I am an Independent Consultant (aka freelancer, collaborator) and an entrepreneur.
In the past, there was a reason why I stayed away from anything related to finance and business administration. I just couldn’t understand them. Even today, they are intolerable. But indepenndent consultancy forces me to enngage with them.

I do not hail from a traditional design background, but my friends do. And they have often voiced their concerns about not knowing anything about business administration and/or negotiations, but circumstances puts them in situations where they should have known. In fact, in order to sustain, they end up compromising on their quality and/or feel frustrated.

In this forum I want to talk about my experience as a designer, attempting to sustain in this unfamiliar world of business/entrepreneurship. By sharing my story, I want to invite conversations and personal stories with this experience. By allowing for individual storytelling, I want to make non-business-minded design entrepreneurs to feel motivated, and not feel alone.

Outline

1. My idea, and why I felt the need to start something by myself
2. My expectations
3. The Reality
4. My learnings: Self Identity, LinkedIN, Negotiations, Networking (certains tricks that worked)
5. My key take-out for current and potential design entrepreneurs

Requirements

Their listening techniques. If deaf, then a hearing aid.

Speaker bio

My decisions in the recent past led me to become an independent consultant.
My desire to materialise my ideas led me to establish a creative venture.

Both are on thin ice beacuase I do not know the tricks and trade of entrepreneurship, business management, negotiations and networking. But I am learning, and I know that I am not alone.

Slides

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriiyer89/