How I Networked in a New City While Chasing My Dream Job

• Chris Naydenov realized no 1 in Berlin when he moved there to go after his desire of  pictures.
• He took a career as a janitor to make ends meet even though he promoted himself and manufactured contacts.
• This is how he turned a cohead of a digital-marketing agency, as told to Kezia Rice.

This as-instructed-to essay is primarily based on a transcribed dialogue with Chris Naydenov, a 24-calendar year-outdated photographer in Berlin, about how he supported himself when setting up out. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in a small, sleepy city in Cyprus.

When I was about 15, I bought into movie games. I watched YouTube video clips exactly where players recorded their online games, and I started undertaking the similar. This was my initial knowledge of developing video content.

My gaming films involved montages or animated audio video clips. But after a though, I became bored of being at house staring at a display. I started going out much more, meeting mates, swimming, or skateboarding. I introduced my digicam with me to doc our adventures.

Having pics turned my main pastime. But the market in Cyprus was constrained to wedding ceremony pictures.

In 2015, I was ending significant faculty, and my buddies have been investigating universities. But I realized that studying even more was not for me. The progress I would viewed in my pictures manufactured me hopeful. I required to continue to keep doing the job on my craft and go after a job in it.

I lived with my mother and labored as a barista and a lifeguard to help save dollars. I wished to transfer somewhere with an artwork scene that I could split into. In the meantime, I took on little photography gigs to make up my portfolio.

Although working, I satisfied a lot of cool individuals who have been moving to Berlin.

Berlin felt like a very good spot to commence my images career, so when I would saved up 2,000 euros, I bought a a single-way ticket to chase my aspiration. It was 2017, and I was transferring out of my mom’s property at 20 years previous.

I started out out in Berlin volunteering 3 to 4 hours a day in a hostel in trade for free lodging

After three months of living in the hostel, I moved in with a buddy, sleeping on a mattress on his living-room ground and paying a part of his rent.

My initial job in Berlin was as a municipal janitor, and I labored as section of a workforce that cleaned the stairs and gardens of about 15 to 20 general public properties a working day, as effectively as emptied all the out of doors rubbish bins.

The do the job was not uncomplicated: My shift lasted from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. I experienced to scrub stairs by hand, and I typically removed doggy poop from the gardens.

But I knew I was in Berlin to concentrate on anything much larger. I put my headphones in while I worked and listened to podcasts about people who experienced built their own corporations and manufactured their dreams arrive real.

Meanwhile, I devoted all my absolutely free time to images

The initial 12 months and a 50 percent in Berlin, I didn’t even go to a bar. I had no hobbies simply because images was my hobby. I expended time connecting with other photographers on Instagram, executing totally free photograph shoots to construct up my portfolio, and heading on photo walks all-around Berlin.

It was at one particular of these group image walks in 2018 that I fulfilled Titus Scholl. He was a photographer placing up his have digital-internet marketing agency that made available brand names photo and online video articles. When his workload grew to become way too substantially, Titus reached out to me to present me paid out operate as a contracted freelancer at his agency, the place I would edit pictures and films.

About time, I would been minimizing my several hours as a janitor so I could make much more time for my compensated pictures gigs.

By the stop of 2019, I would been in Berlin for two yrs and was earning 1,500 euros for each thirty day period concerning cleaning and freelancing. My freelance revenue was produced up of frequent get the job done from Titus’ agency and the jobs I worked on for my individual customers. It was at this point that my boss at the cleaning enterprise gave me an ultimatum: I possibly had to boost my hrs or leave the task.

Leaving the security of my janitor job was a significant possibility, but I felt I had to seize the option of doing work as a entire-time freelancer with both equally palms

I went entire-time freelance at the commencing of 2020, three months in advance of Germany went into lockdown. Lockdown did not influence my freelance operate way too seriously for the reason that manufacturers essential new material to advertise their products and services on-line. I shot and edited at house, and get the job done ongoing to flow in steadily.

Soon after I might been operating as a contracted freelancer for Titus’ photography agency for more than three many years, Titus resolved to phase down as CEO. This still left me and two other colleagues in the agency, together with two freelancers we worked with. We discussed how to move the small business ahead, and Titus asked me and one more colleague if we desired to go on managing the agency collectively.

In late 2021, the other staff and I formally took more than the small business. I dived into this new challenge, mastering the distinct facets of running a larger sized business enterprise, such as taxes and economical ideas. It can be been a lot more get the job done than I at any time could have imagined, but I never regret it one little bit.

1 thing that has amazed me in my job is the value of connections

You can be talented, but if you really don’t fulfill the ideal people, no 1 will know about it.

My assistance for other people is to often place yourself out there and shout from the rooftops about what you do.

I did not have a in depth prepare to grow to be a prosperous inventive entrepreneur, I just retained doing work at my enthusiasm, and it propelled me into this path. Often that signifies sacrificing consolation or free time, but it is well worth it in the end.