Ask Katharine: How Do I Start My Business While Getting My Degree?

Do you ever find yourself with a random question about growing your business that you just wish someone would give you a straightforward answer to?

No extensive Google searches involved. No guessing and hoping that you get it right. Just a place where you can ask a question and get an response.

You’re not alone. I get emails all the time — from clients, small business owners, and other freelancers — with questions that are probably a lot like the ones you stumble over and wonder about. And while I love responding to those emails, I’ve realized that there are probably more people out there who would be interested in the answers!

So I’ve decided to share them here with a new monthly feature, Real Answers.

(Psst, have a question of your own? Email me here and ask away!)

Hello Katharine!

I am a 22 year old art student… my concentration is in photography and I am also minoring in African American Studies. I was searching for freelance opportunities on Pinterest and I stumbled across your blog. After seeing that you seem to be a part of the crowd that really knows what’s going on in the freelance world, I thought I would ask your expertise.

I have a ton of interests and goals that I would like to achieve (as I’m sure most folks do); however I am struggling with just getting started on SOMETHING. So, I have decided to concentrate on writing and photography for the time being and slowly go from there. I am not super talented but I do really enjoy both things and am willing to work on them until I get better.

Unfortunately, this is where my biggest problem comes in: I really need money now. I want to concentrate on bettering my skills and building a body of work because I know that those investments will eventually pay for themselves and then some; but I also need to afford my apartment and groceries in the meantime. I do not live in a big city but I know there must be opportunity for me to freelance and earn some extra income while building my skills.

Do you have any advice on how to best go about doing this or maybe any general places that I should look into? Thanks so much for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!

Best,

Ayanna

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Congrats on starting your freelance career, Ayanna, and even more on getting your degree!

I definitely feel you on trying to pursue multiple goals at the same time — it’s a challenge many of us in the self-employed world face. I’ve found that the key is narrowing the list down to 1-2 things I MUST work on and 1 thing I WANT to work on — and then working my butt off on those things!

You seem to have done a good job narrowing down the things you’re going to work on right now: you MUST finish your degree and you MUST pay your living expenses. You WANT to grow your own business. I’d recommend creating your schedule and commitments in that order.

School takes up as much time as it takes up — along with that, you need to find a way to keep paying those bills. If you have a day job that you work, I’d recommend hanging onto it while you build your business and finish your degree. If you don’t, I’d recommend looking for part-time work with a flexible schedule — something that gives you enough work to pay your necessary expenses, but leaves you enough time to get all your school work done, plus a bit of extra time for other things.

And then, once you have all that in place, start thinking about growing your business. In that extra time, set a specific number of hours per week you’re going to give to growing your business, say 2 hours a day, or 7 hours over the course of a week — make sure to set a goal that is sustainable. You don’t want to get burned out, but you do want to make progress!

Use that time to make some contacts, learn as much as you can, get some work under your belt, and start building your portfolio. Be sure to put together a website, since that’s what you’ll use to advertise yourself and show prospective clients what you can do. Once this work starts making money, you can scale back on your day job and start focusing more on generating income from your small business.

I’ve got a list of some places you can look for freelance work or staff writing jobs (as well as a few quick ways to make some extra cash in the meantime). You can also check out this article I wrote for The Everygirl about how to prepare financially when starting your own business.

Hope this helps, and good luck — let me know how it goes!

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