On January 1st, the limited liability company CC Creative Complexity GmbH went into liquidation. Creative Complexity as an idea and the brand under which I'm doing my freelance work will continue to exist.
The inevitable question I was asked through the past weeks — “What if anything would you do differently?” – has some easy answers.
Keep the name.
No, I wouldn't change the name. From the moment I bought the domain, I knew I was in for trouble. Creative Complexity is a bulky brand name. It's long and complicated and perceived as contradicting and sounds like a lot of effort. Most potential clients don't want that. But working with those who do is a blast. Challenging, fun and sustainable.
Have more starting capital.
I'm not rich, I'm not poor. But I started with too little money to grow beyond myself. More money in this case means 2 FTE year salaries. This is for two reasons: 1) to start the company with the mindset of a team growing into it, and 2) to bridge downtimes and financial losses. Working overtime and raising rates, I could theoretically make profits that will eventually pay another person and so on, but it takes a longer and relies on economic growth.
Find a client services partner.
Being a solo-founder is probably more stressful and has some legal quirks, but ultimately, it's ok. What I needed was a partner who enjoys client services. The tasks of approaching potential clients, setting and negotiating rates – tasks I still need to do as a freelancer - are very draining for me. From my agency life, I do know that there are people out there who are not just excellent at it but also enjoy it. It baffles me, but that clear separation of responsibilities was always very successful.
Focus on brand building.
My personal LinkedIn marketing is good and has led to some projects in the past. Unfortunately, it also led to situations where suggesting bringing in more people into a project was perceived as upselling rather than doing a better job. LinkedIn definitely prefers personal to company profiles, so this is a difficult task that I should have taken more seriously to allow the company to be larger than myself.
Formalize the network.
The company was always just a legal framework to bring the flexibility of freelancers to companies who only hire incorporated service providers. But the network of people I'm working with always stayed too informal. It was more of a "I really enjoy working with you and let's see if I can bring you in" than a partnership, resulting in volatility on both sides of the equation. Freelancers are more flexible in their professional and personal choices (taking time off, taking and leaving a fixed positions) and projects - so it's difficult to make a fixed plan. At the same time, projects commitments are also not as secure anymore – many projects are looking for "ways out" of a contract on a sprint-by-sprint basis.
What's next
For now, I'm planning to stay a freelancer. I'm always open to interesting fixed positions, but burnt my fingers a bit with accepting a position that was supposed to be my dream job. But who knows which opportunities I might stumble upon.
Fun with side projects
When my friend mentioned "back to the roots", she thought of my side projects. When we were studying, I was always programming a friend's website, learning creative coding, performing at a poetry slam, writing a theater play.
In 2024, I thoroughly enjoyed working for my R&D Fellowship by Media Lab Bayern last year, deep-diving into the persona method that I've been criticizing for years and building an AI-based proof-of-concept. I did a large-scale LLM data analysis experiment with "Who are those people?" trying to understand the viability of LLM to replace user research in the UX process. And I founded the synthetic band "The The Papers" as a vehicle to explore how mature generative audio and video generation actually is.
These were little projects wrapped around my professional research interests. And, tbh, they were the most fun I had in years. They also represent the essence of what I always wanted to achieve with Creative Complexity.
While saying goodbye to the company feels a little sad (I like to describe it as “divorcing myself”), it is also a relief, letting go of the organizational and administrative responsibilities. And with that, I'm looking forward to the main and side projects of 2025.
Cheers to the New Year.