Maven

Reduce your taxes & keep more of what you earn

Ankur Nagpal

Founder of Carry, previous co-founder of Teachable

How to understand the US tax code
 

The top ways to reduce what you pay in taxes

How to lower your tax bill with real estate

Building a side hustle as a W2 income earner

I get it. You're a talented creative professional. You've designed amazing products, crafted beautiful user experiences, and maybe even shipped a few apps to the App Store.&nbsp;But the leap to freelancing? That feels like a whole different ball of wax. Perhaps you've tried to figure it out on your own. Late nights spent scouring blogs, devouring books, and binge-watching YouTube videos. You've taken guesses on different pricing structures and paid for way too many project management tools. Yet still, things aren’t quite clicking into place. The advice is often conflicting and either too generic or so niche that it doesn't meet you where you're at.&nbsp; That’s because freelancing isn't one-size-fits-all. You need education, adaptable frameworks, and support to learn how to make freelancing work for YOU. In 2016 I quit my corporate job as a product design director and left behind what wasn’t working for me, and I’ve been creating a new way of working, for myself, ever since. And you can too. The top 3 things freelancers worry about most involve:(1) finding work to make money(2) keeping organized with operations, and(3) setting boundaries and attaining balance You no longer have to worry whether you're doing it right. After our time together, you'll not only have foundational systems to help you run your business but you will be inspired to redesign your work life by: ✦ Creating a flexible schedule that works for you ✦ Building a sustainable income on your own terms ✦ Choosing projects that ignite your passion ✦ Making a real impact with your work ✦ Going from in-house employee to successful freelancer – even if you're afraid of giving up that steady paycheck ✦ Finding fulfillment in being a business owner

Does the thought of freelancing both excite and terrify you?

<ul><li>Define your values, why freelance?</li><li>Identify your unique service offering to better connect to the right clients</li><li>Setting expectations on expected challenges of freelance and what to watch out for</li></ul>

Doing work differently

<ul><li>Get checklists on how to setup your business with necessary registration, insurance, and taxes</li><li>Differentiate between pricing models</li><li>Calculate your rate structures by outlining your ideal income and budget</li></ul>

Making it too legit to quit

<ul><li>Discover practices and recommended tools for running an organized business</li><li>Construct the client experience through all touchpoints: biz dev, to proposals, to onboarding, to handoff, to invoicing</li><li>Practice role play with a biz dev call!</li></ul>

Designing the client experience

<ul><li>Tip to manage your workload and burnout</li><li>Build practices for sustainability</li><li>Design your time and day to day practices through personal rituals</li></ul>

Prototyping balance and boundaries

Course syllabus

Recorded lessons of lecture and demo walkthroughs that you can watch on your own time and return to at any point in the journey of launching or running your business.

Exclusive video content

Specific course assignments will help you get hands on with building your business and your operating procedures. You'll be able to leverage coaching and peer feedback from the cohort community to help you progress.

Weekly projects

Our live time together is spent on live review, interactive workshopping, and group critiques.<ul><li>Workshop 1: Weds 10/25</li><li>Workshop 2: Weds 11/1</li><li>Workshop 3: Weds 11/8</li></ul>

Live workshopping

Take a break in your day and join me in my afternoon office hours for small group coaching and additional guidance on your projects.

Additional "Tea Time" office hours

Course schedule

Aspiring freelancers who want the confidence to quit their 9-to-5 (or 9-to-9!) job even if they don’t have a solid game plan (yet)

Active solopreneurs struggling with inefficient systems and overwhelm who want to design more intentional processes that lead to growth

Design/Tech industry creatives who worry about finding consistent, high-quality clients and want to become magnets for dream projects

Creative business owners who are ready to attract better clients, and achieve the harmony in their work AND life they’ve been looking for

This course is designed for

In Designing Your Freelance Business you'll...

<ul><li>Define your core values to help guide your future business decisions</li><li>Identify your unique service offerings that set you apart in the market</li><li>Figure out your ideal client, setting the stage for targeted marketing</li></ul>

Transform your mindset from employee to entrepreneur. In our foundational module, you'll:

<ul><li>Set up your business logistics, from registration to insurance (we’ll face these all head on!)</li><li>Establish concrete fit-for-you financial goals that motivate and guide you</li><li>Master the art of pricing your services for profitability</li></ul>

Turn your freelance dream into a legitimate business. In week 2, we  cover how to:

<ul><li>Develop a strategy for finding and landing clients</li><li>Craft compelling proposals that close deals</li><li>Get templates for running a project from start to finish with the support of tools like Notion</li><li>Design seamless and thoughtful client onboarding and handoff experiences</li></ul>

Create systems that attract and retain dream clients. In week 3, you'll:

<ul><li>Establish daily practices and SOPs so you can spend more time on what matters&nbsp;</li><li>Create a calendar and task planning system best for your brain</li><li>Design personal rituals that fuel your creativity and well-being</li><li>Maintain healthy boundaries to manage stress and prevent burnout</li></ul>

Design a sustainable freelance lifestyle that prevents burnout. You'll learn to:

Learn how to start and sustain a successful and fulfilling freelance practice.

Sarah Jutras

Solopreneur and design director

Cohort 6

Cohort 7

Before you can be a group lead or a Manager, you need to be a high impact, low maintenance individual contributor. If you have ~3 years work experience, unlocking the 5 key skills will make you an irreplaceable asset to your organization. And if you're in the top 10% of each of these 5 skills, you'll position yourself in the top 1% of all talent. If you are able to take what you learn from this course and get a promotion (let's say, a $7,500 raise), then the cost of the course ($750) then that's a 10X ROI. My goal is to help you reach your career goals, faster.- Sometimes, that's in finding you a new project.- Sometimes, that's in how you position your asks.- Sometimes, that's in how you find ways to provide value to your team that is unique to you. Doing all of this will result in you being better at your job. And when you get better at your job, you get harder problems to solve. And those harder problems tend to get you promoted. ___ You're a high achiever who's used to success and you landed your dream job, right out of college. But since starting your corporate job, things have been off. Your hard work isn't paying off, and you're not getting the opportunities you deserve. It's frustrating and you're starting to doubt yourself, wondering "where did I go wrong, where did I go off track?" Boy, have I heard that before. You don't know what you don't know, and if this is your first job or you have &lt;3 years of work experience, you're facing topics that school never prepared you for. Such as: → Being "manageable"→ Staying top of mind for your busy Manager→ How to take negative feedback (constantly)→ Picking the right projects with outsized impact→ How to ask for a promotion→ Not knowing where to start HAVE YOU EVER... → Felt stuck because you're working hard but you're not getting the accolades you deserve? → Seen co-workers (less talented than you) get selected for projects that match your skill set? → Prepared hours for a presentation to senior leadership, only for them to zone out? → Struggled with talking about your work in a way that doesn't trigger your imposter syndrome? → Thought you were aligned with your Manager, only turns out you were both on different pages? → Been a top performer in school, only to struggle when you entered the corporate world? → Thought something was wrong with you and wondered if you're cut out for the corporate world? NEWSFLASH: THE CORPORATE JOB IS A GAME. And this course will help you learn the rules so you can play the game to win the game. In this course, I will share everything that I have learned (as well as from others) during my 12+ years in Big Tech,. The result?- Driving value that the corporation cares about- Getting unstuck and knowing what skills are "signals" vs "noise"- Getting better, more impactful projects- Increasing your leverage which ultimately builds your brand What to expect: This is an interactive course with in-depth discussion, Q&amp;A, examples, exercises, and tactics you can apply immediately. There are 3 hours of live instruction, all live on Zoom taught personally by me. We will focus on both the "why" and tactical pieces around the "how." This also includes:• Scripts for tricky work scenarios (so you don't have to reinvent the wheel)• Real-life examples• Hands-on experiences• Live coaching as we walk through key examples• Your ability to rehearse and practice with me• Cohort-style learning where you engage with others, learn from each other, and start building a strong(er) network My goal is to help you drastically understand what drives value in a corporate job, what Managers appreciate (and look out for), and how you can position yourself so that when that next high-impact project comes down the line... your name comes up first. What I teach will give you the playbook for what it takes to succeed in the corporate job. Then, you will take it and implement it with continued practice.

More recognition, more impact, reaching your career goals, faster

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

If your events are recurring and at the same time, it might be easiest to use a single line item to communicate your course schedule to students

Tuesdays & Thursdays

Feel free to type out dates as your title as a way to communicate information about specific live sessions or other events.

May 7, 2022

Schedule items can also be used to convey commitments outside of specific time slots (like weekly projects or daily office hours).

You're working hard but being passed for opportunities Your work doesn't feel valued or recognized. You feel stalled and need a boost

You're ~3 years into a role in Tech or Tech adjacent company You want to work on the right projects, get the top rating, make more money.

You want to minimize trial and error ﻿You want the tribal knowledge to accelerate faster in your career

This course is for you if:

What you’ll get out of this course

Differentiate yourself from your peers by learning the corporate game playbook that you didn't learn in school. This gives you the edge from day 1.

Get the edge in the corporate job so you can succeed and accelerate faster

You'll learn how to speak to your Manager, build trust, and how to handle feedback so you can make them your #1 advocate who supports your career goals.

Make your Manager your #1 advocate by helping them reach their goals (so you can reach your goals)

Discover what it takes to be a good teammate, the types of co-workers you want on your side, and how to leverage them to help you excel in your role.

Turn your co-workers into your work allies who can provide valuable support and advocacy for you

Learn how the most important word in the corporate job is "Impact" and how to showcase the value you're bringing (without feeling like you're the teacher's pet)

Increase your impact, visibility, and overall value you provide to the team

Adopt the behaviors of busy Execs so you can elevate your brand and go from "beginner" to "high performer"

Get you more inbound projects and opportunities by strenghtening your personal brand 

Double down on the 5 key skills that are force multipliers for individual contributors. Increase your value, build your brand, and level up.

Sally Ivester

Cohort 1 - Frustrated Employee's Playbook to Corporate Success   

Dec 2024 Cohort 

Learn from an actual practitioner, an experienced individual investor who has continued to beat the markets, despite numerous market selloffs, who is now professional investor. Master the science and art of investing in stocks. Understand and focus on owning massive winning companies. Let outsized multi-bagger returns drive your investing outperformance.

Vision Investing, Invest Better with Purpose.

Teaching is my way of giving back, to impart my knowledge, to get more people to invest better, so they can be smarter, richer and wiser. I am not in it for the money, only just sufficiently for me to be paid for my time, but more importantly to be able to do good, and to give back.

⭐️ Giving Back - Teaching

﻿50% of the net proceeds from the course will be invested in a Giving Back Fund managed by me, investing in exactly the same approach. This will form the base capital to keep growing and compounding. Subsequently, 20% of investment gains annually will be distributed and donated to fund meaningful &amp; impactful philanthropic causes into perpetuity.

⭐️ Giving Back - Money

Why am I doing this?

1. 18 Feb 2025, Tue2. 20 Feb 2025, Thu3. 25 Feb 2025, Tue4. 27 Feb 2025, Thu5. 04 Mar 2025, Tue (Presentations)6. 06 Mar 2025, Thu (Q&amp;A)

⏱ Course Days & Timings

All sessions will be recorded and made available to you. So if you cannot make it for any session, not an issue! You’ll still be able to catch up.

💻 Content Availability

You are expected to turn on your video camera on Zoom during the sessions, and actively participate in the activities and discussions, to maximise the learning experience for you and for others.

👋🏻 Active Participation

There will be simple homework after each session that will take a maximum of 30 minutes to complete. You will be sharing your work with other participants post, allowing you to practice, and receive feedback.

📝 Simple Homework

There will be Zoom discussion breakouts, allowing for interaction with other participants.

🤝🏻 Building Connections

Course Schedule & Commitment

You want to be richer, to learn how to properly invest in stocks to build, grow and compound life-changing financial wealth over many years.

You want to be smarter, to build your own investing framework to find the best businesses to own for the longest time, and to keep learning.

You want to be happier, to spend time on your other passions &amp; dreams, and not be affected by constantly moving prices, and noisy headlines.

This course is for you if...

Topics covered

Avoiding the common mistakes, steering clear from bad investment habits and creating brand new ones.

Construct a winning investing mindset that can be employed immediately.

Focusing on what to seek and how to pick winners, and what to avoid in losing businesses. How to find truly durable and great companies that keep growing, reinvesting and compounding for a long time, and preferably at not too expensive prices.

Build your own solid framework to swing the odds of successful investing in your favour.

Build or buy equity stakes in multiple businesses. Without ownership, you are paid for renting your time, tying your output to your input. With debt, you own limited upside &amp; unlimited downside. But by owning equity, you can have limited downside and unlimited upside.

Understanding and owning businesses.

Make investing a lifelong pursuit, a never ending marathon that is enjoyable, lovable, something worth looking forward to everyday for the rest of your life. Not a 100 yard sprint that you are constantly trying to figure what to buy and sell at what prices for the next hour.

Investing as a lifelong passion.

Learn how to generate outsized long-term returns and life-changing wealth by investing in winning stocks that reflect your purpose & values.

Eugene Ng

Cohort 1

Cohort 3

Early in your career:-- You are rewarded for working harder and independently solving problems.-- You earn more credibility by knowing more and demonstrating domain expertise.-- You get more scope (and promoted!) by taking on more with a “can-do” attitude. But that all changes as an executive:-- You build and lead teams and systems to solve problems rather than do the work yourself.-- You ask questions of the experts to manage trade offs across different domains.-- You decide on the top strategic priorities to address, and deliver results through others by mobilizing and coordinating people across different functions and perspectives. What’s particularly difficult about this transition is that nobody prepares you for it; you are expected to just figure it out. I’ve had many clients come to me in frustration that they are no longer exceeding expectations as they once were, and I’m the first person to tell them that their job has changed. I’ve also had clients who feel stuck and can’t figure out what is keeping them from reaching their next level of leadership. This class is designed to share the secrets of this transition with a wider audience. In this course, you will learn how to:-- Develop the presence to walk into board meetings and command respect.-- Effectively influence a broader range of stakeholders by speaking to their interests.&nbsp;-- Create a roadmap towards your ideal job rather than just climbing a ladder that others define.-- Design an inspirational vision so you can ask for the help you need to create it.-- Increase your trust in your resilient capacity to handle difficult situations and conversations.-- Articulate the values and principles that guide your decision making.-- Design structures and processes to scale your leadership in alignment with your values.-- Focus on what really matters and say no to everything else. The material in this class is based on my personal experience working with the top leaders of Google as the Search Ads Chief of Staff, as well as coaching over a hundred clients to greater scope and promotions. Scroll down for testimonials. How you will get the most value:This is not a sit back and listen course. We will have active discussions in class, and I will expect you to experiment with putting what we discuss into practice between sessions. The more you engage, the more benefit you will get. This course is not for you if you expect me to hand you the answers. The real value of the course will be in your reflection and engagement between our live sessions. As I say to all of my coaching clients, "Nothing changes because we talk. Your life will change when _you_ change your life." Bonus material:-- A free copy of my book, You Have A Choice: Beyond Hard Work to Meaningful Impact-- Video recording of all live sessions via the Maven platform-- A private Slack group to connect with your cohort and share insights between sessions and after the workshop completes.&nbsp;-- Discounted 1:1 coaching sessions with Eric

Being effective as an executive requires embracing new mindsets and skills

The classes will be structured as 1 hour of content and live coaching from Eric and Q&amp;A, and an optional 30 minutes of breakout groups where you can discuss the ideas with your peers and practice coaching each other. Jan. 16, 23, 30Feb. 6, 13

Live class sessions on Thursdays

Between sessions, I expect students to practice the skills we discuss, applying them in their day-to-day professional interactions. I will also challenge them to experiment with changing their default behaviors and responses to certain situations, to help them develop new skills.

Weekly practices and experiments

You're a C-level leader at an early-stage startup, a VP at a later-stage startup, or a director or senior IC at a bigger company.

Your performance feedback no longer celebrates your expertise and effort, and instead focuses more on strategy, influence, and presence.

You are working harder and longer but falling further behind. Doing more isn't sustainable so you need to find a new way to get things done.

This course is for you if: 

Changing your mindset will allow you to generate results from your organization without you being directly involved. By learning how to align your team behind your vision and values, you will understand how to lead hundreds of people with a unified purpose.

How to scale your leadership to create greater team and company impact

Develop the presence to walk into board meetings and command respect.

Increased confidence and executive presence.

Success as an executive depends on working cross-functionally with other leaders to deliver company results. I will help you build the skills to effectively influence a broader range of stakeholders by speaking to their interests.&nbsp;

Greater influence across the leadership team. 

Learn to co-create a collaborative vision of what needs to happen, secure commitments to that vision from relevant stakeholders, then hold them accountable to help you create it.

How to deliver on complex projects through influence and persuasion rather than control.

By understanding your own triggers and limiting beliefs, you will increase your resilient capacity to handle difficult situations. I will help you develop the key skill of accepting people and circumstances as they are, rather than as you wish they were.

How to better handle difficult conversations, including political conflict, while remaining calm. 

Instead of climbing a career ladder defined by others and anchoring on external metrics like title and compensation, you will look inward to understand what motivates and energizes you. Then, you will create a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creating-work-you-want-eric-nehrlich-hv2ue/?trackingId=8FGSN37KQ6uJu4EG5HEB7A%3D%3D" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">roadmap towards a more meaningful and satisfying job</a>.

A path for continued career growth without working unsustainable hours.

​Succeeding as an executive requires a completely different mindset than what brought you success early in your career. 

Lightning Lessons

Reduce your taxes & keep more of what you earn