Updated: January 10, 2014
“Anong negosyo mo?”
Believe or not, I find it hard to answer this question.
Why? Because my honest reply would be, “Marami.”
And if I do that, I fear that I’ll give the impression that I’m arrogant.
So what I do now is that I try to answer with the most appropriate business for the occasion.
If I’m in a friend’s party, for example, and I was asked what my business is, I state that I’m into t-shirt printing because it never fails to solicit interesting follow-up questions.
If I’m in an entrepreneur networking event, I tell them about 199Jobs, my tech startup, because that opens up opportunities for me to pitch the business to the person.
If I’m in a press conference of a product launch, I say that I’m a full-time business blogger because that’s probably the reason why I was invited there.
So how did I end up being a “serial entrepreneur“? Why did I choose to start several small businesses, instead of growing just one into a big corporation?
I think my early years as a freelancer molded me to become the type of entrepreneur that I am today.
Back when I was still a freelance developer, I enjoyed the challenge of creating softwares and ultimately, implementing the system for the client as “closure”.
That habit passed on to my entrepreneurial ventures, where I’d start a business and challenge myself to automate it as fast as I can. When the business starts to run without me, that’s my “closure”, and then I move on to my “next project”.
Freelance Blend
Speaking of projects… the last one I just finished was Blog Academy Philippines. This was a 4-week online training on how to make money from blogging.
The course ended last Saturday, and I’d like to introduce to you today, one of the graduates of the class, Marv de Leon and invite you to visit his blog, Freelance Blend.
Marv’s blog aims to entertain, educate and engage freelancers; to network with the local freelancing community; and help people get started on becoming a freelancer.
Currently, he tries to meet these objectives through live meetups and podcast interviews. And I’m proud to say, I was his very first guest for the Freelancer Blend Podcast.
I’ve embedded the podcast episodes below, just in case you’d like to listen to it.
Part 1: FBP 001: Fitz Villafuerte
Running Time: 33 minutes 7 seconds
Part 2: FBP 002: Fitz Villafuerte
Running Time: 58 minutes 35 seconds
No time to listen now?
If you have an iTunes account, then subscribe to the Freelance Blend Podcast. It’s free and you can download the podcasts to your computer or iOS gadget for offline listening.
That’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed today’s post and do make time to listen to the podcast because I shared a lot of tips about freelancing and entrepreneurship there.
Thank you for posting this, Fitz. It was an honor to have you as my very first guest on the show. More power to you and your followers!
i can really relate po sa inyo right now. because i leave my day job and I start small businesses din.
Lagi kong nakaklimutan itong term na ito, so now I know what to say sa mga gatherings or if may magtanong.
mabuhay!
Wow , developer po pala kayo dati , pwede po ba kayong maging mentor?