Should freelancing feel easier by now… or is the hard part kind of the point?In this episode, Austin talks with Rachel Bicha (content strategist + founding Freelance Cake Community member) about building a freelance business that’s sustainable because it’s intentional. Rachel shares how her offline community gives her the psychological safety to do things that scare most freelancers—like DMing interesting people on LinkedIn without feeling weird about it.

They unpack the “safety net” Rachel built before going full-time (six months runway, ~50% income on the side, and real boundaries), plus one of her most underrated tools: defining “enough” with minimum and maximum income targets, seasonal goals, and even the occasional sabbatical.

You’ll also hear why Rachel’s marketing works: it’s relationship-based, rooted in hospitality and curiosity, and designed to connect with real humans (not “leads”). And yes—print is back. Rachel closes with the whimsical monthly print newsletter she sends out, featuring everything from zines to bingo cards to advent calendars.

If you’ve ever struggled with fear, overworking, marketing that feels misaligned, or wondering whether your work actually connects with real humans… this conversation is for you.

‍Key Points

• Why hard things matter: sometimes friction is the feature — remove it and you remove meaning.
• Rachel’s path into freelancing: in-house → side freelancing → full-time, plus the mindset shift that made it possible.
• Managing fear with systems: she waited until she had ~50% of income on the side + six months runway.
• Defining “enough”: minimum + maximum income targets, seasonal goals, and saying no even when it’s tempting.
• Avoiding overbooking: tracking time, setting boundaries, and using reflection to notice patterns before they become problems.
• Relationship-based marketing: hospitality + curiosity beats transactional networking (and feels better, too).
• LinkedIn outreach that doesn’t feel gross: curious DMs, “owning” the cold pitch, and writing like a real person with real fingerprints.
• Confidence vs. risk tolerance: Rachel isn’t “confident” — she’s willing to look foolish and survive a flop.
• Print is back, baby: analog trust, finite media, and why tangibility matters more as the internet gets weirder.
• Dream client sweet spot: small teams/startups building a repeatable marketing engine through experiments.

Notable Quotes

“I don’t think I ever really got less scared… I have a lot of systems… that help me feel like things aren’t going to crash and burn.”

“I have a minimum income target, and I also have a maximum income target.”

“I want my marketing to feel like… hospitality… a nice, open, cozy space.”

“I would not describe myself as somebody who has a lot of confidence… but I have a high degree of risk tolerance.”

Resources Mentioned

• Follow Rachel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-bicha-44080/
• Check out Rachel’s website: RachOnTheWeb.com
• Subscribe Rachel’s email newsletter: https://the-creative-side.kit.com/signup
• Subscribe to Rachel’s print newsletter: https://rachelbicha.notion.site/welcome-to-the-creative-side
• Join the Freelance Cake Community: https://www.freelancecake.com/community

Transcript

00:00

I have tried a lot of things and failed at a lot of things  in my work and in my life. And so I have come to understand that something not working out or something flopping or something  being bad at something or failing at something, just often, it just doesn't really matter that much.  It certainly doesn't kill you. Yeah.  Hey there. Welcome to the Freelance Cake Podcast.  I'm your host, Austin L. Church, founder of the Freelance Cake Community.  The goal of this show is to help full-time committed freelancers get better leverage.  As the sworn enemy of busyness and burnout, I have no desire whatsoever to see you work harder. So I reveal the specific beliefs, principles, and practices  you can use right away to make the freelance game more profitable and satisfying. So chill out, listen in, because the best is yet to come.  Welcome to another episode of the Freelance Cake Podcast. If you've been freelancing for any length of time, you've probably wrestled with some version of this question. Should the work feel easier by now?  Or is the hard part actually the point?

01:24

My guest today, Rachel Bicha, and I kick things off by talking about why doing hard things might actually be where pride and satisfaction come from. We also talk about how erasing friction  can sometimes erase meaning too.  Rachel is a founding member of the freelance cake community. She's a content writer and strategist.  She helps businesses create original valuable content that connects with their audiences and doesn't feel templated. She started out with a full-time role in-house doing content marketing. She started freelancing on the side. Eventually, she made the leap to full-time freelancing and she did it in a way that I really admire. She built up 50 % of the income she needed on the side before she quit her job. And then she had six months of runway to I guess keep anxiety to a minimum when she was building her freelance business. She also started with systems to help her manage fear, which I thought was a really interesting part of our conversation. So Rachel and I talk a lot. We have a lot of history. She was in one of my group coaching programs. I admire the way that she thinks she's brilliant and she's resourceful.

02:47

Our conversation gets into defining enough for yourself, but the minimum and maximum income targets you need to have.  We talk about avoiding overbooking yourself out of anxiety. We talk about taking sabbaticals,  adjusting your goals season by season. We get into relationship-based marketing, what it looks like to approach a platform like LinkedIn with curiosity instead of a transactional mindset. She even talks about how she sends DMs that don't feel gross, even though she wouldn't say that she's like the most confident person in the world.  So  this conversation  covers so many interesting aspects  of what it's like to be a more established advanced freelancer. If you've ever  struggled with fear  or overworking or marketing that feels misaligned with who you are or even wondering whether your work is connecting with real people, then this conversation is for you. I will link to Rachel's website  and to her print newsletter in the show notes. I hope you'll make a point to find her  online, connect with her,  check out what she's building.  All right. Now it's time to enjoy my conversation  with Rachel. Most folks will not be familiar with who you are.

04:12

Introduce yourself  and give us a little bit  of info about your background before freelancing Sure, so my name is Rachel and  I am a freelancer I work in content marketing doing all kinds of content that I specialize in long form and also in print marketing  as it starts to make a bit of a comeback before  I was freelancing I studied English in college, English and creative writing was my major. And I worked in house at a travel company for about five years, which was super, super fun. I absolutely loved that job.  And I was doing content marketing there as well. And then I, I  moved  in house to a B2B tech company  and went freelance after some time at that role.

05:12

Okay, and did you leave the B2B tech company because you were ready for more something? You don't have to share anything that's like super sensitive, but like what are the reasons you started freelancing? Yeah, absolutely. after I left the travel company, I kind of had an interim period where I was looking for a new role and I had been doing some freelancing on the side while I worked at the travel company. And so I continued doing a little bit of freelancing on the side and  freelancing on the side and not having a full-time job felt really good. There was part of me  that was like,  Oh, I just want to do this. Like I could just freelance all the time instead of just part-time. There was so many things that appealed to me about freelancing the  flexibility and the ability to kind of work on a lot of different things for a lot of different clients  and have a little bit more agency over the types of work that I did, all kinds of things.  But I was just kind of like a little bit of a scaredy cat.  I just felt like that's a lot of pressure, you know, to like make a full-time income and what if everything goes haywire? What if I'm not really good enough or whatever?

06:37

And so I got this in-house job at the B2B tech company  and um it turned out to not be a good fit,  but I think I also,  I went into it wishing that I wasn't working in-house.  So it was kind of a both and, but I think I really needed that experience to solidify what I actually wanted.  And I think sometimes that happens to us, right? Like we kind of know what we want, but we aren't quite brave enough to go after it. And so we go after this option that feels kind of safe or it feels like what we should want. em And then once we get into it, we realize like, no, I actually did want that other thing. And I'm willing to accept what risks or what downsides are going to come with it because that is actually the thing that I want.

07:32

So yeah, I was really grateful for that job, for giving me that insight  and giving me the courage to  strike out on my own. So  you said you were a scaredy cat. Was there a moment when  you stopped being a scaredy cat? Oh, that's a good question.

07:56

I don't think so. I think that my approach to fear is like preparation. So once I was in-house there and I decided I actually really want to be freelancing and I'm going to go after that, I decided that I would do that once I was freelancing on the side about like 50 % of my income at the time. And I also saved up six months of  runway, financial runway. So that  didn't make me feel less scared, but it at least made me feel like if this freelancing thing doesn't work out, my life is not going to crash and burn to the ground. Like I kind of have this six month buffer and I'm already making 50 % of my income on the side. So  I felt like those were two really good metrics for me  to feel like it was feasible. So  yeah, I don't think I ever really got less scared. I think I'm still like a little bit scared, but I think I just, I have like a lot of systems and approaches in place that helped me feel like  I,  I know that like things aren't going to crash and burn at least not overnight. Right? So yeah.

09:22

That's my approach.  Can you say more about some of the systems  that you have in place that help you manage your mindset? ah Yeah, that's a huge question.  I think there's a lot of different pieces to it, right? Because there's this piece of like, kind of like the classic freelance dilemma is like, oh my gosh, I'm so busy. But what if I never get work again? Like, what is what if this is the last work I ever had?

09:52

Which kind of plays into the like overbooking yourself cycle and also the feast or famine cycle.  Um,  that's definitely something that I, you know, I feel that pressure too. And so I think in that side of things,  I have systems like my marketing habits, which you talk a lot about like the morning marketing habit. And I've learned a lot from you in that,  or like building relationships is a big part of how I do my marketing and systems for like how much  I track my time and what kinds of projects I take on. And  I'm very  diligent about some of that tracking so that I'm not overbooking myself out of fear, but that I'm actually saying like, you know what, this is a full calendar and you're not going to take on more than that.  You know that this is enough. And then there's also the somewhat more like emotional side of things, I guess, where some of these broader questions or concerns about like, am I doing enough? Am I successful enough? Am I doing the right kinds of work? And those kinds of systems are more like making  sense of my goals,  making sense of what I want from my work. Those look more like doing monthly or quarterly reflections, journaling about  what I'm looking for, talking to a lot of people, having conversations to kind of keep turning those ideas over  and expanding them,  making goals and meeting them and seeing how that process feels and if it's something that was easy and felt like intuitive or if it was something I'm dragging my feet on every day, I don't want to do this thing. I  think  I spend a lot of time being curious about those reactions and emotions and being  honest with myself about like  what that means  and what my goals and and desires actually are and not just what I feel like they should be I think it is easy to  Take on other people's goals  and think that we ought to pursue Certain things I want to go back to something you said you said over booking myself out of fear  You also used this word enough

12:20

Which I think is a slippery word for a lot of us. Oh, totally when it came to defining enough for yourself  Mm-hmm  So that you could say I have enough work Did you?  Sit down and journal through that. How did you define enough for yourself? Yeah, I've defined it in different ways in different seasons. So, and I think that's true of all of us. And one thing that can get really slippery  is  sometimes  we're working off of a definition of enough that was true for us,  but it's no longer true.  That may actually be too much  now. So I'll give some examples. So maybe it's about six months or a year after I started freelancing full-time, I decided I wanted to take a sabbatical that summer. I was going to take a whole month off, five weeks, and I wasn't going to work at all during those five weeks.  And so in order to make that possible, I wanted to  kind of replace that income ahead of time, like make  up for it so that I would feel really secure doing that. And so  I took that sabbatical in in August and  I worked extra that previous spring to kind of build up that buffer income.

13:46

So in that spring season, my idea of enough was like quite, quite tied to my finances and my financial goals of getting my business off the ground, hitting certain income and savings targets, covering that month that I was taking off for my sabbatical. Um, so it was, it was very financially focused. um And I do this every year.  Since then,  I have  a minimum income target, and I also have a maximum income target. And so there actually was one year that I got to, I think it was the end of November, and then including what I had already booked for December. And I had already exceeded my maximum income target. um

14:43

There were people who came to me in December, you know, at the last minute, like, is there any chance you could help us get this across the finish line before Christmas?  And it's so tempting to just say yes,  because it's like  more work, more money, you know, like, why would I say no to more money? But having that set, like, this is my max  income target is really helpful for, for defining that sense of enough and seeing like, this is how much money I would like to make and then you know maybe my minimum is I don't know say 20 % less than that and my maximum is 20 % more than that  and  if  I am tracking way ahead of that that means that I'm overbooking myself or that means that I um am just taking on more work than I need to so that's one way that I've done it and then there are other seasons that I have just kind of put work on the back burner, honestly, to say like, life is really hard right now or life is really good right now. And I just want to have a little bit more flexibility to attend to the other things in my life that aren't work. And I think that's a huge benefit that freelancing can offer. And I don't really think enough people take advantage of that.

16:05

You mentioned that you will do reflection quarterly.  even just while listening to you talk, I thought, well, she studies her business.  She studies her own  responses to her business.  Can you pull back the curtain, so to speak,  on  when you make time for that, how you do that? How do you even stay in touch with yourself so that you can say,  I think I may need a break. Totally. Yeah, so my quarterly recaps,  I, my monthly recaps are pretty free form. I try to think about my work like my actual client work, my marketing or my business itself, my goals and kind of like life broadly.

16:59

And I just spend like 15 minutes at the end of every month. It's like a note in my calendar that repeats that reminds me to do it. And I'm just trying to pull out like anything that feels sticky or anything that feels like it stood out to me. If there was a client project that I really enjoyed or really didn't enjoy or a problem that I had and what I was doing about it. If there's anything that just feels like it's, it's somewhat of an outlier to my ordinary work life  or life life. I try to just jot that down and maybe there's some sense of reflection that I have of it. And maybe I'm not far enough away yet to kind of make any heads or tails of it. And then quarterly, I actually have  like a little format that I use where I go through like my goals for that quarter, my income for that quarter,  my time for that quarter.

17:56

And  I think the fourth one is,  I think the fourth one's my marketing for that quarter. And basically I'm  trying to look at what I planned and then look at what actually happened and understand  what and why any discrepancy happened between those things. And not in a judging way, like Oh, well, I set this income goal of whatever and I didn't meet it. So I'm doing bad. You know, it's not like that at all, but it's more like there was a couple, maybe a year ago that I had picked out a specific marketing tactic. I don't even remember what it was.  And,  you know, I was like, every week I'm going to do this thing.  And I got to the end of the quarter and I had done it like once, like one week out of 12.

18:48

And so that is an opportunity for me to be curious with myself and be like, okay,  why didn't this happen? Was it because I didn't put it on my calendar? So I never was sure when to do it. No, it was on my calendar. I just ignored it every week.  So why was I ignoring it every week? And then you can kind of just keep asking why until you get to the bottom where I was like, oh, this actually doesn't align with my like marketing values which are very relationship based. And so of course, I'm not going to want to do this thing that feels like  it doesn't align with my values. Like nobody wants to do that. So that was a good opportunity for me to say like, okay, so this isn't the marketing channel for me. And instead of just pretending that someday I will be the person who will do that,  I just need to accept I'm not the person who will do that and find something that will work for me.

19:46

So that's what I mean about that. Like being curious of myself and also being honest with myself. I think  we almost prize  difficulty and we assume that if something is difficult, it must be better. Yeah. And I've found myself  recently  often  saying to coaching clients and consulting clients, okay, you have not done this yet.

20:15

And to use your example, it has been in your calendar. It wasn't a lack of awareness and you didn't do it. And let's withhold, like you said, any judgments, any shame, show curiosity instead. What if you never do it? Or if you haven't done it yet, why would you do it in the future?

20:42

Right. You're not gonna wake up tomorrow and be a different person than you are today  and  So then that creates these really interesting conversations whether in your case  with yourself with your journal or in my case with my coaching clients  Especially like I said, we create that space where I'm not beating you up. No, I'm not trying to make you feel bad instead What if you just are never going to do it?

21:09

Right. Is it still important? And if the answer is yes, then clearly we need to delegate this somehow. And suddenly all this creativity opens up, Rachel. Suddenly we're able to find workarounds or we're like, well, can someone else on the team do it? Or do we need to hire someone or can we automate? And I can like watch palpable relief on this person's face instead of like pricing difficulty and thinking, well, some Scoutmaster in the sky is gonna give me a merit badge for doing hard things. What if it were easy? It seems like an important question. I wanna go back to relationships. You have mentioned that word more than once. Everyone knows what it means. How do you form relationships?

22:01

What a big question. You only have 17 seconds to answer. When I think about marketing, and I have this marketing dashboard set up in my Notion, and I have a picture at the top of it that my friend took of me a couple summers ago when we were camping. I'm standing on one of those wooden tent platforms in this little grove of trees.

22:24

And I'm wearing like my slouchy camping clothes  and I just, have my arms out to the side and a big smile on my face.  And I keep that at the top of my marketing dashboard because  I think  this is what I want my marketing to feel like to other people. Like I want it to feel like a nice, open,  like cozy space  where they're just meeting someone who's excited to meet them and who's excited to talk to them, excited to welcome them.

22:55

So that is kind of underneath how I think about relationships  is this idea  of hospitality, really, a sense of openness and welcomeness.  And  obviously, like if I can be of service to you, if I can be helpful to you, um that's part of it as well. But I think, you know,  we tend to have  really shallow ideas of relationships both  in like work and in culture at large, where we kind of  view relationships very transactionally. And I run into this sometimes, I just followed up.  I've reached out to an old client of mine the other day and was just kind of saying like, hey, it's been a long time. How are you doing? What kinds of new projects have you guys been working on? I was really excited to see XYZ.

23:49

And they responded, I wrote this really nice note and they were like, we don't have any work for you, but like, you're always top of mind. And I was like, oh, I wasn't,  genuinely like, wasn't really even thinking that.  Um, like if you had had, that's also fine. But I think we have this idea that the relationship only exists for the transaction.  Um,  which is just kind of a bummer.

24:18

So I think I think about relationships in a much more like,  think people are just really interesting and I'm curious  about you in the same way that I'm kind of curious about myself.  I'm curious about people's experiences, about their ideas, about how they tackle their work and how they think about their work.  And  so I, you know, I basically kind of feel like, oh, if you're curious about content or if you work in the content industry or content marketing or anything around that bubble, I'm kind of curious about you and I'm curious about how you think about the world and how you approach things. So that's how I approach relationships is with that lens of kind of openness and curiosity first. I'm not trying to sell you something or to convince you to work with me or to trust me or I'm not a great salesperson but I will be your friend.  I personally think that curiosity gives us an advantage  when we do want to sell something. That's maybe a conversation for another time.  Let's say you stumble across someone  on LinkedIn who, who peaks your curiosity. What do you do? I DM them right away. I'm such a big DMer. will write to anybody. And I don't know if this is good advice. like, do what you know. your mileage may vary. But I will cold DM people, complete strangers on LinkedIn, like as if we're friends and we've been friends for years. I'll be like, Oh my gosh,  I just saw you posted about this  and you said you read this book and I am obsessed with that book  and I would love to talk about it with you  or like just stuff like that. Like I, I  do it. I messaged someone once. was years ago. And I was like, I saw that you posted that you and your fiance are eating, like trying to find the best pasta restaurant in the North end, which is in a neighborhood in Boston where I live.

26:46

And I was like, I have an amazing recommendation for you if you haven't like gone there yet. And she was like, oh my gosh, please tell me we have a spreadsheet. And I was like, what? Like, can I see your spreadsheet? Like, can you give me some recommendations? And we just had this lovely chat about our favorite pasta restaurants in the North End. And then I don't think we ever talked again, honestly. But like we had that amazing conversation. And I think

27:12

A lot of times you kind of have this one-off conversation and you feel like, oh, wow, I connected with another human that feels really good.  And it never goes anywhere. And sometimes it does go somewhere. And that's also great. ah But yeah, I'll DM anybody about anything that catches, catches my curiosity.  have no shame.  Again, I think no shame can be very helpful or as helpful in the marketing process as curiosity is in the sales process. Yeah. And um I would caveat by saying like, there are things we should have shame about. If you're sending those terrible cold emails and cold LinkedIn DMs that I get all the time and everybody gets like by the hundreds,  you should have shame about that.  Hey, let me  me stop you. You cut for a second. Okay. You were saying, hey, there are definitely some things you should have shame about and then I think you're going to give an example.  yes. If you're the person who's sending like a thousand of those terrible AI generated cold emails a day that we all get, you should feel some shame about that. Be ashamed of yourself. But  if you are messaging somebody with like genuine desire to connect,  you know, as a human to a human, or even like a genuine desire to be helpful. Like I know some people on LinkedIn are like, I don't want to get pitch slaps. Like I don't want people pitching me in my inbox. And I kind of feel like, yeah, bad pitches are annoying. But like also this is a work platform. People are going to pitch you and some of them are not going to be good pitches. Like that's okay. You know, like that's not really hurting you. I don't think that you need to feel shame about reaching out to somebody who's a stranger  or posting on LinkedIn for the first time and posting something cringy or trying out a new marketing technique and it doesn't work. Like, oh well, so what? Who cares? I don't know. That's my approach. I have so many questions, but I'll limit myself to two. I'll ask them both at the same time. One, do you ever pitch in DMs or if not, how do you move the conversation forward?  you think there's more to talk about than just  Italian restaurants in the North End.  And two, have you always had a high degree of confidence? And if not,  how have you developed it?  I'll do the pitches one first, because that's an easier question. oh

30:03

I do pitch via LinkedIn DMs and I will cold pitch via DMs too. So I will cold pitch to people on LinkedIn that I've never had a conversation with before.  And  there's lots of resources out there for good cold pitching. I think I used to be fairly bad at it and most of my pitches got ignored. And I over time learned to get better at it and actually I sent... a cold pitch.  I recently started a collective blog. So it's a blog that a bunch of us are working on together. And I cold pitched someone on LinkedIn who I wanted to join us.  And I made a little bit of a joke like, Oh, nothing like a cold pitch in your DMS on Friday. And they responded and they were like, Well, I don't mind cold pitches if it's a good one. If it's called a cold pitch, like if you own it.

30:54

Yeah, so I thought like, oh wow, I think I've graduated to like better cold pitching. But yeah, so I will.  Or I will say,  you know, something like, you know, em it's been so great chatting with you. Like I actually have a great idea, like for some work we could do together, would you want to chat more about that? Or like... you know, oftentimes it comes up organically. I'll turn the conversation towards like, what are you working on these days? Or what do you do? Blah, blah. And then they might say XYZ and then I can kind of tag on to that. And just, I don't know, it feels very organic to me. I don't really have a formula. I don't really have like a five step process. And it's, that's a little bit inefficient. And I think it takes a little bit more like social energy perhaps, but I think it feels a little bit more true to who I am and  and hopefully feels a little bit less annoying to the person on the other end. I think it's  hard to  confuse  a handwritten  pitch or message with one that was  efficient because it was AI generated. Yeah. uh

32:12

Or even just like too templated, like too formulaic. Right. Yeah. they wrote it by hand or wrote it scratch, they're following a structure that um is too obvious. So  I find, I think maybe my own experience backs up what you were saying. I find myself more open or receptive to  people whose  dirty fingerprints, so to speak, are all over the message. Like, Oh, at least I know I'm

32:42

Speaking to a real person.  What about what about the confidence?  What would you say about the confidence? Yeah,  I  Would not describe myself as somebody who has a lot of confidence But I would describe myself as somebody who has like a high degree of like risk tolerance  or like tolerance for  like trying new things  perhaps because

33:08

To me, kind of feel like confidence feels like, oh, I'm confident that my ideas are going to work, or I'm confident that this is going to be received well. And I don't feel that way.  But I do feel like I'm confident that even if everyone on LinkedIn points and laughs at me  after I post this,  that  none of those people really matter. And the people who do matter in my life won't laugh and point at me.  So good.

33:37

So maybe part of it is like having a good support system  outside of work that gives me, gives me,  yeah, like confidence to  be a little bit more risky or experimental because I know that like there are people who really know me and love me. So I don't need that kind of like affirmation  perhaps from my work.  Um, that could be a part of it. I also think.

34:05

I have tried a lot of things and failed at a lot of things  in my work and in my life. And so I have come to understand that something not working out or something flopping or something,  being bad at something or failing at something,  just  often,  it just doesn't really matter that much.  It certainly doesn't kill you. Right? Yeah. Right.

34:31

And I think we have this sense even about really small things like,  oh, well, like, what if I post on LinkedIn and it's really cringy or nobody likes it or nobody reacts to it? And then I kind of am like, well, if nobody likes it or reacts to it, then that probably means nobody saw it. So you're the only one that knows that that happened. So it doesn't matter. um true. But even if like I have done some like quite

35:01

You know, I think I've, I'm, I'm actually increasingly do more and more public experiments  that could flop. And I think I just kind of feel like the internet is so ephemeral, like nobody even remembers what happened two weeks ago. So unless you do something that's like  actually quite transgressive, like, like morally or ethically bad, probably people are not going to remember in just a few short weeks that your experiment flop.

35:32

So  good.  I agree. My wife and I have talked at length about how  one of the competencies or aptitudes, I'm not quite sure what you call it,  but one of them that we want to instill in our three kids  is  a willingness to look foolish. Because  when I think about how the world is changing and how like, will continue, human beings will continue to grow and the complex world we live in,  I think that a willingness to look foolish is  an advantage  because you get so many more cycles of learning in.  Rather than keep talking about that, I have some,  two more questions as we close. Okay. You talked about  print coming back which I to hear more about. And you have a print newsletter, which I want you to tell people about. And then I guess maybe I have three things. Then I want to hear about who a dream client is for you. And it may dovetail into the first two questions. Yeah. Okay. So is printmaking a comeback? Yes or no? I think the answer is yes.

36:54

Right now there's a little bit of talk about like an analog trend, like everybody's buying the bricks for their phone. It's a little bit trendy right now, but I think that print coming back is not just going to be a trend. um I think that as stuff on the internet in general becomes more and more unverifiable  of if it's true or who made it or where it came from. Print  will rise up to take that, to fill in that gap a little bit. You know, it was like this when the internet first came out  too, where there was a sense of like, oh, don't look at Wikipedia, like use the encyclopedia, right? Because like Wikipedia, who knows where it came from or who made it.

37:45

And then over time, we found ways to make the internet more verifiable and more accurate. you know, and now it's kind of declining again, where we're like, oh, not really sure what these sources are. And so I think it may be a circle where it comes again that like print has a real weight to it. Um, literal weight, but also like a mental and emotional weight where if something got printed out, that means something. And so that's part of it. And I think another part of it is a sense  of the internet is just endless. It's very overwhelming. You're never going to catch up on all the tabs you have open. You're never going to catch up on all the email newsletters, the podcasts, the YouTube videos.  So many good ones are coming out every day.  And you are human with limited capacity.

38:43

And you're just never going to catch up. But if somebody sends you a magazine  or an essay on a piece of paper in the mail, you can hold that in your hands and it can sit on your desk and it's finite. It's, it's this finite thing that you can see how big it is. And it feels much less overwhelming. There's also, you know, I could go on. There's also the nostalgia piece and the wanting to get away from screens piece  and print feels like a little bit more tangible and more connective, especially if, for example, like something's handwritten, that's a big deal. So yeah, there's lots of reasons, but I think print is absolutely making a comeback and will continue to do so. There's precedent too. Absolutely. Like eBooks were supposed to kill printed books. Yeah, that's right. after iTunes... got adopted over on the PC side and helped make MP3s ubiquitous. Yeah, maybe CDs  got killed, but  vinyl experienced this huge resurgence. So. yeah, vinyl's so hot right now. It's,  and you know, has been, vinyl's been hot for like 20 years, right? Like if we went back  and looked at when

40:09

iTunes  as a piece of software started to take off. think we would see I bet its adoption in terms of like the growth curve would would track pretty closely with the  like rebound of vinyl but  anyway, I think what you're saying has precedence Talk to me about your newsletter. Yeah, so last year I started a print newsletter and I send it out monthly  and I've actually had a number of people reach out to me in the past few weeks and say, I just signed up for your print newsletter and I didn't sign up before because I thought it was just for your clients. And so I will go on the record of saying it is for anybody who is curious about it. You don't have to be a client to sign up. But I've run a print newsletter. It's broadly about content, creativity,  and what it means to make things  in the world today.

41:08

I have so much fun with it. I have done all kinds of different things. I've done zines, I've done bingo cards, I've done like actual  newspaper.  I've done comic strips. I've done little like, I don't know, I've done all kinds of stuff.  An advent calendar, which is neat. Yes, I did the advent calendar.  It's so fun. And I think  one of the big responses that I get from it is like, people saying,  this is so like effortful. This makes me feel really cared for because you are clearly putting like a lot of time and effort into this, which is fascinating to me on so many levels. um But I think  I like, really,  really want  to make content that makes people feel that way. And I think it's  very  like it's

42:06

It's not how most content gets created on the internet. And that's fine. Content serves different purposes in different places and for different outlets. That  is how it should be. But I think having this project and doing this print newsletter has been a really cool way for me to  make hospitable content  that people can... can read and feel like there's another human on the other end that really cares about these ideas, cares about making this well. And I think people just find it really delightful. Like it's fun to get something in the mail that's not a bill. And with stickers on the envelope. Yes, people always talk about the stickers. And I think I have like a fairly like whimsical style to it, I think. It's like not very serious. The ideas are serious, but the  format is  quite playful and joyful. And I just think, I don't know, I think we need that right now.

43:09

Rachel, I did not get to, I would say 75 % of my questions because I wanted to hear more about the other things that we talked about. I'm so glad I just ditched the questions. Let's end with who a dream client would be and where people can find you if they want to check you out online. I'll make sure we put the sign up link for that, the newsletter and the show notes, but dream client, where can people find you? Yes. My dream client right now  is anyone who has a small team and a unique product and they are in the sweet spot. Like they've gotten started with content and marketing, but they don't yet have like a repeatable system for what works. So they are probably a startup or scale up.

44:07

They have tried some things, they have some ideas, but they are still in the experimentation phase. uh But they also  have like a little bit of wiggle room in terms of like resources or budget to be able to actually do those experiments. It's a really fun sweet spot. It's a space that I thrive in  and I take a very  experimentative approach to marketing and content. And so it just, it ends up being a really great match. The brands can be like the it could be any kind of product. It could be B2B, B2C. But when they're in that exact time and phase of building out their marketing engine is where I can really bring a lot of value to their team. Yeah, it sounds like you want to create remarkable content, not just any content. All right. So how do people find you? Yes, finding me online. You can always find me on LinkedIn.

45:05

And I also have a website. It's Rachontheweb.com. Awesome. I'll make sure those links get into the show notes. Rachel, I may have to have you back. This was a lot of fun. to come back. It's always so much fun to chat with you. Thank you again. And until next time. Sounds good. Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun.

45:32

Hey, before you go, let me invite you to join our community for more established, advanced freelancers. It's called the Freelance Cake Community. One member named Michelle had this to say, I'm just so impressed by the quality of the conversation that's happening in the group. The in-depth questions, experiments, and thoughts being shared are just so refreshing. And the other communities I'm a part of, it's all beginner questions, which is fine but it's awesome to find a more advanced space where it's okay to ask more advanced questions. Thank you, Michelle. Here's a little more about the community. Each week we do live group coaching and live coworking. You get access to a massive resource library and obviously the community itself, which we host using Circle. Of course, the people are the best part of all this. It really helps to surround yourself with smart, accomplished, and optimistic people who are out there taking risks  and building the businesses they really want. If that interests you, visit  freelancecake.com forward slash community to learn more and apply. You can find that link in the show notes. I hope to see you there.