Entrepreneur Check-In, Issue No. 6: You Betta Act Like It

Originally written in September 2026, recapping August. Every month, I write a check-in zine documenting year one of running my own creative practice. These are those dispatches, lightly edited for public eyes.

Well, I certainly hope you didn’t think I was going to let TWO months go by without an entrepreneur check-in!

I’m sitting here with my cup full (and my eyes WET) after watching Jilly From Philly on Scott Evans’ show, so I said, “What better time to catch up?”

Pour up some tea. Grab your softest throw. And let’s catch up!!!

THE HIGHS (big & small wins)

• I think...I'm...a consultant now???
  More on that below because this became a whole identity crisis/business strategy shift.
  
  

• A Side of Greens is officially live.
  This is the business I made an LLC earlier this year. I didn't plan on officially launching it publicly until 2027....but here we are: Website. LinkedIn. The whole lil consultancy now exists where other people can see it.
  
  For months, A Side of Greens was something I was building behind the scenes while doing the actual client work. At some point, I realized... why am I waiting? So I finally introduced her properly.
  
  

• I'm getting clearer about what people are actually hiring me for.
  It only took me 9 months lol. But it's not just "Can Michelle write this?" More and more, I'm being brought into the messy middle where a team has research, a million opinions, and needs someone to figure out what all of it actually means creatively before we start making things.

THE LOWS (reality checks)

• The solo part of solopreneur is....lonely.
  No coworkers sending you a ridiculous Slack about work. No team around to witness the tiny victories or help metabolize the meetings that irk us.
  
  I've got wonderful people around me, obviously...look at you reading this. But running the business itself can feel like being on an island sometimes.

• I got a course in "read the contract...x3!!!"
  I discovered language I used in a proposal to showcase client work...but it didn't actually make it into one of my final contracts. Lesson learned.

FEATURE STORY: YOU BETTA ACT LIKE IT

At the beginning of the summer, our good friend reached out to ask if I could help lead some product narrative work at their company. But she introduced me in a way that I hadn't done before: "Michelle is a consultant running her own consultancy." Ma'am. I'm a WHAT?

And she said it at the right time. I'd been running into situations where I'd give prospective clients my freelance rate and hear some version of, "That's too much." But when I started talking about the same work through the lens of consulting, the conversations changed (and so did the budgets).

Logically, it didn't make sense because they're getting the same Michelle services. But the more I've thought about it, I realize my title was catching up.

"Freelancer" made people think I'm there just to execute. But so much of my work starts several steps before that in strategy and conceptual thinking. That's consulting. I've been doing quite a bit of it this year while calling myself something smaller.

Which has me hearing my mom in my head. She'd ask me, "What's your name?" I'd respond, "Michelle Turpin." And she'd say, "You betta act like it!"

SEPTEMBER TRAILER (coming soon...)

It’s birthday mooooonth.

And in true Virgo fashion, I plan to celebrate making it through another lap around the sun with my business, nervous system, and MY JOYYYYYYYY mostly intact.

There’s more happening behind the scenes, more figuring out what this little consultancy wants to become, and hopefully a little room to actually enjoy the thing I’ve been building.

Until the next one....

Byyyyyyeeeeeeee!