Farewell from Freelance Folk

After almost 10 years, it’s officially time to close the doors and get ready for the next chapter.

The super-short version

The pandemic stopped our coworking sessions and then I moved to Canada 🍁

Still want to be part of a community for small business owners? Head on over to my new project: Happy Work Club.

From humble beginnings

Freelance Folk originally started life in early 2015 as Freelance Friday, a weekly pop-up coworking session on Friday afternoons in Manchester. Back then, coworking spaces weren’t very common, plus the ones that did exist functioned more as a way to share office space and less as a community.

I found working from home on my own quite isolating and thought it would be fun to trial a meetup where people could work, chat and make useful connections. And so the pop-up coworking sessions were born. 

To national recognition

In 2017, Freelance Friday was rebranded to Freelance Folk to reflect the growing community beyond the weekly gatherings. We won the IPSE Freelance Ambassador of the Year award, and were featured in the Guardian.

Over the next two years, we added a regular social on the last Friday of each month, and experimented with meetups in other cities. The website was relaunched to include a blog, podcast and directory.

And thwarted plans

Towards the end of 2019 we moved our weekly meetup venue to a dedicated coworking space and yep, you can see where this is going. 2020 came along, and we all know what happened after that 😷

During the pandemic we focused on supporting the community by signposting to other events and resources. We hosted a few coworking sessions on Zoom and had always planned to return to in-person events, but of course lockdown lasted much longer than anyone expected.

By the time people felt comfortable gathering indoors again, my dream of moving to Canada was becoming a reality, and I’m now writing this from my home on Vancouver Island! I considered going global, but at its heart Freelance Folk was always about the UK freelance scene and the in-person coworking sessions, so it feels sad but right to wind it down.

So what’s next?

Well, like a phoenix from the Freelance Folk flames emerges a new community for small business owners. Through Happy Work Club I want to challenge the narrative that success is always about growth or making six or seven-figure incomes. I’ll also be offering support for people who want someone to chat through their ideas with (as let’s be honest, friends and family try but they don’t always get it).

Yes, basically I want to be the new Paul Jarvis. He actually lives on Vancouver Island too but I swear that wasn’t the reason we moved 🙈

You can also check out the podcast that I co-host with my friend and business coach Michelle. It’s called 99 Problems (but a boss ain’t one) and we tackle different freelance challenges one episode at a time. We’re now up to 82 episodes with two new ones on the way!

A huge thank you

A special shout-out to Michelle, Hugo and all the other regulars for their help running the coworking sessions and generally being good eggs. I couldn’t have done it without you! And to my favourite work husband Ben, thank you for believing in the idea from the very beginning and enthusiastically hosting us 🙏

To everyone else, I just want to say how grateful I am for your support of Freelance Folk over the last nine years. Whether you attended our sessions, became a member or just talked about us on social media, I loved our little community and hope to keep in touch with many of you through future projects!

Katy Carlisle
Freelance Folk Founder (and clearly a fan of alliteration)