Under the Current Podcast: #12 - Jonathan Stark

funding the mission, and why marketing can drive us mad

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When you’re taking the road less traveled in an independent career there’s all kinds of tension along the way: building an audience, figuring out how to market yourself, choosing what to work on, and knowing how and what to charge for what you do.

The default setting for this last point is typically to set an hourly rate. Makes sense, right?

Jonathan Stark thinks otherwise. He’s on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing and helps freelancers, consultants and creatives of all flavours find better ways to do the work they want to do in the world.

Jonathan’s own journey has gone from live musician to digital agencies, independent software developer to teacher. While his books, talks, and daily newsletter are now hugely successful – there have inevitably been some bumps along the way.

In this conversation we get into why artists and designers can be very opposite, the real value of music, unexpected occurrences of the employee mentality, and why marketing can make us mad.

Show notes

04:00 Getting it wrong on-stage

11:00 Why creatives get pulled in two directions

17:00 Funding the mission

22:00 The value of music

35:00 What it means to have an employee mentality – even when you don’t think you do…

43:00 A big lesson from Disneyland

50:00 Wrangling with marketing

58:00 Getting comfortable with speaking and writing in public

67:00 The value of podcasting and newsletters

74:00 Daily publishing