💡 Good, Cheap, Fast

Do you ever feel like you're playing a game of career Tetris as a portfolio careerist?

One client project here. 

A new certification there. 

Oh, and let’s not forget that passion project you’ve been meaning to launch!

 Meanwhile, you’re also trying to have a life, sleep, and—dare I say it?—not burn out in the process.

And yet, here you are, casually reading this very newsletter, taking a break from doing all the things.

So, what’s the secret to avoiding the stress spiral and keeping yourself (and your business) thriving?

It isn’t figuring out how to do more—it’s getting crystal clear on how to allocate the finite resources you have for outsized impact.

Corporate to the rescue

Want to know something wild?

Yeah, yeah—I KNOW.

Cue the collective snoooooooooze 😴

But I SWEAR by it!

It has helped me more times in those oh-sh*t moments in corporate when I needed to manage up—talking highly activated senior leaders off the ledge that were deep in their feelings and demanding everything at once.

You know the drill: ”Get me….

High-quality work. Delivered at record speed. With minimal resources!”

Except now?

….. That demanding exec breathing down your neck?….

WITCH 🧙 😉… it’s YOU! 🙈

Enter stage left: The Good, Fast, Cheap Framework to save yourself.. from yourself 👀

It’s been around for decades and there’s a reason why.

Because it’s BRILLIANT, yet simple.

Every project in your portfolio? It’s got three dials you can tweak to make the most of your limited resources:

⚡ Speed – How quickly you move
💰 Cost – How much you invest (that shhhhmoney!)
✨ Quality – The level of fidelity of your execution (your time and energy)

Here’s the tricky part: You can only have two of these at one time, not all three.

• Want something good and fast? It won’t be cheap.

• Want something cheap and fast? It won’t be great.

• Want something cheap and high-quality? It’ll take a while.

Tough call right? Right (le sigh)

But these are the trade-offs we oft avoid confronting, because we are oh-so busy working in the business trenches. Before we know it, the burnout or the “sunk cost” ship has sailed for projects we’ve poured our heart and soul into. And we feel like $hit that it didn’t work out the way we’d hoped.

Which means… it’s 1000% better to confront the trade-off reality now versus later.

The first year of Build with Brie

Let me show you how this framework has helped me adjust my portfolio career investments as I reached different business inflection points over the last year.

📍 Phase 1: Speed + Low Cost 

I call this the “DIY” Chapter because well…

I had:

• Zero roadmap

• Zero budget (I was funemployed!)

• Zero appetite for wasting time, and

• Zero clue what my clients actually needed from me as a service provider

So I:
✅ Developed my own branding (using Canva instead of hiring a FT graphic designer)
✅ Got good at writing again (Managing my social media to better learn my audience)
✅ Played! (Taking on lots of small projects to learn what work I really enjoyed)

Was it polished? Nope.
Did it get me moving? Hell yes!

📍 Phase 2: Speed + Quality 

AKA… the “Move Jimmy John’s Fast” Chapter.

By August, business was poppin!

I had:

• A podcast in the works

• My first digital product in development

• A full-time job starting

• LOADS of clients, and

• A desire to continue to move fast to act on my early market learnings

So I:
✅ Invested in a branding refresh to elevate my business positioning
✅ Hired a handful of freelancers to handle tasks that would free up my bandwidth
✅ Paid for premium software tools to enhance my 1-on-1 client experience

Yes, my business costs went up—but so did my rates. And my full-time job gave me financial breathing room to make strategic re-investments back into my business!

📍 Phase 3: Quality + Low Cost 

And now? Now, I’m entering my “Strategic Growth” Chapter.

I have:

• Slowed down to recharge my batteries

• Locked in product-market fit with enough signal to go all-in on my product suite

• Shifted gears from tinkering to scaling

So I’m:
✅ Saying NO to high-effort, low-impact partnership opportunities
✅ Testing multiple marketing levers to amplify my product reach and killing the duds
✅ Automating whatever I can to free up my time to network and improve my services

My pace and scope are slower and more narrow yes—but it’s intentional.

At some point in the coming months, this may shift again.

And…you guessed it, when it does? 

I’ll have my handy little framework to help me think through this decision pragmatically, strategically, and with the present context in mind.

🛠️ Now it’s your turn

Self-Reflection Question
👉 What’s ONE trade-off you could make this week for an at-risk project in your portfolio that would make everything else you’re working on easier and lighter?

Maybe it’s:
🔹 Giving yourself permission to move slower
🔹 Investing money to buy back your time
🔹 Launching something scrappy to learn and refining the offering later

A closing remark

If there is only one thing you take away from this newsletter, it should be this 👇

Your current energetic investments are NOT sunk costs.
Your priorities will change.
Your resources will shift.
And that’s okay!

What matters today may differ tomorrow. Each day/month/year brings a new context.

And it’s important to remember: a portfolio career is a marathon not a sprint.

YOU are your team. And there is no outside force coming to save you.
Which means.. YOU have to energetically protect your baby (aka your business), managing your finite resources (money, energy, and time) with extreme care.

Til next time,
Brie

P.S. - Want help building your portfolio career? Here are a few ways to work with me 👇🏼

• I have a handful of 1-on-1 coaching spots opening up next month

• My February storytelling workshop still has spots open! Snag tix here