This time we had an opportunity to talk with Zacharias Reinhardt - a 3d Artist, tutor, YouTuber, entrepreneur and founder of CG Boost, an educational platform for 3d artists that want to boost their Blender 3d skills. If you are a 3d artist and haven’t heard of Zach yet, you probably might have stumbled upon online competitions/challenges such as weeklycgchallenge.com or SculptJanuary - Zach is the person behind these events.
Becoming an entrepreneur and running his own tutorial business was not planned by Zacharias from the beginning. It rather happened gradually through many twists and turns. Before he got to know that both doing 3d art and teaching are his superpowers, Zach tried freelancing, working in a TV company, and running a YouTube channel. We talk a bit about how parents sometimes view a 3d artist's career as something not stable or serious - luckily, this was not the case with Zach, whose parents were very supportive and believed he’ll find the right way. This ability to test himself in many fields and learn from experiences finally resulted in understanding what he really wanted to focus on and gave him confidence and courage to start CG Boost.
Zach gives us some insight into how he organizes his work - these are some powerful tips you can use too! He developed those skills throughout many years of testing what works for him. Everyone (even successful people that you think are way ahead of you) starts small and grows from there. Zach’s approach is to start with something simple and build upon that rather than struggling for something perfect. Improvement comes with time.
We also talked about how to deal with less pleasant parts of work. Zach shares how he divides those into smaller, less painful doses, and when possible he uses the great power of delegating tasks to people he trusts. This approach steadily improved his work/life balance quality so now Zach can truly enjoy a vacation without constantly worrying about the business matters.
If you doubt that following your gut feeling and earning money with free and open-source software is possible - listen to this episode and Zach’s case will prove it surely is. Zach’s business model also shows it is possible to do what you’re best at and run a successful company with the right people on board.
