Have you ever had a friend look at a business and randomly throw out numbers that made it seem like that business owner must be making serious bank? We’ve experienced that many times, and know from conversations with operators and owners in those industries that their real profitability is often far, far less. The reason is often that there are unique challenges to profitability in almost every industry and so we wanted to create a space for entrepreneurs from across industries and markets to discuss the challenges to profitability in their industries.

Brandi Rivera

I would have to say the biggest challenge to profitability in my industry is probably maintaining consistency in terms of clientele. Anybody who’s been doing this for a while can definitely vouch that having enough clients every month to make your bread and butter and to keep a roof over your head and food on the table (for those of us who are doing this full-time) is becoming increasingly more and more challenging. Solely relying on photography as your only source of income can make it very difficult to survive financially without either another source of income or multiple streams of revenue (ex: an online course, a Patreon, a monetized YouTube channel, etc), unless maybe you’re specializing in weddings or real estate/drone photography. Read more>>

Danny Nguyen

Despite having encountered several challenges along the way, I am beyond grateful to have experienced an opportunity to work with such diversity. Understanding my constant desire for perfectionism – it is time-consuming to transform a stock photo into a more visually appealing image. Photography has taught me that no matter how many countless videos you watch explaining how to achieve a particular look or style, you must get your hands dirty and experiment on your own until you get your desired look. Read more>>

Katie Edgington

The biggest challenge is definitely mindset. When you’re self-employed, you run into the issue of “How much should I charge per hour for what I have to offer?” which is really a question of “How much do I feel I’m worth?”. Before I started my journey with freelancing I’d worked in hospitality for almost 10 years, and I’d never earnt more than minimum wage. The work felt taxing – I was always tired because I was on my feet all day and I had to cycle 10 miles a day because I couldn’t even afford the bus to work, and all the people I worked for treated me badly. Even when I was studying at university, I was being offered ‘jobs’ in the fields I loved but they were never paid aside from expenses and you were expected to give 30 hours of your week away for free. Read more>>

Elijah Frith

In the creative industry it is a common struggle that people do not ever want to pay you what you are worth. Many creatives struggle with receiving compensation that matches their skillset. I’ve lost a lot of connections by not succumbing to the monetary standard that people judge my work with. At the end of the day, if you are a creative it is most important to stand your ground and to refuse to settle for less. Read more>>