Chad Gravallese
I’m Chad, a freelancing dad and homebody entrepreneur. My mission is to help bring dad home, so he can be more involved in his family’s daily life, while working less and earning more. I built Freelancing Dads as a community where dads or husband/wife business owners who work from home can share and learn how to survive and thrive when business and family are under one roof. Rewind…
We're always in the middle of our story but here's a recap of what brought me to where I am today. I grew up with a passion for the movies. I was the kid who always carried around a video camera and I roped my friends and family into countless videos. I love how effectively video can teach and inspire people so I went to college to study film and media.
After college I worked as a freelance video producer for online education businesses but I flip flopped between full-time employee work and freelancing. In my employee jobs and freelance business I helped online businesses create videos for social media.
Hold on...is your story really that simple? Did you just start freelancing after college that easily? Ha! No.
I've always wanted to be self-employed. My parents divorcing when I was 13 probably had something to do with my motivation to be on my own, to become self-reliant, to have more control over my career, which is why freelancing was always an attractive option and filmmaking is almost entirely an independent career. But after college, I didn't just jump right into freelancing.
I was married 2 years prior to graduating and right after I graduated we got pregnant. Things got real and I needed to find a job fast so I could support my new family. So I accepted a full-time salary job for a local company as a video editor. I was getting paid $12/hour. I thought I was rich! It was a $3 increase from my student jobs. I commuted 45 minutes on a train each day to work, sat in a dark room and scanned through video footage for 8 hours.
It was not fun. I didn’t like being away from my wife all day who was experiencing pregnancy sickness. And literally 10 hours of my day 5 days a week was spent away from home. That was not going to work once the baby was born. So I started causally looking for freelance editing jobs because I knew that most people in the video production industry were freelancers.
I soon found a client locally through my connections and started shooting and editing videos for them as a side hustle. It was only a couple hours per week and I was able to do most of the editing on my train commute. 3 months into this first employee job my freelance client offered me a full-time job because they needed a lot more video work. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse because this new job allowed me to work from home and my hourly wage would go up from $12/hour to $20/hour. So I quit and started my new work from home employee job.
I enjoyed not having to commute. I could see my wife more during breaks and even though I still had to work close to 40 hours, I was home most of the day. Sometimes I would go away to shoot videos.
I'll be honest with you, at first I really enjoyed the benefits of a corporate job, the consistent income, the paid vacations. But underneath all the "glamour" I still felt uneasy about it. I still didn’t have the income potential and flexibility that I really wanted even though I was working from home as an employee. In the long-run, incremental pay raises every year would not support my growing family because we didn’t want my wife to have to work. So I occasionally had thoughts of pursuing freelancing again but in my mind it was too risky at the time. Well, the choice was made for me.
5 months into that second job, the company I worked for had to make a big downsize and I got let go. I cycled through two employee jobs in 8 months. I was off to a great start! All of my job security was gone in an instant. And to make matters worse, I was 3 months away from my son being born. I started thinking, maybe it's less risky if I diversify my employment and so the thought of freelancing resurfaced. I then decided to start my own videography business. At that point, freelancing was just as risky as going after another employee job and in 2016 very few companies were allowing employees to work from home.
For the next 9 months I struggled. I really struggled. My lack of communication skills and sales skills is what really held me back. I knew how to edit videos but didn’t know how to sell. I was always shy growing up and my avoidance of people really made things even worse. I also didn't have a clue how to prioritize the most important elements of turning a creative hobby into a freelance business. I didn't have the right mindset or skillset to make it work. I sank into massive debt, had wildly inconsistent income, and suffered with anxiety.
So, I gave up on freelancing and went back to a salary job. The previous company that fired me, bounced back and wanted me full-time again. They approached me when I was desperate so it was a pretty easy decision. A year into that 3rd attempt at an employee job, I realized that freelancing was the only way I could be fully happy in my career. I had consistent income again but still felt insecure. And at any moment I could lose all my income again. So, after much debate, I quit my job and attempted freelancing a second time. This time though, I made a list of all my weaknesses that contributed to failure the first time. I literally had no education about freelancing when I first attempted it.
So I found mentors, read books, attended workshops, and listened to any podcasts I could find teaching me how to overcome those weaknesses until I had mastered the skills I was lacking. Within 3 months of restarting my freelance career, I was earning enough income to support my family, that was stable and predictable, while also having work-life balance, control over my time and very low stress. And throughout this whole process, I always put my family first. I never worked more than 30 hours per week because being a dad is my primary career. Now I work closer to 20-25 per week while still being able to grow my business. I’m finally here to stay. There’s no turning back.
I want to help freelancing parents who are struggling like I did. So that’s why Freelancing Dads was born.
Do I only want to help dads? What about moms who freelance?
My purpose is to help the whole family, starting with bringing dad home and helping him earn more money in less time, so his wife no longer wants to pull her hair out. Everything I teach will help any parent who is freelancing and a lot of the skills-based strategies are applicable to any freelancer whether they’re a parent or not. But you have to approach things a little differently when you’re raising kids and especially when only one parent is bringing in all the income.
So most of my advice is in the context of working from home as a freelancer, while raising kids. And more specifically, I’m speaking to dads because they are an underserved demographic in the freelancing space. There are plenty of mom freelancing blogs out there and most moms will relate more to other moms who are freelancing anyways. And many moms who freelance are part-time and their husbands are still working a normal full-time job so it’s a very different financial situation and different family dynamic. I’m a dad and the only income provider for my family so that’s who will relate with me the most.
Families where the mom doesn’t want to work while her kids are young and would love for her husband to earn enough money staying home will benefit most from what we discuss here. Situations where husband and wife are both freelancing or running a business together part-time from home can fit here too if in total the hours put in still aren’t quite full-time. The point is that families are spending more time together than the average.
My mission is to help bring dad home so he can help mom out more. Much of the child care burden has been heavily placed on the mom for generations. And let’s be honest, working in a job is much easier than raising children so for the dads that think that they are equally splitting life responsibilities because he earns the money and she takes care of the kids, you need to ask your wife if she sees it the same way. And you need to spend more time with your kids without your wife present and then you’ll understand.
Yes, working can be stressful and trying to figure out how to keep increasing your income and providing financially is not easy, especially when you haven’t gained momentum yet but I can tell you from being a work at home dad, when I’m working I feel like I’m having a break. Yup, working feels like a break. Kids will push every button to squeeze all the ugly out of you. Clients and employers don’t even come close to causing the stress that kids cause. BUT it’s totally worth it. The benefits of having kids in my opinion still far outweigh the stress. And when dad and mom are both sharing some of the child care responsibilities, the stress is reduced significantly and each parent can have more life balance.
Most families either have both parents working or the dad working only. It’s rare that the mom is the only income provider unless she’s a single parent because biologically children need their moms more in their early years. That’s the same truth for every animal. So that’s why traditionally dad has been the only the one working while the kids are young. And there’s nothing sexist about that. I’m all for women pursuing careers and earning money but when you choose to have kids, priorities change temporarily.
Raising kids really is a very small percentage of your life, especially if your kids go to public school. So it is a very temporary sacrifice and career ambitions have to be secondary during that time in order to give your kids the time from you that they deserve.
In our house, we homeschool so it’s even more of a burden on my wife if I’m not working at home helping. I’m grateful that I have figured out how to work 20-25 hours per week and support my family. And we’re not just getting by, there is enough income to move us forward financially and have extra to spend. it is possible. And I’m excited to share with you what I’ve learned. I also am looking forward to what advice you have to share with me if you’re already freelancing at home.
So as you can see, I’m not just here to help dads, I’m here to help the whole family so your home can be a more enjoyable place to be. And it all starts with getting the financial piece in order with dad working at home as a freelancer.
Contact me anytime so we can learn from each other!