"Look at me, I'm self employed"

Today is my first day of self employment.

I never expected it to happen this quickly. MegaBug has been a business for over two and a half years, but it's been slow going to realize great success with it. This will be my first year generating a profit.

But it's not MegaBug that's converting me to the mystical world of the self employed, it's a new venture- a partnership this time. I met my friend, Angie two years ago when I was photographing the Littleton Area Chamber of Commerce's Annual Dinner. She wandered over and asked if she could look at my camera. She's a photographer too, and was saving up for my model. We've been talking ever since, and have always said we should collaborate someday. In my Marketing Research capstone project back in college, I researched whether I should start photographing weddings and included Angie's AGLOW Photography as a potential advantage for collaborating and taking on the market. Photography is an insanely competitive market, but it's never felt that way with Angie. We just work so well together.

One day I walked into work at M-ZO and Angie was behind the counter. Surprised and confused, I asked what was going on. She had been hired! For the past five months we have taken pictures for the business' social media account, concocted drink specials, and schemed with Emshika over her latest ideas.

During our conversations, I discovered Angie has a background in web and graphic design, and she found out I'm a writer. With a diverse skill set between the two of us, we arrived at starting a marketing company.

We mailed paperwork to establish MegAGLOW Marketing, LLC the beginning of this week, named after our respective photography businesses. We never planned to leave our jobs, but things just happened that way. Something pushed us- like divine intervention.

It was an incredible feeling waking up this morning; the pressure and stress I usually feel wasn't there. Instead of working full time during the day, editing photos at night, writing articles for the Courier and press releases for other businesses on the weekend, that's all I have to do now, and I can do it during the day. Plus with MegAGLOW, I'm able to write more, take pictures, help Angie with web/graphic design, and manage the business. I love business and finance, which she doesn't. Win, win, win!

I've always been meant to do my own thing. Despite accepting pretty good jobs that I'm sure other people would love, I've never felt fulfilled or truly happy. Working on MegaBug- although exhausting- has been an inspiration and an aspiration. Now I have two businesses to keep me going, which Entrepreneur says is advantageous.

Working for yourself is no walk in the park for sure. There's the pressure of ensuring we have enough business to generate income, client satisfaction is solely on us, not to mention the strategizing involved. But it's so worth it. I love doing my own thing and the freedom it allows. (AKA, I love writing at home with Lancelot snuggled up beside me.)

I'm not sure how fast MegAGLOW will take off, but I know it will. It's already proving to be way easier than MegaBug, and I have a partner to keep me motivated and inspired. My family is constantly asking for the recent update, and have all told me they feel that this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. (Shelby's the one who advised me to quit my job!) I couldn't agree with them more.

So here's to the first day of my forever!