The Accidental Mompreneur: From Freelancer to Agency Founder and Beyond

This article is part of Fud’s Meet the Mompreneur series, where experienced and successful Moms share their entrepreneurial journey and offer personal insights on successfully launching and scaling a business while balancing family life.

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Allison’s journey seems to be the ultimate freelancing success story.💯 

She started from being a solo freelancer to an agency owner, went through her company’s acquisition, took a well-deserved sabbatical, and now she's back at it with a fresh new venture.🔥🔥🔥

It's like she's lived through all the highs and lows of freelancing and come out stronger and wiser on the other side.

Ten years ago, Allison worked a day job as an SEO strategist at an SEO agency, and pursued freelancing projects in the evenings and during weekends. Driven by her passion at work, she turned her side hustle into a full-time freelance career and eventually founded her agency, growing it to 20 employees. 

Just four years later, a larger marketing firm acquired her company. Now on sabbatical, Allison enjoys quality time with her family while gearing up for her next entrepreneurial venture, The Freelance Alliance.

Throughout all these, Allison Lantz considers herself an accidental entrepreneur. She didn’t exactly plan on doing freelance work or starting a business at the onset. But when an opportunity presented itself, her grit and hard work ultimately led to success.🚀

It all began when a contact from a past project got in touch to see if she was interested in a contracting opportunity with a new company. They mentioned how much they appreciated the quality of her work and her strong work ethic during their earlier collaboration.

Although she wasn’t really looking into freelancing at that time, the idea excited her and she decided to take the opportunity.

Read on as she shares her freelancing journey that transformed her life.

Keeping it a side hustle or turning it into a full-time career⚖️

There is no denying that Allison possesses a highly valuable skill and excels in her field. As referrals from her first client came pouring in, her freelance gigs increased, and she found herself working tirelessly. However, she is now earning significantly more per hour in freelancing than in her day job.

She has to make a decision.

Should she take the risk and go full-time into freelancing, venturing into uncharted territory?

or

Should she opt for the stability offered by her current employment and reduce her side projects?

With a baby on the way at the time, the importance of health insurance and employment benefits made the decision even more challenging.

At a crossroads, Allison sought guidance from her father, her long-time career mentor and cheerleader. His advice? Find an anchor client.

Finding her Anchor Client⚓

What’s an anchor client?

Following the advice from her father, Allison sought an anchor client to provide stability and the confidence she needed to leave her day job and fully commit to freelancing.

She then established the criteria for her anchor client:

Allison approached her current employer to become her anchor client, explaining that she was interested in exploring freelancing but wasn't fully ready to go on her own.

Leveraging her skills and the value she brings to the company, she successfully negotiated a 6-month contract with half her usual working hours.

During those six months, she used her newly freed 20 hours weekly to expand her client base. She reached out across her network, including friends and LinkedIn connections, actively promoting her availability for freelance work.

From the initial 20 hours of work per week, she managed to sell about 60 hours a week to various clients. Although this intense schedule led to exhaustion and burnout, it also resulted in impressive earnings.💸💸💸

The Crux of her entrepreneurial journey is…Giving up things you’ve become comfortable with.

It means you're ready to leave behind a phase you've already mastered, breached the learning curve, and established successful strategies, to transition to the next level that presents new challenges and demands further growth.🙌

This is the essence of embarking on an entrepreneurial journey and persisting through the years.

In Allison’s case, she is now making much more in freelancing than with her anchor client. Because it is about stability and not about making profits, she had the lowest rate for her anchor client.

She then decided to give up her anchor client to pursue freelancing full-time. She let go of the stability and substantial income from her anchor client in order to pursue potentially greater revenue, profit, and new deals, even if these are less familiar and more uncertain.🚀

That’s the crux of her entrepreneurial journey.

She also shares that the decision-making process of leaving your day job for full-time freelance work varies from person to person depending on your situation and preferences.

It can be surpassing the income needed to cover your initial expenses and the basics, or a steady revenue for 90 days or 6 months.

What helped her through the inflection points of her business

Allison created an annual plan reflecting her short- and long-term goals that set a clear direction for her business. Every quarter, she looks back on what went well, what went wrong, and what needs to change in the plan going forward.

She added that when doubt creeps in (which it inevitably will) and you start to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable, having a plan and a long-term vision to fall back on can keep you grounded. Without it, you may end up being thrown off course, pulled in various directions, being reactive to that discomfort.

The biggest mistake of her entire entrepreneurial career was…

Billing clients by the hour.⌚

According to Allison, she was pretty happy with this option initially. But when she started taking in more and more clients and with only 40 hours a week, she found herself working round the clock with no time for vacations or sick days.🤒

She highly suggests charging clients on a project or retainer basis whenever possible.💼

When she gradually shifted from charging an hourly rate to a retainer fee, her earnings doubled, proving to be a lucrative move.💰💰

“You need to think about how you set up these early deals, especially if you're in a client service role, as it will set the precedent for how your business scales in the future”, she added.

Scaling up her business🚀

When it came to the point that Allison was turning away work, she knew it was time to hire. Aligned with her long-term goal of being acquired, she rebranded, re-incorporated, and expanded.

As someone who preferred being an independent contributor in her previous jobs, used to being a one-woman-show, and a self-confessed control freak, it was difficult for Allison to delegate work to someone else. Hence, to alleviate her discomfort, she hired a skilled and trusted friend as her first employee.🧑‍💼

In the same year, her company hit a massive revenue milestone of $600k.💵

A piece of advice for aspiring side hustlers and entrepreneurs💡

If you know someone in your circle of friends and family who admires you or appreciates the work you do in your area of expertise, try to rustle up some business with them and focus on providing value.

If you’re started already, keep hustling, look for more clients, and look at process and time optimization. You have to build a quarterly and annual plan.🗓️

For those just starting out, a great step to find your first client is to reach out to 10 of your connections on LinkedIn and let them know you’re taking in particular work in your spare time.📱

What’s next for Allison?✨

Allison has returned to share the valuable insights she’s gained over the past decade and offer others the opportunity to experience the life-changing journey she had.👣

She just started The Freelance Alliance, a virtual mentorship platform and community to help freelancers grow their dream business.

It will be focused on freelancers in the tech, design, creative, and marketing services who want to stabilize their income, find new leads, build high-value contracts for their clients, and ultimately earn more money while maintaining the lifestyle they want.💫

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