2014 was a great year. I grew my freelancing business, built some small products, and had fun. Here are three lessons I am taking with me in 2015.
Choose interesting and challenging projects. Each worthwhile project increases focus and passion. This is healthy for myself and my clients. I sought technical challenging projects in interesting markets. I helped build a costumer loyalty solution MVP. I found an educational startup client who is revolutionizing the educational space. These projects and clients offer so much to me besides payed invoices. I get to use new technologies, take part in the specific industry, and make a difference.
Write modular code for easy product pivoting. I am a serial idea person. I jump from one internal project to the next. I find Angular components make concern isolation straightforward. Decoupling design, UX, and functionality makes sharing features across projects efficient. Micro service architectures isolate concerns for server side functionality. I build full stack features by coupling micro services with Angular components. I can rearrange, replace, or discard full stack features as a product idea changes. This makes for rapid reusable prototyping.
Pay for useful things. Workshop is the best business investment I made in 2014. The decision to pay $400 for a discounted 2015 subscription felt like a steal. Workshop saves me time by bubbling up the best freelancing leads to my inbox daily. Searching job boards is stressful for me. Workshop keeps my pipeline full and my stress level down. I have another business headache. Taxes and payroll. I am starting my two months free with Zen Payroll today. I hope to find similar results.