy my stuff from so then the hl question that a lot of creatives face is etsy or your own website that whole battle came up so i just watched a ton of youtube videos of other artists and people i'll try and link some i ended up choosing to go down the road of getting my own website because i didn't like the idea of etsy getting a cut and i also didn't like the idea of relying on an algorithm to sell my product with etsy or platforms like etsy you could sell your own product but etsy might advertise somebody else's product underneath yours because as long as as long as etsy sells something from an etsy seller it gets its cut so the website itself doesn't only show your stuff like it's not loyal to you as a seller it's loyal to its entire seller base so the competition is intense over there whereas if you have your own website like you're only advertising your own stuff on your own website and i like that idea however the downside is your own website is probably not going to be very searchable until you have your own reputation built and that's all social media so pros and cons to both i will probably make a video on that um in the future so comment down below if you think that would be interesting once i decided it was a website i wanted i then did some research to figure out what platform i just had a look around looked at the interfaces again youtube was my best friend for this i just looked up loads of different people that had wix websites squarespace websites and wordpress all shopify all that kind of stuff and i ended up going with squarespace uh free little peach was probably the biggest uh seller for me on squarespace she's an artist here on youtube and she's amazing and she has a long-term partnership with squarespace so she mentions mentions them in every video and i got completely influenced on that one because her website is just super clean really nice it looks like it's very easy to update so that's why i went to squarespace and i'm very happy with it it's all pretty smooth and editing a product and putting new products up and all that kind of stuff is very easy to do i can do it in minutes um and my initial website took me about two weeks to put up only because i was doing it in between work and i'm still in my 95 job when i was making my website so i had to kind of find time so it took me two weeks overall but that was because i was making my own graphics making uh logos and all sorts of stuff to make it look pretty um so i'm sure it would take less time if you had kind of a concrete amount of hours to just dedicate to it next thing that was mentioned a lot that i'm not going to get into here uh too in depth is tax and the legal side of business this is an area that like many people i am so confused by and i'm so out of my depths with and it's just something that we should have been taught in school like we absolutely should have been taught in school how to do our taxes so i'm definitely not a good resource when it comes to tax stuff i myself am actually hoping to meet an accountant in the next few weeks to get a really professional look at how i'm doing everything to make sure i'm doing it properly and because honestly i just don't trust myself because i don't think i don't think we were taught properly in school how to deal with this stuff uh but yeah i basically i have put a percentage of my all my income away since i started so rude at home i try and keep 30 of everything i make in a savings account i have a specific savings account dedicated to tax it's just constantly getting built up it's money that i don't consider mine and that will just be my forever tax fund and then i try to keep my receipts for anything that i spend that's relevant to the business i have no organized system that's something that hopefully is pending i'm gonna talk to an accountant as i said and then hopefully i'll be able to get some sort of uh legitimate organization system for tax i haven't done a tax return yet because i've only been in business since last october so my first tax return is due in october which is going to be fun um yeah so i will maybe make a video in the future once i feel a little bit more confident on that whole topic but right now i'm not your gal i would advise you to either try and talk to an accountant if you can manage that and if not use revenue as in the that's the irish tax website uh as your main resource don't don't go anywhere else just try to keep everything above board and ask uh ask reputable sources for help that's the best advice i can give and end the video on the next question which is quite a nice one and we'll try and do it as quickly and briefly as possible and it's basically just the pros and cons of being self-employed so far so i'll start with cons and then we'll end on a positive note so cons for me again might not be related to self-employment it might be just pandemic related but it's probably a little touch of feeling lonely or a little bit isolated i'm very introverted as a person and quite shy maybe even a smidge of uh yeah social anxiety here and there so i definitely thrive in my own company but even still working for yourself being like just you all day can get a little bit boring um so i do create i do crave being around other people sometimes so that's probably a little bit of a con uh hopefully maybe when things go back to some sort of new normal i'll be able to maybe integrate working in cafes as part of my week and maybe setting up in a cafe for a day i don't really know if it's a good idea to be doing that right now so probably won't do that for a long time but um yeah that's that's probably one main con the only other con i'd have would be kind of long-term stress that i now have which i didn't have in my other job was kind of like when you work for yourself the progression of your company and of your business is entirely up to you and the things that you decide to do so me kind of looking at when i get a little bit too hung up on the future and i'm like oh my god how am i gonna turn this into a job that is gonna pay a mortgage one day or like how will i ever raise kids doing this as a job and think things like that start coming into your brain i try and close it out but those things do worry me in terms of just how i myself going to figure out how to evolve this into like a sustainable business for me and my life in the future but listen that's that's in the future i just have to kind of concentrate on right now but big picture stuff can scare me sometimes so that's another con but when it comes to prose i could probably talk a lot longer because i have to say for me and my own personality type i am thriving as self-employed it is nuts how much of a difference it's made with my happiness i'm just a lot more energized i'm a lot more happy in myself i'm not as argumentative as i used to be i'm not as irritated as i used to be um i get to wear what i want every day i can have pink hair and nobody will care i can pick my own hours so if i decide i want to go for a walk in the morning i can just make sure i work an extra hour that evening and it's all fine i don't have to report to anyone if i up it's my responsibility i don't have to worry about letting someone else down and which was a big thing for me with my previous jobs i always kind of felt this pressure to not disappoint my bosses and now that i'm my own boss i don't want to just point myself but i won't i don't have that ridiculous expectation to be perfect all the time because i understand that it's me that i have told accountable if that makes sense i don't know i just have this like complex with disappointing people this is turning into a therapy session but yeah that's a great pro and yeah i just i don't know i'm not having to commute anywhere and like working from home suits me a lot i really like there's just a lot of things also just being creatively fulfilled like a lot of my job i'll admit is not the creative side so a lot of my job is packing doing social media doing uh like money stuff figuring out logistics and materials and all this stuff that isn't very creative but when i do get to sit down and just draw like it's just the best i just i love it and i enjoy it so much and i really hope that i continue to enjoy it because it really is an ideal job for me so far um and i really hope that the next six months continue to be as good as the last six months have been and hopefully onwards and onwards from that because yeah i'm really happy with my decision and if there is anyone watching this video who is also considering it and you think that it might be for you only thing i can do is say to make sure it's a safe risk that you're willing to take first and foremost but once you think that it's it's going to be okay-ish and the risk isn't too high do it like try not to get imposter syndrome about it like it's been the best thing i ever did i've got very lucky with my circumstances i'm very privileged to be able to be even considering going self-employed in the first place but if you have the means to do it and it's something you think you're gonna love try it yeah i'm gonna leave it there i hope i can come back to this video in six months time and on and on and on and look at all the things that i might have different opinions on and all that kind of stuff which is gonna be fun there's a lot of questions that were asked that i didn't answer so i'm sorry if i didn't get to that today but i have a list of topics that i can talk about now here on youtube and as i said if there's a topic that i touched on or i didn't mention that you want me to go more in depth on and make another video please do comment below i'd love to know what people are interested in and what you might want to hear because i'm quite enjoying this chatty video i've talked for like 45 minutes straight or something like that i'm hoping the video won't be that long i'm sorry if it is and yeah i hope you all are doing well and staying safe and i will hopefully talk to you very soon i'll see you soon

Channel: Laura Duffy Art

Views: 3,061

Rating: 4.9804878 out of 5

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Id: yv1vUPv6nwI

Length: 23min 25sec (1405 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020