When I was running my own business it seemed work always came in peaks and valleys. Helping people get online was always my favourite part of it. Having to worry about making sure I had the next project to work on when one was finished, I hated.
Not knowing when I would be paid for from someone was hard too. Really I guess it comes down to the fact that I didn’t like and wasn’t good at the business part. It felt like a catch 22 situation, I could find someone to help with the business part but was never really busy enough to justify or afford that.
In the past few months I’ve ended up having more inquiries and people looking for web development work than I did in a long time. If I wasn’t 100% sure that I’m in the right spot at Automattic it would almost be tempting to take a look.
Just one of the great parts of working at Automattic and supporting WordPress.com is that I still get to help people all day get setup online without having to make sure there was a next person to help. There is a steady stream of users looking for help from me.
It’s not quite the same thing as going from the beginning to the end with one client but everyday I get to help many people. Some it might just be a small question but others it’s finding out what they really need and if WordPress.com is the best option for them. I wish I had of used WordPress.com more when I was doing client work. For many of the sites I did it would have been more than enough without having to worry about server side aspect of things at all.
Sandy McFadden 
I use WordPress.com for one of my two music sites, alexsanfordmusic.com. Primarily because I wanted free hosting, and didn’t need any theme customization or plugins or anything. At least not at this point.
My blog, indieartistlounge.com is another story. I don’t have much experience with the paid hosting option for Wordpess.com, but from what I read, using another host is the more flexible way to go. It’s been working out well for me so far.
Nice post! 🙂
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