Here’s the Part of Being an Entrepreneur That No One Tells You About

Say you love working with WordPress, or love working with Squarespace, or love working with Shopify. Pick a technology platform; it doesn’t really matter. Being an expert in your craft does not make you an entrepreneur.

As a kid I loved playing with Lego bricks. The bigger the Lego set, the better. I’d make entire cities, cars, ships. Loved every second of it. As an adult, I view making websites the same way I viewed Lego bricks — something I can craft and make my own. A blank canvas.

Sure you could argue that getting real good at building things out of Lego bricks could help a kid understand engineering or design. But getting real good at making websites doesn’t help you understand business. And that is a lesson that I was slow to learn.

Don’t go freelance just because you love your craft.

Freelancing is a business. If you don’t want to cultivate biz skills, you’ll fail.

Being an entrepreneur is all about sales and selling. You know the cliche: always be selling. Appearance is important. Being assertive is important. Just because you’re a great at HTML5 or CSS3 doesn’t mean you’ll be a great business owner. Perhaps it means you’ll be a great employee.

Understand why you want to be in business for yourself, and then understand that it will eventually mean you won’t be working on your craft, you’ll be working in your craft. If you’re okay with that, then you’re ahead of others already.

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