Successfully Self-Employed
The Weekly Hotseat
Thursday, 5 November 2026 · Issue #18
This week's Hotseat recap: what came up, what landed, what we're each holding each other accountable for doing next.
Community Update
This week in the room
With year-end fast approaching, municipal elections throwing a bit of a spanner in the works and working across a 13 hour time difference, a few regulars were missed this week.
Those who were able to join though made the most of our time together as we ran head on into a familiar founder question: when you can do many things, how do you choose the one worth building?
Key learnings and discussion points
What came up this week
Focus, positioning, selling a service, and learning to value what you've already built.
One strong channel beats multiple half-baked ones.
Focus was a hot topic this week. In the past, Zane’s juggled three separate newsletters, each pointed at slightly different audiences. It made me think of a recent masterclass I attended, where the facilitator asked, “If you found the cure for cancer, would you go and start an Instagram account, or would you go straight to the people who needed it?”
But how are these things connected? They both touch on choosing the channel that reaches your largest, most engaged audience, investing in it and shelving the rest.
Sell the service, not the template.
We spent a good while on the difference between selling a product and selling your expertise. The template economy has cooled right off; people in that world have shared the numbers, and they are sobering.
What truly holds value is being the person who gets someone from stuck to over the finishing line.
● A service people hire you for tends to beat a file they download and perhaps never open.
● High-intent rooms, talks, think tanks, cohorts and consulting; these often convert better than a slow newsletter upsell.
● Credibility comes first. Complete your own version of the thing, then teach the system that got you there to others who are trying to achieve the same thing.
Not every project needs a price tag.
One of the clearest decisions we landed on was to keep one personal outlet completely unmonetised. Not everything has to earn.
The moment you force a labour of love to make money, it often stops being that thing you loved in the first place.
●Separate your work out by its function: what is for practice, what is for building an audience, what is for revenue. Three jobs, three homes.
●A low-pressure, enjoyable habit with no deadline could be the engine that keeps the rest of the business running.
●Just because it’s not monetised, doesn’t mean it can’t have an audience. One built in good faith though could make a future offer even more successful. The free thing may eventually earn the right to the ask.
This week's resources & community
Needs & Leads
●Rooms worth being in: Fame Week Africa, an international creative and film event that travels and lands in South Africa once a year. Wikipedia’s WikiMania (also a traveling event) where you can apply to speak on topics you’re knowledgeable in. Both are high-intent places to meet collaborators and potential future clients.
●For the experientially-curious: Make Reign, an agency working in experiential design, is worth a look if you're toying with the idea of AR, immersive storytelling or tech that works in new and creative ways.
Got something to offer or something you're looking for?
Post it in the Needs & Leads channel in the community and it'll get a spot in next week's newsletter.
Accountability
What we're each doing in the next week or two
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