Build a global brand with freelancers👷‍♂️

A brand needs lot of full-time resources to execute key activities. Hiring is time taking, and full-timers are expensive. Poor delivery risk is high. So, start with freelancers before full-timers.

👋 Ola! Welcome to Out of Singapore. I am Shantanu, writing about building businesses from scratch every week. Today’s writing spot is the Residents’ corner below my 1965-made HDB. You won’t believe but the HDB is part of a heritage trail. It is the first point block HDB in SG (go google what it means 😆). I have spent some lazy afternoons in this spot but never thought of writing from here. I was disappointed with Orchard Library, so I head back home. Noticed this cosy spot while walking back to my apartment. It is windy and cool with a bit of HDB social happenings.

View from my seat at the Resident corner. Lovely, no?

Today I met an entrepreneur friend, Sam, who is building a web3 company. Specifically he audits the tokenomics of a web3 company and is currently building the product for this. The market is tough but to his credit he is getting consistent user validation and orders! Most of us from the ES SG11 batch have shut our company, while he is surviving well. He is an experienced business owner and will do well.

The pandemic has revolutionized remote working. The biggest beneficiaries are the freelancers. Today’s story is about them. I will structure it like this

1. The bloated brand building process

2. Challenges of full time resources, specially in SG.

3. Can freelancers fill the gap? Can they replace an inhouse team?

4. Freelancers are not trouble free, how to handle them?

5. When hiring freelancers makes more sense?

Freelancers can be anywhere. Photo by David L. Espina Rincon

#1 Building a brand takes a lot of resources

Here is how a brand activities look like

1. Research the product you want to make.

2. Design the label and packaging.

3. Buy the inventory (drop shipping is trading). Produce or acquire the goods

4. Store in a warehouse. If you are selling in multiple locations, store in multiple countries.

5. Start marketing on digital platforms or offline events.

6. Build partnerships for marketing and distribution.

7. Receive orders, pack and ship to customers

8. Manage customer enquiries and complaints.

9. Accounting and compliance.

All these steps are at a high level. Each step is a big function in itself. For example, point 2 needs a whole team of designers while point 3 needs a person to buy and people to manufacture. I have not even mentioned building and maintaining a web store, either on Shopify or Amazon.

If you hire people for all these activities from the start, you are going to go bankrupt before launch.

#2 Hiring full-timers is troublesome

Every full time employee has the same dream - great work life balance (read less work, more fun), salary increments every few months and a “positive” work place. When you are setting up a new brand, these dreams are toxic. These expectations push the focus away from company and financial well-being to employee well-being.

The never ending work life balance question!

Getting a new brand up and running needs unorthodox methods. If the orders are too many, everyone packs and ships the goods including the Founder and COO. Titles mean nothing, output means everything.

In-house full-time team can be inherently slower due to myriad opinions. Ego runs high among full-time employees, often getting offended with certain words used during a meeting. Worst part, they like to gossip when they are free.

When you start afresh, everything will be naturally broken and imperfect. “Full time employee” behavior compounds all the existing issues.

To add to these, finding the right talent takes years. In the case of Singapore, either there is lack of talent or right talent is unaffordable. This makes everything more difficult.

#3 Freelancers can fill the gap

I speak to at least 5 new freelancers each week. Most of these are accomplished talent that choose to work at their own time. A 20 min call with them is enlightening.

Working with freelancers when you are building out makes more sense. You aren’t sure of how things will work out or when revenue will start scaling. You are taking calculated risks. You would be trying new things that could work better for your better. So you need flexibility. Freelancers provide you the ultimate way to keep the talent requirement flexible.

Here are some ways freelancers offer you better hope

1. Flexibility on time and money - A freelancer can work for 2 weeks for a specific goal. Or they can work for 3 months. Hiring a freelancer is less than 24 hour turnaround time.

2. Cheaper than fixed resources - Maybe not at an hourly level but they aren’t permanent resources. You pay someone $40 per hour for 50 hours and that’s it. No more commitment.

3. No personality and ego clashes - You define the task, pick the talent and track the deliverable. It is highly transactional with low social expectations. The focus is the output and that’s where it ends.

4. Ability to scale quickly - If the blog starts doing well, you can either increase the time commitment from the content writer or hire 2 more writers in a few hours. If we want to launch a new market and need a regional marketing expert, we can quickly hire someone on Upwork.

5. You can access highly experienced freelancers - The expert freelancers have done a similar task for over 50 clients in a short period of time. At such experience, full time talents become Directors or VPs. They essentially are wiped out of the job market since they are unaffordable.

Side note: Leveraging freelancers is delegation at its best - defined tasks, output and people.

Have a look at this resource plan for a brand ✊

Resource planning for a new brand creation and launch

#4 Freelancers are not without risk

Working with freelance talents is fraught with risks as well. While they have high level of ownership to the specific task, they aren’t answerable for overall goal (the brand launch & success). They will do their job and leave you.

You have to keep a closer eye on the quality of deliverable. They do try to push anything your way if you don’t pay attention.

Don’t forget checking the output and time sheets!

They will be more expensive in the short term, hourly rates can be very high. Here, you should negotiate a fixed price for each month. You can promise them 3 months contract in return for capping the maximum fee.

Finally, freelancers can promise you the whole world. Be careful when they throw jargons without being specific. Please always ask for work sample and a proposal of what they will achieve.

The best time to move to full time resources

When the monthly revenues become stable and large enough to sustain a in-house team, then go hire full time resources.

Some parts of the business maybe proprietary and needs innovation. This is a place where in-house resource do well. For example - product formulation, product design and brand identity.

I am currently in the process of executing my plan and will learn during the way. In another 3 months, I will come back and share how this went. Till then, keep experimenting 🔬

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Thank you for reading this far. You are absolutely wonderful. 😻

I have been thinking about posting on LinkedIn for maybe 2 months now. I get the thoughts and then I stop. I have come to love this newsletter more than a short posts on LinkedIn. However, I understand that it my biggest distribution medium. I will get down to start sharing on LinkedIn as well.

While we are here, can I request you to share this newsletter among your friends? The content has built up. I will continue adding personal learnings and story every week. Every new subscriber is a boost to my confidence 💓

May I also request you to like the posts if you find them useful, please 🥺

Now, its Jisoo time 🥷

Hahaha, Jisoo is my favourite. She can save a stressful day with just a smile 🙈

Please have a great weekend and week ahead! Cheers ✊