How long have you been freelancing? Long enough to think you’re the man?

Brian Richards is one of the keenest entreprenerus that I’ve interviewed. The funny thing is, he never set out *expecting* to be one.

See like most of us starting out in WordPress, we did some favors, got paid a little bit and then realized that we could make a living doing this. Brian joins us to share his #1 lesson before starting your own gig.

Episode 47: Interview with Brian Richards of StartBox, WPSessions and WebDevStudios

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Working for someone else

There’s a collection of great lessons in this interview for those of you just starting out in the freelance world.

First, you might think it’s going to be super easy. You’re going to live on an island, bring in clients and live the good life. It’s just what you always pictured it to be.

Wrong.

Second, you’re not going to bring your talents to some agency that is going to 5x your rate to their clients. YOU want to make that money. After all, this is easy.

Surprise, surpirse.

You have to work for the man before you can be the man.

That’s a quote that drives Brian’s entrepreneurial efforts. He’s very humble and realizes not to take advantage of any situation and at the very least, use it as a learning opportunity.

He’s so passionate about this that he took a job that had a 3 to 4 hour commute just for the opportunity to work at a progressive web agency.

Some @rzen resources

http://rzen.net/life/working-from-home-is-not-for-the-faint-of-heart/

What else does he do?

For a guy who never fancied himself a real entrepreneur, he sure does do a lot of awesome stuff. He’s the creator of StartBox and the founder of