Developing Better Together
Diary of a budding freelance association in Colorado
I had one of those days last Thursday.
Perhaps you know the one, where you lose yourself frowning at a long to-do list. Where you tense your shoulders as you pour your anxiety out of your mind and into your body. One of those days where you recall every mistake you’ve made, every project you’ve flubbed, every strained relationship, every failure and you forget that those were moments of learning. You let this to-do list pull you into the blues and you give up on it, give yourself away to the infinite scroll of some web app or another such vice so you can stew in your own self-pity.
Ever have one of those days?
It has to do with my vision of a network of freelancers in Denver. And it’s a good thing … because it’s growing. It’s taking on a life of its own and, to be honest, that’s a bit scary for me. It shakes my demons loose to whisper in my ear, “you couldn’t possibly accomplish that.”
And yet, I’m doing just that.
Still, I have to stand back from it, indulge in a mid-afternoon bike ride and some mindless scrolling — self-care. Then I’m back again, back to myself, back to tend this little seed as it sprouts.
Hello, I’m Drew Hornbein, and this is my developer diary. I want to keep those who are invested up-to-date on the work I’m doing. Perhaps you are reading this because you, too, want to do something like this. For posterity, as they say.
Back in September of 2018, I co-hosted an event for freelancers at Denver Startup Week. Since then I’ve hosted meetups each month for freelancers. This organization, or really, this group of relationships between people in and around Denver has been calling itself Better Together. This is the foundation upon which I am building a freelancers’ association.
Better Together is now becoming a real thing. Soon I will incorporate it as an LLC under my current entity, MetaModern LLC. I’ve hired Sarah Neighbor to do the branding and I’ve conceived of a purpose and a structure (more details here).
Better Together’s purpose is to improve the quality of life for independent workers and their communities.
To do this, Better Together is focusing on four initiatives.
- Events. We host monthly events for our community. We manage the events through our Meetup.com group. I know things are starting to take on a life of their own because I didn’t plan or execute the April and May events (that was the amazing Amy Darling). These events have had food provided by one of our incredible sponsors, name.com. My goal is that these events be interactive and build strong bonds between people. In January, I hosted a design thinking session and got this feedback from the community. Our newsletter archive has a good recap of our events.
- Freelancer Directory. We maintain a directory of local freelancers. This directory has almost 60 members and growing. I’ve been adding each new person by hand and asking for $5/month + one hour of work (either as time or one hour’s worth of money determined by their hourly rate). Most people have been open to this exchange, but I haven’t gone seeking the money. I’m using Open Collective as the transparent bookkeeping program to collect and budget money.
- Freelance Business Week #FBWDEN fbwden.com. We are hosting a series of events in Denver over the week of Sep 30-Oct 4, 2019. I’ve put together a core team of five amazing people (really though, they self-assembled). This has been going well, it also gives me the most stress because we are dreaming big. As such, big success looms. Already, sponsors have shown interest and excitement is building. Promotion is a real hard edge of my comfort level. Selling things is oh-so-hard for me.
- Freelancer Association Membership. This is the least put-together part of the whole project. I foresee the directory dovetailing into membership. Right now I’m just starting to figure out benefits that I could offer to members. I think there are many opportunities that will present themselves as #FBWDEN takes off.
I’m thinking about each of these as initiatives so that they can live within Better Together but be somewhat independent of it. Already there is a woman in Boulder seeking to start her own Better Together meetups, which I aim to support. How do I balance the integrity of the “brand” while being open to new and creative people?
I believe I’ll handle it by making transparent what the brand is, how all this works, what I’ve done so that others may do the same. Perhaps that’s bad business, or perhaps it’s what business should look like. I’m unsure. I do believe that “brands” are simply core values and if you give off a true and honest vibe you will attract just the right people (it’s working so far).
My main goal here is to do what I can with what I have to fulfill Better Together’s purpose. Then I want to make it sustainable, part of that is getting paid for all the many hours I’m pouring into this work, the initial fuel to start this engine.
What else is going on? Then June event, which is less than a week away and without a venue or food, will be a workshop. A time to bring people who care about Better Together, well, together, in order to work on the thing. To plan the next event and plan for the future.
I am attempting to bring people in so that they feel ownership over this whole thing. So they will step up and carry it forward because they believe it should move forward. Already I’ve seen this in the events. People really do invest in it. I’m very conscious of giving people credit and gratitude for their labor, it’s all I have to exchange at the moment. Another thing I try to give freely is trust, which sometimes means giving people the reins and leaving for two months.
There is a Slack channel which you’re welcome to join, where we can all stay in touch about the project.
There is also denverfreelancing.com, the little hub site with resources and not much more. Once the brand is done I’m planning on building the site out a bit more.
Up Next
The plan I’m holding right now is that I will launch the Better Together Association in October during Freelance Business Week. In the lead up, I will offer “Founding Membership” to raise funds. So I will soon need to develop a budget and plan for promoting this. There are also the July, August, and September events to plan. The latter will be an event that is part of Denver Startup Week.
I’ve made a list of Volunteer opportunities, and I will push harder to find people who are interested in helping out with those. I’d love to have a gaggle of young people who are interested in getting into Freelancing be working on this, shaping it. Writing up business plans and bringing more people in.
It seems hard some days, and it’s a very long to-do list. But then there are the connections I make with people who get excited about the idea, who want to be part of it, and then I get so energized! I love to connect with people and I hope to make that more of the work I get to do.
Until next time…
If you know anyone who would be interested in sponsoring, partnering, or supporting this project I’d love to be connected hello@dhornbein.com
