The Trials & Tribulations That Led Me To Where I Am Today
It feels important to share an honest look at the bumpy road that took me from starting Incandescent Creative to where I am now, 9 years later.
Often we see where others are currently—in business, in life—without knowing how they got there. We see the result but we don’t always understand the journey. We may assume it was easy and even be hard on ourselves by comparing our current struggles with their supposed ease and success.
But we can learn more about others from their failures than their successes. And as part of showing up more authentically in my business, I believe we need to talk about all of it—the good and bad.
So, here’s my journey, with its many peaks and valleys.
Only a year out of college, I launched Incandescent Creative as a way to build my design portfolio.
With nothing more than my first “real” client + enough dissatisfaction in my 9-to-5, I decided to pursue freelancing full-time.
I was learning on-the-fly, teaching myself how to build websites in Wordpress (this was when Squarespace was a fledgling platform—now I prefer to work with SS) while designing (you know, that thing I started my business to do) and running a business—invoices, contracts, accounting, and so. many. emails.
(Seriously, NO ONE tells you how much time you’ll spend writing emails in your business!) 😅
I charged by the hour and wayyy undervalued my time...I kid you not, at one point I had a client tell me point-blank to double my rates.
Even though I was struggling AND had someone telling me to charge more, I didn’t believe I could actually get away with charging DOUBLE. I mean, I had only been making $7.50/hour a few years earlier. How could I possibly make such a massive leap?
To be real, pricing is hard. (But that’s a whole other conversation for another day.)
This lack mindset manifested in attracting clients who didn’t value what I offered, leading to more resistance and frustration.
I toughed it out for 9 months before accepting an in-house position with one of my clients, who was the CMO of a small tech start-up.
I stayed with that company for two years before I got the entrepreneurial itch again.
This time, I leveraged my recently acquired marketing know-how and rebuilt Incandescent Creative as a BuSiNe$s, honey *spoken with true JVN flair*
Instead of jumping into the branding work I know and love, I floated myself with unfulfilling but steady tech design retainers and focused on my own brand, website, and marketing strategy.
(I did finally double my rates at least!)
When I wasn’t designing infographics, I was poring my time and money into ecourses, ebooks, etcetera, to try to learn “How to Entrepreneur Right.”
I was so focused on modeling my business after someone else’s definition of success + seeing everything I was doing “wrong” that the light at the end of the tunnel seemed to slip farther and farther away.
It felt like I could never catch up—there were plenty of other businesses offering similar services that would always be five steps ahead of me, so why should I bother?
This time, I made it 11 months before being recruited and accepting yet another in-house design job at a tech company.
It felt both like a godsend and like throwing in the towel.
However, all that work I put in wasn’t for naught. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was building a foundation—one that enabled me to return to my business feeling more empowered, 4 years later.
(Third time’s a charm, right?)
So here I am. The road has been a bumpy one, for sure, but the experience has shaped me and my business. For that, I am grateful.
I’m sure there will be more twists, turns, and bumps ahead, but I’m excited to see where they lead me.
No matter where you are on your journey, I hope reading my story gave you some reassurance. You don’t have to get it right the first time. In fact, maybe getting it wrong a few times is how you eventually succeed.
Keep on keepin’ on!
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