Start Up Wednesday - Self Employment

OK this session was SO helpful as I was totally clueless on how to be self employed and do taxes and stuff. I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of being self employed and how to do things when you are self employed, do's and don'ts and all that.

TOP STUFF I LEARNED:

The way to become an expert is to say you're an expert.

Register yourself as self employed when you start incurring costs with ya self employment - cause then you can claim the tax back on your costs.

You are taxed on your profit, not your sales!

Costs can be; software, materials, computer, equipment, studio space, travel, packaging, marketing, etc etc.

You don't need a business account when you're self employed.

Clothes are never a business expense, food is only an expense when you're away from home for something.

Earning under 11, 000 (profit) you don't pay tax anyway. Still a good idea to keep on top of your costs.

KEEP YOUR COSTS, KEEP EVERYTHING - (keep it all for 6 years)

TOP TIPS:
1. don't read papers or listen to the news, it will not benefit you as a self employed person as it feeds on negativity and fear

2. get around positive people, break up with your partner if they're a dick.

3. Flatter people - who the customer buys from is more important than what you sell - Personality!

4. Get good at sales and marketing, really fast

5. don't undervalue yourself, get your pricing right! If you want to make quality work go for higher prices.

6. Pay attention to your attitudes towards money, its not helpful to think money is a bad thing.

7. keep on top of your business costs, but sales is where you make the mmoney.

8. read / listen / learn as much as you can

9. Network everywhere you go! "how can I help you" is the attitude ya need

10. GET A GREAT ACCOUNTANT WHO UNDERSTANDS THE CREATIVE SECTOR

Travelling Man Brief and attempting to be a leader

Oh Boyo.
I opted to be one of the 'leaders' on the Travelling Man brief mainly to ensure I would be able to get a piece in, I've never been a confident leader in any aspect of life so I found the whole thing quite terrifying as I doubted my competence in the role. Luckily I was not alone, top lad Jack was also on the scene which was a massive help - working collaboratively with him as 'leaders' made it so much easier to deal with.

The easiest part of this whole project was choosing the theme and colour palette which took about 5 minutes. We knew we had to be efficient on this project because we got the brief so late, we basically had two weeks to get the pieces done, printed and delivered to Travelling Man. We made a brief with some specifications, I made some little hand outs with the colour scheme on it, and we got a bunch of questions from the crew who were interested so we could clarify some things.

MAIN ISSUES I ENCOUNTERED

• communication with Travelling Man was somewhat difficult as it is convention season and everytime me or Jack tried to get information the manager was not in, so we had to work mostly on initiative on when things needed to happen. The deadline on the brief was the 1st November but we were unsure if that meant the opening night was the 1st, or they wanted the work on the 1st. We decided it would be best to get the pieces in on the 31st October so there was time to hang them is the opening night was the 1st (which it was).
• communicating with the group was generally ok, as basically everyone is on social media so it was easy to put notices out, though sometimes they were missed meaning people didn't turn up to some group meetings which was a little frustrating - I now understand why tutors get annoyed at us not signing up for stuff on estudio. I felt myself becoming tutory, I was ashamed. (no offence tutors)
• We chose the colour palette using my pocket colour wheel by spinning it and choosing the 5 colours it landed on, which may have been a mistake as we ended up with a strange colour palette however everyone managed to make it work and got their stuff to us on time! 
• We didn't know whether we had to plan an opening night, even though it was in the thought bubble guide. I went down on the 1st November to see what was going on and saw they were hanging the exhibition, so I asked if there was an opening night and they said yes. Pretty short notice but I tried to let as many people as possible know it was on that day! (and plenty of people came and brought their friends)

All in all, I'm proud of my nerd children. The exhibition looks great. 

Start Up Wednesday - Crowd Funding

Guy working for Indiegogo came to talk about crowdfunding. I found the session interesting, it made me realise you can basically crowdfund anything, as long as you deliver on it.

Notes:
MARKETING IS EVERYTHING - and can get your concepts into retail! These cat ear headphones designed by two girls got off the ground via crowdfunding and now Ariana Grande has a line(?) of them.

There are different types of crowdfunding.

Rewards based crowdfunding - (Indiegogo, kickstarter, etc)

Debt Crowdfunding

Equity Crowdfunding

& Loands crowdfunding. 

A big point of crowdfunding it, it doesn't matter WHAT you're crowdfunding for, as long as you have a good campaign for people to believe in you. [Compelling reasons, good video, marketing etc]

Planning your Campaign

* Have an Idea

* Research & Plan

* Build a Team 

* Build your Audience

THE 30% RULE

IF YOU HIT 30% OF YOUR TARGET IN 2-5 DAYS, YOU WILL PROBABLY HIT YOUR GOAL. 

Set your target at the lowest you can possibly do whatever you're doing for, then anything over your target is 'profit' that can go into more of the project. 

When setting your goal consider costs 

cover unforseen costs

Tips:

Grow e-mail list, networking, tell people, start with family

you- family- community network - potential backers

Leverage social media, make a facebook page, share, share, share.

Give REWARDS - people will pay for exclusivity. 

You can always update your rewards / add more. 

It's all about marketing and creating LIKEABLE CONTENT, that people will want to share.

 

50% of traffic comes from social media, so make regular updates!

Make a Video!!

It's all about PPP, no not personal and professional practice but, PASSION, PRIDE and PARTICIPATION!

Going to London (to buy a heat magazine)

I went to London, it wasn't so bad.

I went for the Feminist Avant Garde exhibition at the photographers gallery, as research for COP. I had never been down to London alone before so that was a travelling experience. Opted for the train instead of a torturous 5-6 hour bus journey.

The Exhibition:
Contained absolutely loads of really inspiring work. Obviously it was mostly photography or performance films, being at the photographers gallery. I found loads of artists that I could really engage with the work, I liked some of the stuff so much I bought the book of the exhibition just so I could keep looking at it.

The kind of work there was stuff that really challenged views of women. There was an obvious embrace of femininity and autonomous female sexuality in a lot of the work, in defiance of the over-sexualised, male gaze orientated view of women and the completely de-sexualised view of women. 

The work was subversive of its time and I believe is also subversive now, and although a lot of the work I've done has been fun and not serious I am becoming more interested in making subversive work that could raise awareness for important issues. 

LinkedIn

I have actually really been enjoying linkedin. I've been able to find some really interesting articles as well as seeing everyone sharing their work and ideas. It's kind of a stress free way of networking, as it's just like using social media.

I posted an article on feminism, and I feel like I will probably post many of my weird ideas about art and how I fit into the world on it.

I have also been sharing my work from behance on there. I'm apprehensive about interacting with the groups although I searched a lot of things I couldn't find anything I really connected to and just joined some groups that were of vague interest (illustrators & graphic designers etc)

WEBSITES???

I already use various social media like tumblr, instagram and facebook for my professional work and I keep all of that separate from my personal social media accounts but a real website seems kind of daunting at the moment because I don't feel like I've got anything to put on the site??? Though getting it together earlier would be better than later!!

I had a look at a couple of free website hosting sites. Theoretically I could just buy a domain name and put it on my tumblr but I find tumblr not as customisable as I'd like for a website.
I'm thinking cargo collective might be a good one to use because it's generally aimed at creative types and has a nice level of customisation. I looked at a few people's sites on there already and each one looked really different and functional, promising. I think I need to get a design or logo together before I start making a website, I've just been using various patterns on other sites but I don't want a website to be so overpowering with black and shapes - It's really something I'll have to think about, colour schemes and stuff. I want it to still be 'me' and have my tone of voice but just NOT so busy.

I looked at wix as well, I had a wix site in the past for something else and it was an absolute pain to try and modify? I'm hoping it's changed since then and might be easier to use, but i'm still swayed towards cargocollective as I know other people who use it.

wow I can get ayykaplan.co.uk for only a penny. (well £8 for two years) sure why not. I have purchased a domain name. Now maybe I'll get on with properly thinking about a website.

On my website I would aim to post the higher quality finished project work, with links to instagram, facebook, tumblr, a blog etc so professional 'fun' and personality can be shown a bit more.