We recently connected with Nick Robertson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nick thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

Being a business owner has been the best and hardest thing I’ve ever done. When I first started my business, it was borderline euphoric. I was able to set my own schedule, get back in the gym, start Jiu Jitsu, and be home. I had been so used to travelling as a photographer, shooting weddings with my first business and then working as a one-man marketing department for a local company after I decided to stop shooting weddings when my daughter was born. Having the freedom to do whatever I wanted with my time was an incredible feeling.

While that feeling remains when it comes to flexibility, it can be a double edged sword. One of the first things I learned over my first 2 years in business was that just because you can work from midnight to 6am, doesn’t mean you should. I spent my first couple years red lining myself with all that new found freedom.

Even as I began to strike more balance with better scheduling, the desire to grow my business quickly replaced any progress I had made. It went from working whenever, wherever, to all day every day. The freedom I had fallen in love with had virtually disappeared.

The pressure I put on myself to grow my business eventually led to major burnout. At the end of 2022, I was juggling 5 clients, building website templates, building my online store to sell those templates, packing up our house, and preparing to move across the country. By the time we finally landed in Kentucky, I had no juice left at all. I was managing the last of the client projects I had and trying to decide what I was going to do moving forward.

I spent the first part of 2023 trying to pick myself back up and move forward but by June, it became clear I wasn’t going to be able to do that fast enough to keep up with our bills. So for the first time in 5 years since I started my business, I had considered going back to a regular job. I was very against it at first. I was like, There’s no way I can do that. So I took a part time job at UPS, telling myself that I just needed a couple more months to figure things out. Those couple months came and went and I was even more burned out and now constantly sore, Shout out to my UPS fam.

It was at this point that I realized I was going to need to transition back into a full time role. So that’s exactly what I did. I’ve worked in my current roll for the last 6 months and while It is in no way shape or form what I want to do, my business coach helped me to understand something that has made it worth it.

“You are too emotionally attached.

It’s just a business. It has no emotions. It doesn’t care where you get your money from.

Having a goal and building a business is like creating a puzzle.

You are making a 1000 piece puzzle. It’s not easy but you know you will get it done. You don’t know when but you will do it.

There are so many little pieces in that puzzle. And they are all important.

Getting some extra income for your goal is just a piece of puzzle you need at this time to keep finishing the picture.

You are missing lots of pieces right now and that’s what you are searching for.

But you have already found so many, and you don’t lose those. You have built your puzzle so far already and even if you go off to find another piece (income) doesn’t mean you lose what you have.”

– Jai Long

So now I have a much clearer head and am in the process of shifting how I do things as I essentially build my business from the ground up again. In a way that’s more aligned and beneficial for myself and my clients. The goal is to go back full time with my business by Jan 1 2025.

So the biggest insights I’ve gathered over the last 6 months:

– It’s probably not going to look like what you thought it was going to look like.

I thought I would be doing high ticket websites for big name photographers to make the kind of money I wanted to make. While I was able to do some of that, it turns out I enjoy helping photographers who are just starting their journey more.

– Business is simple; you are complicated.

The vast majority of small business owners undergo a dramatic shift. The hardest part about running your own business is checking your own ego, shifting your mindset, and having the ability to just keep going. Those things require a dramatic shift in a person. Which is why most of us read lots of self help books and go to therapy lol.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Nick. I’m a web designer and brand coach for photographers. I started off as a wedding and couples photographer and was able to travel and meet some incredible people. When my daughter was born, I knew I wanted to be home more and not traveling as much so I actually took a marketing position for a local company at the time.

The marketing job ended up having me travel a bit and kept me busier than I thought it would. On top of that, I was still shooting local weddings and couples for the extra income. In the first year of my daughter’s life, I was never around. Between the day job and the side hustle I was probably busier than if I had just kept traveling and shooting weddings.

At the end of that year, the marketing job and I decided to part ways and that was when Wild Eyed Creative Co. was born. I knew I wanted to keep working in the industry I loved but knew I needed to be home and available for my family.
So I brushed off my design skills from college and began to reach out to all the amazing connections I had made in the industry and began creating websites.

The 4 main issues I saw as I began to dive into the online world for photographers were, comparison traps, general confusion around building websites, SEO, and online presence. So those have become the core problems I solve for my clients.

Which is why, unlike most web designers, I have coaching sessions that go along with my design work. Creating a pretty website is one thing. Creating a pretty website that upholds the brand, brings clients in, converts clients, and makes life easier for the photographer is another thing. The coaching sessions allow me to dive deep with my clients and develop strategies and plans that accomplish those things.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting has become a running joke with my closest designer friends. We all saw and did a lot of pivoting after the lockdowns and post-COVID. We often send each other the PIVOT meme from Friends.

The biggest or most influential pivot for me was back in 2021. Up until that point I was more of an A La Carte designer. You could do just a website, just branding, or just coaching. The issue I would run into is that people would hire me to just do their websites but they didn’t have any branding or copywriting done. So it became a real struggle to create effective websites for people. In 2021, I went to a single offer model. One package that included strategy, branding, and web design.
The most influential part was that this was the first time I was going to charge prices that scared me. I told myself no one will pay 7k for that. Turns out I was super wrong. I booked 25k in 45 days once I made that pivot.

That pivot taught me a lot about offering value, solving problems for people, and charging what you’re worth.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Disclaimer I 100% do not recommend doing things this way but this is my story.

To spoil the story I did not raise any capital, I didn’t have any savings. I had a 30 pack of Red bull from Costco, an amazing group of friends, and pure desperation.

After parting ways with my marketing job I knew i was going to have to think of something quick or end up back in another job I hated with the same issues.

So when I made the decision to pursue website design, which I did not specifically consult with my wife about, I told myself If i could make what i made at my marketing Job in 4 weeks then I would keep going, and that’s exactly what I did. I began to repeat that to myself every four weeks and before I knew it 4 years had passed.

While I deffinitely do not advocate for being wreckless when it comes to starting your business…theres something to be said for “burning the boats” when you’re desperate and have no other option. Success just seems to happen.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wildeyedcreativeco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wild.eyed.creative.co/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZC2FquVxNJhY5rjp8oTV8g