In this episode of The Learning Pro Live, I sat down with the incredible Nicole White, founder of The ID Crowd, to discuss a question that plagues almost every successful freelancer: Should I stay solo or start an agency?

Nicole has walked the walk. She started as a business analyst (shuddering at spreadsheets), moved into instructional design, freelanced, and eventually built The ID Crowd into one of Australia’s most respected learning agencies.

Here are the key takeaways from our chat on the highs, lows, and realities of scaling up.

It Often Starts with Saying “No” (or Not Saying It)

For both Nicole and me, the freelance journey began with a flood of work. You reach a point where you are turning away massive projects because you simply don’t have the capacity.

This is the fork in the road. You either scale back, raise your rates, and stay a boutique freelancer (my current path), or you start saying “yes” and figure out how to deliver. Nicole chose the latter. Her desire to say yes to bigger, more complex projects was the catalyst for bringing on her first hire—not another instructional designer, but an admin assistant to free up her time for high-value design work.

The Isolation Factor

One of Nicole’s biggest drivers for starting an agency was combating the loneliness of freelancing. She described working from a loft for three years and pouncing on her husband like an excited labrador when he got home, desperate for human interaction.

If you are a social creature who thrives on bouncing ideas around, the solitary life of a freelancer can be draining. Building a team allowed Nicole to create an environment where collaboration wasn’t just possible; it was the default way of working. As she put it, “A good idea becomes a great idea when you kick it around with someone else.”

10 is the Hardest Number

We discussed the “growing pains” of scaling. Nicole shared a fascinating insight: 10 employees is the hardest number.

When you are small (around four people), everyone pitches in and wears multiple hats. But at 10, you often have just “one of everyone”, one art director, one head of learning, one CEO. This structure lacks flexibility. If one person is sick or overwhelmed, the whole system feels the strain. It is an awkward teenage phase of business growth where you are too big to be agile but too small to have redundancy.

You Stop Being an Instructional Designer

This is the hard truth for anyone considering this path: If you start an agency, your job changes.

Nicole had a profound realisation in 2020: she is an “inspirational CEO,” not an “operational CEO.” To scale successfully, she had to step away from the storyboards and into sales, strategy, and people management. If you love the craft of designing learning experiences and hate the idea of spreadsheets, HR, and sales pipelines, staying a freelancer might be the happier choice for you.

The “People Pleaser” Trap

Running an agency means managing emotions. Nicole admitted that as a “sympathetic crier” and a people pleaser, the weight of her team’s happiness can be heavy.

You are no longer just responsible for your own output; you are responsible for livelihoods and morale. It requires a level of resilience and “grit” that goes beyond just being a good designer. You have to be willing to have tough conversations, manage client expectations when things go wrong, and support your team through their own highs and lows.

Watch the full interview above to hear more about Nicole’s transition, her thoughts on contractor vs. employee models, and why she believes you should ultimately “do what’s right for you.”