Cole and I have been running Nordica Photography for about five months now. My first five months of being fully self-employed (I had my own company in Stockholm before moving to Vancouver too – still have actually – but that was only part-time).
Everybody says the first year is the hardest (or the first seven years as someone told me) and that you need to stick in there, even though things may be slow at times and even though you might not be living a life of luxury every day. Well, we’re still only 5 months into it, but I’ll have to agree. Cole and I have certainly become aware of some the difficulties and downsides of starting up a new business, especially in such a competitive field as photography in such a creative city as Vancouver. There are literally hundreds of talented photographers here. Which can be both scary and challenging (I choose challenging).
The hardest thing this far has definitely been the uncertainty, not knowing how you’ll pay next month’s rent. But to this point things have worked out quite well. Small projects here and there seem to keep popping up if you’re being out there. However, the uncertainty, not knowing what tomorrow will bring, is also one of the good things of running your own business. We’ve been places and done things the last few months we never would have if we weren’t doing our own thing.
All in all, things have been going really well though. Way better than I expected. 5 months ago not one single person had heard of Nordica Photography (neither had we!) and now people in the business are starting to know who we are and what we do. Cole actually saw a random person browsing the Nordica site at the Mac store the other day – quite funny we think.
But it’s not like we haven’t been working for it. We’ve been pretty much busy every day since we started. Some projects more exciting than others, some paying more than others, but most importantly – it’s been fun, fun, fun. And the wedding season has barely started yet (that’s what we’re really focusing on). We’ve got quite a few exciting weddings lined up – there’s still room for more though! – mostly around BC, but we’re for example also going to Mexico for a wedding in July. Not too shabby being our first wedding season in Vancouver.
We’ve still got a lot of work to do with Nordica though – building the portfolio, our style, our image, our reputation etc. – but we’re definitely moving in the right direction. And that Cole and I both come from a business and marketing background definitely helps. The Nordica brand is always in the back of our heads, and our brand values is pretty much what keeps us on track.
Being self-employed is a lot of fun but it also requires a lot of commitment. I put in almost twice as many hours now compared to my previous nine-to-five job.
I had a good job back in Stockholm and worked with great people. It was my first ‘real’ job and I enjoyed it. But it was still a job. A job as in I’d-rather-do-something-else-if-I-didn’t-need-the-money kinda job. I felt sad on Sunday nights that the weekend was over, and I hated monday mornings. Now when I wake up I couldn’t care less if it’s monday or thursday morning. Because it doesn’t feel like going to work. It’s a I-wouldn’t-want-to-do-anything-else-even-if-I-didn’t-need-the-money kinda job.
When I left Stockholm I had doubts whether I was doing the right thing, for obvious reasons. I was leaving a good job with good pay and my sweet apartment in central Stockholm, for the uncertainty of a new city on the other side of the globe, being self-emplyed and not knowing where to live. Five months later I am 100 percent sure it was one of the best decisions of my life.
And it has only just started. Come Summer!
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