> Unless you can monetize glitter and rainbows, you shouldn’t base your business on unicorns.

Me at FoWA in London. Photo by James Cox.

Howdy! I’m Amy. Pleased to meetcha. I’m an American expat living in lovely Vienna, Austria. I sometimes have green hair. I always crack terrible jokes.

I am a Product Crusader!

I believe in products.

I believe in the power of products to transform their makers’ lives — products are the only true path to economic freedom. Not working by the hour. Not building other people’s dreams. Not theoretically creating for your customer’s customer, but really creating for your customer’s committee.

The real difference between the truly rich and the rest of us mokes is that the truly rich have assets that earn money for them. When you make your own products, you build your own assets.

You can sell em… and then sell em some more. You can sell the rights as a nice big lump. Or you can pivot, twist, update, repurpose them, and sell ‘em forever.

And every time you make a sale, you’ve found a person who’s likely to buy from you again! Assets, man. They’re awesome.

Anyone who can freelance can create a product. Anyone who is a creator — designers, developers, writers, teachers, trainers, musicians — can create a product.

No Pixie Dust Here: Unicorn Free is Free of Unicorns

Unicorn Free is all about no-nonsense product-building advice for freelancers (and even wageslaves) in the creative fields.

Some might call a unicorn-free business a “lifestyle business”, but I call it “profitable business.”

My budding product empire

I practice what I preach. Here are the products I’m using for different types of income to keep my unicorn-free biz rolling and growing:

• Freckle Time Tracking, subscription web-based time tracker for freelancers & small teams – my main gig
• Charm, customer support + CRM = love. Launching Oct 2012.
• JavaScript Performance Rocks!, an ebook + tool package for the esoteric topic of JavaScript performance; a nice, monthly supplemental income
• 30×500 Product Launch Class, an intense 3-month course for people who want to learn everything they need to know about coming up with, creating and launching their very first product. Will reopen in the summer.
• JavaScript Master Class, HTML5 Mobile Pro, live training and home study workshops. A great windfall, whether we do it online or at a corporate event. When we need to buy something big, we do a couple classes, et voila.

I was a highly paid product mercenary

I’m a web developer & interaction designer / product strategist by trade. But really, underneath that respectable veneer of a title, I’m a hustler.

I’ve spent years in the trenches at ridiculous — sometimes ridiculously large — companies, as an employee and a consultant. I’ve seen every form of corporate dysfunction; as a highly-paid consultant to Fortune 100 companies, I’ve watched my work repeatedly get destroyed by committees (or never shipped at all).

I was a creator, who never got to ship a thing. Horrors!

Til I up and quit

In January 2010, I quit consulting for good. No more building other people’s dreams for me.

I’d already started building my own products on the side in late 2008. Trying to ease into it.

But in January 2010, I realized: I’ll never be able to save enough money. I have to quit now. I will MAKE enough money.

My goal: Build an independent empire & inspire you to do the same

So far, I’ve been working on our first product, Freckle Time Tracking, since mid-2008. That’s by far the longest continuous stretch I’ve ever done at a single job.

This whole “making your own shit is more fun” thing is true. (And profitable!)