Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in web designing but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Katelyn Dekle, Founder of Launch the Damn Thing, LLC., located in Bradford, VT, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Launch the Damn Thing™️ provides custom Squarespace web design services for smaller businesses, often women-owned and run by just 1-2 people. I picked the name because, too often, business owners get too busy to design or edit their websites, or worse, get bogged down with perfectionism and never actually launch the damn things! I felt like it was time to bring a bit of humor to that whole situation and make it feel much less overwhelming.

Tell us about yourself

I've been a designer all my life, from "playing" in Publisher as a kid to choosing Design as a trajectory in college and working in Art Departments as an adult. In my corporate career, I kept hitting walls where management or customer service didn't allow me to work with clients efficiently, having to pass through other employees to ask clients necessary questions in order to provide truly custom work that met their individual needs –and SOOOO much time was wasted. Eventually, I hit the ceiling of what I could tolerate while at the same time itching for something different, and I decided to try my hand at building my own freelance design business so I could make those decisions and work with clients the way I wanted.

It took a few years for my (slow but steady) side hustle to turn into a full-time business, and both my clientele and my business have changed A LOT in that time too. But what hasn't changed is that I am still motivated to surprise and delight my clients – overdelivering wherever possible, JUST so I can make them smile.

I am passionate about education and empowerment because I love teaching & helping people, so I've built those things into my business and how I work with my clients. I love going the extra mile to make sure they not only get a website when the project is done but also have a better working knowledge of how to run it themselves after we launch! And, of course, feel empowered & more confident in doing so.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I think my biggest accomplishment has been that I've created a career for myself –literally out of thin air! I wasn't 100% happy working for other people and abiding by policies set by people who weren't doing the design work & so I didn't know how prohibitive they were. I picked myself out of that situation and set myself down into one of my own making. I couldn't be more proud of how far I've come and am so happy and thankful that I finally took that leap!

The "what ifs"– because I'm NOT a risk-taker, but I AM a problem-solver– and not having steady paychecks is a scary prospect for a risk-averse personality type. What I've found, though, is that my genuine love of teaching and helping other people shines through in everything my business touches. That, along with my determination to make this work and smart(ish) business decisions (I'm not perfect & yes, I've made mistakes!), has allowed me to eventually find "my people" on the interwebs and totally replace (and then some) my previous annual salary during the first year of working for myself full-time. And I did all that by just going with my gut & doing what I absolutely LOVE to do!

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Shiny object syndrome –because you (without a team) wear all the hats, from accounting to marketing to customer service and billing, etc. The running joke for entrepreneurs is that we quit a full-time job to go work 24/7 for ourselves, and I understand that 100% now! After you realize the problem areas that cause many of your distractions, then you have to set boundaries & create processes to help keep yourself on track. It's a never-ending battle as a solopreneur –but so worth it!

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. There's no such thing as perfect. Not for your website, logo or branding, photo shoot, or Facebook page profile –whatever it is, it will NEVER be "perfect" because that doesn't exist. This also means that just "OKAY" can be good enough. If you wait 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years to do/launch a thing, you've wasted all the time in between when you could've just started, and if you think about where you could be now, had you started then, you'll have regrets.
  2. Treat your business like a science experiment. I'm somewhat analytically minded, so this comes naturally to me, I think, to a degree. But when I work with clients, I often hear questions like "should I..." or "do you think I need to..." and the fact is, I can't answer that question for them because everyone and every business is different. The only way to KNOW is to TRY! And either you succeed, and it works, or you fail, and you learn from what didn't work. That's where the science experiment comes in because "failure" is a learning opportunity, and that's how you get better –with everything! No one expects you to be an expert in the beginning, so just be confident in what you DO know, take messy action, then learn from any mistakes along the way.
  3. To be "find-able" online, you need a consistent online presence SOMEWHERE, but that doesn't mean you need to be EVERYwhere. Pick ONE thing to master, then consider adding more once you've gotten really good at that one thing. So if you start with a website, go ALL-IN on the website, start a blog and post things consistently so that Google has a reason to send people to it. If you start with a Facebook page, then go all-in on that & post consistently over there. Don't start by trying to be active on 10 different platforms, or you will absolutely –guaranteed– spread yourself too thin you won't be "good" at any of them, and each one will suffer. No one's really saying you have to be everywhere all the time; it just LOOKS like the successful people are –but that's because they have a team to help them do that & you probably won't when ya first get started. So pick ONE thing, and GO FOR IT!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.launchthedamnthing.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/launchthedamnthing
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/launchthedamnthing/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/launchdamnthing
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katelyndekle/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pvb8AogVGIAjYpDn_EVZw

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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