This is the fourth in a series of five interviews - first was Matt Brett, second was Lea Alcantara and third was Ryan Masuga - with individuals who have started and are managing successful businesses on their own. In this interview, I speak to Jonathan Snook, based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

When and how was your business started?

Back in January 2006, I decided to make the leap to freelance full time. I had been doing a little bit on the side but not enough that I felt comfortable making that jump. A project fell in my lap and it seemed like the right time to make the jump. It's been a crazy ride ever since.

Are the services you provided at the onset the same as you offer now?

No, my services have thankfully narrowed.

In the beginning I sold myself very much as a jack-of-all-trades but found myself working on projects I simply didn't enjoy.

After noticing that the requests for work kept flowing in, it made sense to pare down the list to focus on what I enjoyed and what I was good at (for the most part, those are the same things).

What are the advantages and disadvantages of running a company by yourself?

The best advantage is flexibility. I pick my own hours (currently, all of them) while being able to deal with family demands like picking the kids up from school. It's also nice to have my own environment at home where I can crank the music as loud as I want or go out for lunch for as long as I want.

On the flip side has been dealing with the isolation and lack of discipline. These have been huge hurdles and I've been dealing with them every day since.

Is your office based from home or do you work at another location?

I work from home and I am, for the most part, happy with the setup.

I have all the machines I need for dev work including a Mac, a Windows laptop and desktop, a Windows server and a Linux server. I bought new furniture last year which has made things a little easier. I think the last big purchase will be a new chair like the legendary Aeron.

Is the addition of other full-time, on-site employees in your future or do you plan to remain solo?

I've tried to bring on other people but I've discovered that I'm not a fantastic manager. I work well autonomously and expect the same of others, and that's difficult to find. I may take the plunge again someday.

Do you outsource any portion of your projects to contractors or handle everything yourself?

Yes, absolutely.

Those who've read the 4 Hour Work Week have visions of offloading all their work and living the easy life. Unfortunately, it's been extremely difficult finding people who can do quality work who don't need a great deal of supervision.

As a result, the work that gets sub-contracted tends to be more generic tasks like converting designs into HTML. Also, I've been contracting out more design work, leaving me to focus on implementation.

What are some important business lessons you've learned over the years?

The biggest one right off the bat is making sure you're charging enough. It's not a full-time job, it's much more. You have to be able to cover all the admin time that goes into managing projects and that gets easily missed.

As mentioned before, you need to have the discipline to be able to focus and get the work done.

Finally, I think you need to have the courage to follow your gut on a project or a client. Get out when you know it's not working and decline projects that just look like they'll be a mess from the outset.