6 Lessons I learned as a creative entrepreneur this year:
As a creative entrepreneur, there are huge milestones and skills that I developed during 2024. Art and business are a journey for life, but here are six lessons I learned and reflected on:
1) Solopreneurship and meeting yourself where you’re at: aside from freelancers here and there, I’m primarily a team of one and my supportive partner. Earlier this year, I graduated, traveled to visit family, had my car I use for pop-ups’s catalytic converter stolen. For a bit of time, I beat myself up for not doing pop-up events and felt I was missing out on my creative or business growth. However, I soon realised it was important for me to go with these ebbs and flows of life’s seasons. It’s important as a small team or solo business to meet yourself where you’re at. During these uncertain, atypical months, I decided to develop 4 new products, and work on my website and email marketing while abroad. Without this time previously to even think about these changes or improvements to my business, I was caught in the motions of discipline.
2) Project-based + habit-based synergy: I used to focus my time putting in the discipline for consistent habits—such as email marketing, social media and blog content, email outreach, and pop-ups. Although this is critical to be consistent and persistent over long periods, I still felt like I wasn’t making progress in a way that felt autonomous, the results felt like I was waiting for something outside of my control. I wasn’t improving on the value I provide as an artist and business. Then, I started to try project-based work. In addition to the existing consistent inputs I was putting into my business, I used a whiteboard system to help me problem-solve 3-5 projects/key questions I wanted to solve in my business. I felt less pressure to show up in a certain caliber every day for my brand and instead just worked towards my goals in a timeline that made sense to me. Before this point, my projects were scattered into tactics and ideas: doing this to your website helps, optimizing this section can convert better, etc. There are always so many things I can do, but it was essential for me to cut out what was not important so I could see progress on what really mattered.
3) Follow where your inspiration takes you: On the topic of discipline, something I learned this year is that it is important to simply follow wherever your inspiration takes you. Previously, I tried to always build systems and structures around how much I created and shared specific formats with my audience. However, I soon found myself dreading the creation process and making art pieces I didn’t feel inspired or proud of. A perspective shift was that I should always be having fun and feeling inspired in whatever I’m creating—whether it is digital illustration, in-person life drawing with watercolors, photography, videography concepts, or even just documenting meaningful parts of my life on my IG stories or YouTube channel vlogs. The most important thing is for me to creatively express and live my truth.
4) Creative entrepreneurship = craft + business side: This truth is something I continue to relearn every year. Every creative entrepreneur must learn a rhythm between building skills along the craft and the skills along the business side of their niche. I realize you can’t have one without the other. Being passionate about your art without understanding how to properly monetise and scale your skill will leave you disappointed, and pursuing the business component for money solely will be a huge loss on not understanding what the community genuinely enjoys. I love using platforms like Skillshare and YouTube to learn various skills!
5) Travel is deeply healing and perspective shifting: Traveling sometimes makes me feel guilty or extreme FOMO (fear of missing out) when it comes to engaging with my community. I’m not doing pop-ups, increasing my networking, but rather away from all the noise. This has become a beautiful discovery of the importance of healing and absorbing new environments. This past year, my visit to Melbourne to see family inspired me to understand how sustainability and physical spaces are created to uplift communities and bring people together. It was immensely healing and beautiful. This truly inspired and changed the trajectory of how I aspire to pursue my creative career.
6) "How I" I rather than "how to": Finally, I learned from Alex Formossi, a popular marketing YouTube channel, that explaining to people “how you” rather than “how to” can help you not feel the imposter syndrome of not being able to teach what you already know. We will never feel mastery in any subject, but if you can at least share your journey, this is always uniquely yours. Shifting my perspective on this allowed me to create authentically and feel less pressure to know it all and rather just share what I already learned and introspected on.
As always, visual art is a beautiful extension of how you see the world translated into how other people will perceive it and translate that into their own experiences. it’s a conscious choice and experience to be a part of the arts and it has an incredible impact on my personal life, I’m immensely thankful to have embarked on this journey and met everyone that I’ve had. Community is absolutely pivotal in each of these lessons as well : )
What did you learn this year? What are your goals for 2025?