Sign up for my workshop with Maven: Makeover Your Personal Brand is happening on Friday, May 8. There are only 5 spots, so we can keep the group intimate and provide feedback to each other! Snag a seat >

If you missed my free workshop on Personal Branding for Multi-Passionate People, I’m running it back for the Moxie community on Wednesday, May 6. RSVP >

I stumbled into a portfolio career after months of trying to narrow in on the “perfect” career pivot. I had been in product marketing for 7+ years, and after a lot of soul-searching, I realized that in order to truly have the freedom and flexibility I wanted, I had to work for myself.

This sent me down a rabbit hole of brainstorming various business ideas, feeling uncertain if that was my true calling, and delaying the entire process.

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, you can think of a portfolio career like a pie. Every slice is a different interest, income stream, or project.

Ever since I heard the term “portfolio career”, I’ve been freed. Rather than feel the pressure to choose one thing for the rest of my life, I know I’m meant to build out multiple.

While I originally built a portfolio career for the flexibility, I’m seeing more people build portfolio careers to avoid relying on a single employer.

If you need some structure to build your portfolio career, here are a few pieces of advice that I live by.

If you’re just starting out, anchor income is your best friend. This is income that helps sustain your lifestyle while the new income stream isn’t making money yet.

To find your anchor income, take a look at your as-is expenses. Ideally your anchor income covers all of it, but if not, decide how much of a dip you’re willing to take in this interim period.

Anchor income can be from a full-time job, assuming you have some time outside of the job to work on building. It can also come from freelancing, fractional, contract work, and any other stable income that gives your brain peace of mind.

While we will eventually have a portfolio career pie with lots of pretty slices, for now, I suggest focusing on one thing at a time.

If you’re struggling to figure out what to start with, brain dump everything that sounds interesting to you first and ask yourself:

The goal for your career experiment is to validate if you like the thing you want to do and if you can get someone else to pay for it. Start with your hypothesis:

If I help [audience] solve [problem] with [solution/offer], then I’ll feel [feeling] and learn [learning].

Once you have your hypothesis, this is where you need to take action by talking and listening to your target audience.

Make a list of the people who you can conduct research calls with to validate the problem and your solution.

Transcribe the call and/or take note of what language people are using when they’re talking about the problem and their desired state.

Create a scrappy landing page (this could also be a Google Doc) with the marketing copy using the exact words from your research calls. Add a founding member or beta price that’s lower than you’d typically market it as.

Before you spend time building out the full product/course/service etc, share it.

Think about where your target audience spends their time and share your “MVP” (minimal viable product) in these places. Bonus points if you have already built some personal brand equity—it makes things easier.

If you have even one signup, that’s validation that you’re on the right track. If you hear crickets, it could be a sign you need to amp up the value people would be getting out of it. If you hear objections, handle those on the page, in 1:1 calls, or in your marketing emails.

Either way, you’re gathering information to improve this for the future.

Once you have the first piece of your portfolio career stable, you can repeat the process for other interests and offers.

Was this helpful? Where do you get stuck when building out your portfolio career? Hit reply and let me know! I read every response 🙂

Last week, I went to 4 IRL events and joined Fabrik (pictured below). I was getting tired of working from home every day, so I’m excited to go into Tribeca 1x/week.

This week, I’m in San Francisco! I am one of the weird people who actually loves traveling for work. If you’re in SF, come grab coffee with me on Friday!

SF Coffee Meetup | Fri, May 1
I’m coming to San Francisco in a few weeks, and I’d love to meet up with anyone who is interested in grabbing coffee. Whether you’re in corporate or looking to build a portfolio career, hope you’ll join! RSVP here >

Makeover Your Personal Brand | Fri, May 8
In this half-day working session, you won't just learn how to improve your personal brand, you'll actually work on it live with peers, from getting clear on your positioning to refreshing your visuals and bio on LinkedIn. RSVP here >

Unblock Strategy Sprint
Get 60 minutes of strategic support on Zoom, personalized strengths mapping with an Enneagram assessment, and 2 weeks of async support to help unblock your goals and come up with a concrete action plan.

Reimagine 1:1 Coaching
Reimagine is a highly personalized 1:1 coaching program for multi-passionate women ready to build their portfolio career. Book a free career strategy call with me to learn more.