It’s been about two months since I decided to go at this full time as an e-commerce analyst.
And the first place I went, like most people, was Upwork.
Here’s the thing though. I know I’m not fully ready. I know that. But I still find myself on the platform every single day, scrolling through job posts, reading proposals, scoping what I’ll eventually be dealing with. I tell myself it’s research. And maybe it is. But I also apply to the jobs, despite knowing I don’t feel ready, because some part of me is hoping that if I just land that first one, I’ll figure it out from there. Build the confidence by doing the thing rather than waiting until I feel like I can.
Honestly? I don’t know if that’s brave or just denial. Probably both.
I have a roadmap. Services mapped out, areas I can genuinely perform well in. And when I look at other freelancers in my field, their portfolios, their positioning, mine holds up. It’s not the best on the table but it belongs on the table.
But then I see the reviews. The five previous clients. The testimonials. And I think, okay, if I were hiring someone, I’d probably pick the person with a track record too. That’s just honest. And there’s nothing I can do about not having that yet except keep going until I do.
Some days that reality sits fine with me. Other days it doesn’t. I’ve stopped pretending there’s a fixed way I feel about it.
Something else has been sitting with me this week though, and it’s less about freelancing and more about how I think.
I came across this idea, that when everyone consumes the same information, the information loses weight. It stops being a differentiator. The example was around entrepreneurship books: everyone starting out reads the same handful of titles, so nobody’s thinking is actually that different from anyone else’s. The suggestion was to go looking for books from other parts of the world, other business philosophies, things that haven’t been filtered through the same lens everyone else is using.
And I get that. There’s something real there.
But I think it’s missing something.
We don’t all read the same way. We don’t all arrive at the same interpretation just because we read the same words. Think about school, everyone in the class reads the same Shakespeare, hears the same teacher explain the same themes, and still walks into the exam and writes completely different essays. Some better, some worse, all different. Because interpretation isn’t about access to information. It’s about what you bring to it.
My background is in web development. I’ve dabbled in digital marketing. Those experiences don’t disappear when I open an e-commerce dataset, they show up in how I read it, what I notice first, what questions I ask that someone coming in purely from a data background might not think to ask. That’s not a gap. That’s actually the thing.
The information everyone’s consuming might be the same. But you’re not the same as everyone consuming it. That’s the part worth holding onto.
And it applies directly to the analyst side of things too.
As much as I want to stand out in this field, it’s undeniable that every e-commerce analyst is pulling from the same pool of knowledge. Domain knowledge in this space is largely universal, the frameworks, the metrics, the ways you think about a business. There’s no secret library only certain analysts get access to. We’re all reading the same material, taking the same courses, landing on the same conclusions about what good analysis looks like.
So the differentiator can’t be the information itself. It has to be the interpretation.
What I’m starting to understand is that it actually helps to know a little across a few different areas, marketing, UI, the analytical layer itself. Not deep enough in each to be a specialist, but enough to see how they connect. Because when I look at an e-commerce store, I’m not just looking at the numbers. I’m thinking about why a page might be losing people based on how it’s laid out. I’m thinking about whether a drop in conversions is a data problem or a messaging problem. That’s the web development and digital marketing background showing up uninvited, and honestly, doing useful work.
Most analysts won’t have that lens. Not because they’re worse, just because they came through a different door.
That’s the interpretation. That’s what makes the same information land differently depending on who’s holding it.
Until next time , ponder this:
What are you bringing to the information that nobody else can?