Starting Before the Plan

When I started Project Wonder in 2019, I didn’t have a grand plan of becoming an entrepreneur. I left a really great job because I believed it was time for a new challenge. I reached out to friends and people in my network for opportunities, and I found myself landing short-term projects and consulting gigs rather than full-time employment.

I had also reached a point in my career where I was competing for a very small pool of jobs at my experience level. My options were to convince a company to hire me as an employee or offer my services as a contractor. I found it much easier to land contract work, so continuing down that path felt like a natural decision.

Through that process, I discovered how much I valued the independence to build something for myself, and I wanted to see where it could lead. I did not want to remain a freelancer, so I decided to offer my services through a company rather than work as an independent contractor.

That meant pursuing projects that were bigger in scope than I could handle as an individual. I needed to build a team and a network. When big opportunities came along, I said yes with the confidence that I would find a way to make them happen.

I didn’t have a defined list of services. Clients told me what they needed, and I relied on the trust I had built with them while proving that I could deliver. I had confidence in my ability to figure things out, even when a project extended beyond my personal skill set. I knew I could find the right people for the job and lead the work.

This wasn’t my first attempt at building a business. Over the years, I worked on several ventures. In those instances, I invested in research and development, found partners, built products, formed corporations, and did everything I thought I was supposed to do to launch a company. None of those ventures became actual businesses with recurring customers and revenue. They remained promising ideas with a lot of potential.

I had to ask myself why this new path was working when the previous ventures did not.

Part of the answer was circumstance. I needed to make it work. I don’t subscribe to the idea that anyone needs to quit their job to build a business. If I could do it over again, I would have loved to keep a steady job while building Project Wonder.

Ironically, that is exactly what I tried to do with my previous startups. My partners and I all had good jobs while trying to build businesses on the side. In every case, we struggled to devote the time and attention needed to turn those ideas into something real.

We took all of the textbook steps required to start a business, but we were unable to generate the demand needed to sustain one. The real difference was that I stopped trying to build a company and started solving problems for people. I allowed the relationships I built over my career to shape the kind of business I would become.

I didn’t set out to become an artist. A client gave me the incredible opportunity to pitch an original art concept for their music festival, and I was not going to squander it. I didn’t expect to win the project, but I poured everything into the proposal to stack the odds in my favor.

I was shocked when I won the pitch. I was also scared. I had to remind myself that I already knew how to do the work, even though I had never taken it on under these circumstances. I would need to build a new team, take on a new role, and create the work in a completely different way.

As new opportunities came in, I learned which problems people consistently trusted me to solve and which projects gave me the energy to keep doing the work. 

Today, I approach running a business with much more intention. I remain flexible, but I make decisions with a clearer understanding of the work I want to pursue and the kind of company I want to build.

I am still figuring out many parts of running a business. I have not reached some final stage where everything works exactly as planned. But seven years later, I am still here. I continue to support myself through the company I created, lead teams to take on work I could never deliver alone, and build a career without having to return to full-time employment.

There is a framework for building a business, and that is what we teach through Creators Creed. But people rarely follow it in a clean or linear order. We respond to real opportunities, learn from the people who trust us, and make better decisions as we gain experience. Over time, we can turn a series of projects into something more intentional and sustainable.

If you find yourself taking contract work because the traditional job market no longer offers a clear path, freelancing does not have to define where you end up. It may simply be where you begin.