Why I decided to go freelance

At the beginning of 2018 I decided this would be the year I would change things around and experiment with my potential.

So I started thinking what I could do to make this happen and I decided to start working on my own and create my own, very small, but special "empire"!

When I started I was quite scared and every step seemed too big. I didn't believe I could do it, but I also knew I didn't want to be an employee for the rest of my life.

I had to do it and I had to face all the challenges to achieve my goal!

The reason why I decided to share this with you is that starting your own career path is way easier than what you think.

And if I can inspire even just one person to take a leap of faith and realize her/his dream it's already a great achievement!

These are some of the reasons why why I started my freelance career in business development.

1. I did it because my mom told me to do so

Yes, i'm Italian and I love my mom...especially when she tells me to start my company!

Even tho, this might seem stupid, it wasn't really obvious to me that she would be so optimistic and that's why it has a way deeper meaning.

That's my story. My mom loves baking and at some point she decided to open her own pastry shop! It worked well at the beginning and we made money.

But a lack of expertise in financial things and high taxes caused her to close the business.

It wasn't the first time a business failed in the family. Both my grandparents had several businesses, but for some reason almost all of them failed.

Now, having such a family history didn't really motivate me to start a business.

I didn't want the history to repeat itself and become a failure myself.

But then my mom, who failed big time, told me "you seem to be really good at what you do, why don't you just start something of your own?!"

Of all the people, I definitely didn't expect my mom to push me into such a "risky decision". If she was still so optimistic, there was no reason for me not to give it a try.

So on the day of her birthday I registered my first company: LP Develops was born!

2. I wanted to be in control of my life

At some point I understood that I was basically helping other cool people realizing their dreams. And I asked myself "how about your dreams?"

I want to feel I'm in control of my time and I want to dedicate it to something that really makes me happy.

I loved working for each one of my employers, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunities they gave me, but my dream was to become one of them.

It felt like a natural transition for me and there was nothing I could do to prevent this to happen.

Because it doesn't matter how important my job was, it always felt too small for me.

Having to wake up everyday to achieve someone else's dream didn't seem to make sense.

Now, when I wake up I'm always excited to find out how my day is gonna look like.

And this feeling is priceless!

3. I wanted to work with like minded people

Going freelance is not only about being in control of your time, but also in control of who you work with.

My biggest frustration while being an employee was to compromise a lot on my values and my preferences in favor of something, someone else had chosen.

This was especially true when I was applying for jobs. I was always being judged and I had to be shiny to adapt to the values of my employers.

Even when they didn't completely match with mine. I always thought it was the price to pay to have a job and financial stability.

When I got my first client I figured out how wrong I was. Every time I compromised with myself I ended up not being happy.

Now, for the first time, I was not being judged. On the contrary, we were equals and we were figuring out if we were a match or not.

We analyzed each other and we thought if and how we could benefit from each other. To be honest, I don't even want to call these companies clients.

I rather see them as partners. I help them grow, they help me enrich myself and become a better business developer.

This was particularly clear when I first met Jongens van Techniek and its two founders Brian and Peter. What made us choose each other was mainly our shared vision.

We are both ambitious, we both believe that technology can improve the World and we both like to work hard to achieve our dreams.

Btw...this is also true the other way around. I turned down a couple of companies because they didn't fit me and my beliefs.

You can't do this as an employee, can you?

4. I wanted to be in control of my finances

Values are good, but of course, they don't really feed you right? Money is also an important part in life, wether you like it or not.

One reason for me to go freelance was to feel in control of my finances. Which doesn't mean now I'm rich and I can't stop working.

On the contrary, I had clients that paid me really little money and I still accepted because I could see a huge return in terms of learning.

Being in control of your finances doesn't necessarily mean earning more. It means knowing how you spend your money, how you can optimize it.

Also, what investments you need to make to have a better financial situation and overall, what's the value you give to money.

Personally, I prefer to work less, earn just enough to comfortably live, but have more time off.

Time that I want to improve myself, to spend time with my loved ones, to work out, to take care of my house and to chill whenever I feel like it.

When I took the decision people asked me if I was scared. The truth is that I never felt so happy before, regardless of how unstable this might sound to other people.

Working for yourself is easy, is exciting and it opens up a huge amount of opportunities.

The only thing that changes is that from that moment on, you're fully in charge and ready to enjoy all the success you'll be able to build!