A Year in Business Part 2: The Lessons and People

Solopreneurs can't do it alone

Part 1 of my reflections on my first full year in business focused on the highs and the lows of working as a solopreneur. By every measure, my first year was more successful than any year I worked as a full-time employee. But success means nothing if you don’t learn what made you successful and if you don’t acknowledge the people who helped you get there.

Part 2 will focus on those lessons and on thanking everyone who helped me along the way.

The Lessons

Timing Matters

Bedgood Marketing could only have happened in 2024. I tried to be a full-time freelancer in 2020 and it was a disaster. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know anything about marketing and I was just trying to survive as a freelance journalist, writing articles for magazines and websites for .50 a word.

I went full-time as a freelancer and had my first kid in February 2020.

Then world fell apart and so did I.

The places I wanted to write for slashed their budgets. Many shut their doors for good. Places I did write for took forever to pay me. I was scratching and clawing for every dollar. My savings were draining and I was running out of ideas for how to make any money. Add to that the fact that I was getting no sleep due to the newborn baby¹.

At the end of the year, as I realized just how little money I’d made, I knew I had to return to full-time work. But I also knew that I needed to improve my skillsets in the money-making side of writing if I was ever going to try and work for myself again. My dream of being a “pure” journalist who survived solely through his ability to tell cool stories had to die.

Over the next three years I worked hard to learn the ins and outs of content marketing. I had to do things I hated, like learning every little annoying marketing acronym, in order to better myself. That required a lot of humility, something I had in decent supply after the humbling of 2020.

The end result is that I was a completely different person offering a complete different service when I launched Bedgood Marketing four years later.

Previously I was begging editors of major publications to consider me for a story. I was just hoping they’d like my idea, be impressed with my writing, and agree to assign me a story for an amount that I found acceptable. Often I was haggling over a few hundred dollars. I almost always lost these negotiations. Usually these editors were untalented people in their 30s with Masters Degrees and a deeply misplaced sense of self-importance. I wasted so much of my energy trying to get these people to like me.

Now I market myself to CEOs, CMOs, and Demand Gen directors as someone who could make them money. I charge a high price because I know that the service I provide is worth it. My job is to convince these people that I am worth the value I charge, not beg for a few hundred dollars.

It’s a massive mindset shift. I have never doubted my own abilities as much as I did in 2020. Now, in 2024 I’ve never been more confident in my skills and talents. Yes, I’m much better than I was back then. But more than that, I’m finally in the right place at the right time to utilize my skills.

I also think that 2023-24 was the perfect time for me to take the risk. If I had been employed full-time for a longer period of time, I may have gotten comfortable and been afraid to start my own company. My kids would have been older and more expensive. They also would have been at least somewhat aware of the risk I was taking, adding to the pressure I felt.

Steady, Daily Improvement

So far, starting my business has worked out really well. But I am far too experienced in failure and rejection to declare that it will always be this good. It wasn’t even this good for most of the last year.

It’s only in looking back and taking a wholistic view that I see just how good it has gone. That’s a result of hundreds of days of small progress combined together. Many of those days I accomplished nothing. And others I worked until late at night to finish some major projects. That doesn’t feel like a sustainable way to work for the rest of my life.

I want to focus on achieving a few things each day in 2025. Even if they are small, I think that if I knock out a few things every day it will add up to a full year of great achievement by the end. And I think I’ll be more confident in my work knowing that I had less wasted days.

Acknowledgements

The truth is, there’s really no such thing as a “solopreneur.” Yes, you can work alone and own your own business, but no one can actually be successful completely on their own. At the very least, you need customers or clients to buy your product or service.

So here I want to make sure and thank everyone who has helped me this year.

First, God. I’ve gone through many moments this year when I felt like I could rely on myself for provision and been slapped in the face with the reality that only through God’s providence can I truly be successful. I have no control over any situation, but God does.

My wife, Sami, could have told me not to do this. She was there in 2020. She saw the savings get drained. She knows all about the failures and the challenges. She could have talked me into finding another full-time job. But she never did. She listened as I processed the decision. She prayed for me. She gave me advice. She helped me think through everything. And she’s worked really hard to provide me with as many uninterrupted hours of work each day as possible.

My dad started his first business at almost the same age as me. Dozens of successful ventures over the next 30+ years have followed. His advice has been invaluable to me as I have worked through the challenges of business ownership.

My mom has been a constant encourager, praying for me all the time and checking in often. She’s been a comforting voice to talk to during challenging times. And she’s let me vent frustrations without judgement, which is so important for people without coworkers.

In my 15 years of full-time work I’ve had very few good bosses and only one true mentor. Jon Finkel saw potential in me at 24 and hired me to be his Senior Editor, taught me how to find my voice as a writer, and guided me in my career as a freelance writer and author. He moved to Miami years ago and we haven’t worked together since 2018, but we stay in touch oftenr and he’s still the first person I call for career advice. He was the first one to show me that I really could be successful doing this with my skillset.

I met Carly Clark at that same job. I was 24 and she was 20. Even at that age she was one of the most creative and intelligent people that I’d ever met. We worked together for a few years before she went off to other jobs and I stuck around until that company went out of business (lay off number 1). We only lightly kept in touch over the next few years, but when I needed a job in 2021 I contacted her. She connected me with her company where she was the creative director and I got hired. We spent the next 2+ years working together again. This time instead of young, talented kids with little responsibilities, we were professionals with kids and mortgages. But we found that we still worked together better than we worked with anyone else in our careers. We trusted each other implicitly. So when we both got laid off on the same day, we met up the very next day to plan out our career moves. Eventually she got a great full-time job, but we were able to work together for most of 2025 with a client. Her connection is what secured my first client and allowed me to be able to do this job. For that I’ll always be grateful.

Finally, I want to acknowledge all the people that I’ve gotten coffee or meals with, the people that I’ve called or texted, the people at my coworking space, and anyone who has been part of what I’d call my support network. These are people who have filled that void left by not having coworkers. People like JD Thomas, David Petty, Jay Snyder, Mike Powell, Tanner Hughes, Kevin Deanda, Libby Smith (who also created my branding which receives consistent compliments), Audrey Fowler, Nolan Fowler, Adam Tarnow, and Josh Fortney. And I can’t forget my text group that I brag to when I close deals because I don’t have coworkers to high five: The Tennis Bois. Hopefully I’ll continue to annoy you guys more in 2025.

1. I was also working at the local sports radio station making $12 an hour. They had me doing the sports updates for small town stations in the morning, meaning I was getting in at 3AM and finishing work at 7AM. It didn’t take long to realize that radio was not my future.