#249 – The Keys to Making $1M/Year as a Solo Founder with Brett Williams of DesignJoy
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What's up, everybody? This is courtlandt andi hacker's that com. And you're listening to the indie hackers podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process. And on this show, I sit down with these andy hackers to discuss the idea that s the opportunities and the strategies they're taking advantage of so the rest of us can do the same. All right, i'm here with bright Williams .

bright house ago. Great man.

How are you doing excEllence? Nice to meet you have seen your name pop up constantly on andy hackers on twitter for like the last couple years. And it's crazy if this crazy business you're making over million dollars year as a one person design agency.

Yeah it's pretty it's it's pretty, pretty crazy. It's been a crazy ride for I ve got that yeah not any acres around for gashed many, many years but going at this for for five. So it's i've bit around the block a couple of times with this thing here.

Yeah, yeah it's it's like the most inspirational tional possible stories like who doesn't want to make a million dollars by themselves every end? Hackers s like, I could just like not hire a whole team, not managing one of people if I could work. Looks like here in your apartment, I seem you just start from home and make a ton of money doing what I love like that the dream.

And you have like hit battery and you've been there for some time, he went, wasn't just like yesterday you've been posting about this for years. I was reading some of your old comments on any hackers when you just kind of start to design, enjoy things, we're going okay. And one of them, you talk about this fear that wouldn't scale.

You thinking i'm doing this on the side. I've got a full time job or you know a different job. I'm working on this design projects for people.

I'm already the point of got six, seven customers. I'm not sure if I possible scale this basis and maybe think you said maybe i'm forever domed to be a lifestyle business. And here you are. You clearly push past that point.

Yeah, I think it's it's partly you know, my own self doubt, but also I ve had a lot of people over the years that I ve just spoken to that, that also kind of put that out out, in in as well. You know, when I explain the model and explain the fact i'm just doing myself, I meaning you have people on one hand that say, you know giving and clients will never be a bottle, that it'll be scaling the thing and you have other you know the other side is like you're going to burn yourself out.

You're never gonna to design another screen again, right? Like and those two things have have certainly playing a part in just my mental health every day and and just figure out like is this a long term play? But I mean, I guess time as a sort of told and and I title continue to tell whether IT is i've been going on a long enough where i've prove in a lot of a wrong up to this point and i've just gotten Better at what I do. So it's said it's getting a little bit easier the further I go along.

That's like about like the the actual business is called design joy. I'm not going to your website is super slick as I probably should be because you're designer you your skills said, like, how do, how do you build something like this?

What you take? Yeah, i've gone through the typical path a designer, designer kind goes through. I started out, actually started out.

I was one of the first. This is kind of us a silly thing. I was kind of one of the first ones um on the international tax.

I create these like silly like cory inspiration tional code images back and back in two thousand and nine. So I started out with like graph design. That was me.

That was yeah now there everywhere. But yes, so I started out like graphic design, like that. That was my passion for the first year.

Two of like getting into the design world. And then that gradually went into like web design, specifically like landing pages, marketing sites. And then that sort of graduated onto like product design, branding.

So of course, of my crew have gotten the skill set of just about most areas and design with the exception of a few. And I just kind of hold them on. Hold them on. Those have you become .

good at this is like you're just like people are paying you to do this. You're just dabbling. You taking classes online because I think yeah most people i'm a designer myself and most people who consider themselves either have .

an I for design or they don't yeah that's a good question. I mean, for me, the pathology and that is different um especially like in this day N A right the courses and youtube is so big I got my I didn't I didn't go to school for this. I'm a self taught designer and I just hustled.

I started surrounding myself with good design. I'm a like a sucker for like driver in the all these like super, you know popular design sort of input sides constantly surrounding myself. But that IT IT creates some creativity, my brain, but also gives me a lot of a lot of direction to go with projects where I don't have to typically do a lot of research before I start, when I have almost like this was positive.

My brain of of all these are cool. You projects i've seen the past um so yeah me for me I was like I created fake projects for myself. It's hard starting add designer to get a, to get A A design gig.

And so I created the experience for my self, which I don't hear a lot of people doing, right? Like I here, I see a lot of forms like how do I get a job if I don't have an experience? Like I don't people give me a chance, right? Like my advice is go out and creates the experience for yourself. Create fake projects, take a project, go to product, take a project, make IT Better, redesign IT, go through that process. That's really within anyone's hands, you know, today to kind of start that process without waiting on someone else to give you that opportunity like that.

You said that you surrounded to yourself with a good design. You're on durable. You're looking like the best designs. I think that's the best possible that you can do to get good at stuff because like half of IT is just taste.

You know, if you're out there making different mock up and designs and know creating logos and stuff and you don't have good taste, you can even tell if your own stuff is good and when to stop working on IT and released. And I want to keep working on IT. And so I think surrounding yourself like a really good design and developing your taste over time, it's crazy. IT makes you so picky because I remember like when I was Younger, I just everything looked great, like look amazing and I look back at the things I thought, look, that looks terrible. Like why think I look good and it's because they .

didn't have any taste. And IT also like IT doesn't IT also allows you to stay on top of kind of what's and right because the design world, meaning much like any other industry that evolves and changes constantly, like one day brutal, this is in another another time, like flat minimum, is now illustrations are out and photography is coming back in. And so it's like a good way to just keep a polls on saying like you know front and singer on sort of like latest design trends because that's all they are designed as, just a bunch of trends, right, that evolved all the time. And what Better way to do that than the immersive self in everyday?

So at some point you built design joy. And I guess this is a sort of a twist. You're like, you know, i'm a designer. I want to make money in completely different way that I have before. How how did that idea come about?

Yeah, I mean, I I had a corporate job. I was in the corporate world for quite a while, bounce around every one or two years. I never said put anywhere.

And I always, like any of entrepreneur, stuck in like a corporate job. You have this, this burning desire to break out and to be able to make IT on your own. And I had that for a really long time.

I thought of going to freeLance out that was sort of the right know it's big now, but I know that was kind of growing back then and I didn't know how to enter the market. Is just another free Lancer because, you know, it's everyone to free Lancer. It's hard to differentiate yourself.

You're just one of a million others that are out there. And so I thought i'll create a brand around myself. I I remove my name from the equation, create this brand.

I'll run at myself. I actually got the idea, uh, to structure the way I did from another produced design service called design pickle champs. Most people listening are familiar, and I executed an area that they were servicing, which was landing pages branding in product design.

They were heavily focused on the graphic design side, serving local small businesses. No one at the time were like going after the yc, you startups in all of these more premium end of end of businesses. And so I created something that utilized their model because I validate IT. I didn't have the validate at all and sort of piggy bank off that and took a different angle at IT.

That's awesome. I think that's like the smartest thing you could possibly do is you look at what's already working. You find someone like you said, he is already validate to the idea, like, okay, design pickles, working and making money and over fist and then you just figure out, how can I make this my own right? Put your own little tweet on IT your own little twist on IT you target your own markets they're not targeting and that's fine.

IT kind of works because the business bottle is is proven. It's such a smart way to do things. I think so many people don't go that right because they think, oh, this ideas already taken, you know, design picks already doing unlimited design. I guess my idea sucks. You know I can't possibly do something that someone's already done and that's like so I can be further from the truth.

No, I mean, IT, it's yeah could do see you if you're able to create something unique that hasn't been done before. That's a definitely like a good skills set to have, but it's not always about reinvent ing the will. I don't judge to start up ideas validity based on how unique IT is.

I think that's a mistake. I think looking for opportunities make a Better looking to niche down on on a model that has already proven to be working. There's so many different ways to borrow, it's ready out there without right, right, stealing IT and making your own and targeting a different audience or offering a Better product to the service in general, even targeting the same audience is multiple ways to go about IT .

doing totally new stuff is is so overrated because like you said, like that, no one's like, H I wouldn't eat this italian restaurant, but like I already eaten at a time a shop before. I'm down of the time rush on ever like he needs to be something new. No one does that.

But I think as a creator, so easy to think like you have to do something new. And that bad is so much harder. It's so much harder because you're basically doing something that like you haven't no one is proven will work.

And what you're doing, it's like you're make a million dollars a year and doing something that people have wanted and paid for for like a hundred years. Like design is not that new. It's not that complex, just doing IT and I think a very clever creative weight that allows you to scale. So let's think about the the structure. How does design enjoy work exactly?

yeah. So what makes design enjoy different is what call the product is test service, where we basically sell design as you do a product. It's fixed outcome, fixed Price, basically subscription plans for new companies in need of either a full time designer, a design support system, just one off projects on going on going design support.

And it's really easy to get started that i've you know lower the barrier as much as humanly possible to get started with any service. It's actually quicker to sign off a design joy and get designs going, then delete, buy A T shirt. IT takes less time to do that.

And yes, so like the companies have a subscription, they basically essentially it's like a glorified freeLancer taino. For me, it's a month to month thing. They can input design needs as they as they pop up IT could be anything and everything from you software design to logo creation, brand guide creation, pitch dex, whatever.

And they just worked through one by one. So once we complete one request, we move on to the next request in the process just keeps gone. It's sort of like an execution machine with a lot of a little bit of a strategy involved as well.

right? Yeah, i'm on your website and tested out your superfast signal process. So I like to see plans. I see the plans. I basically just click get started as this expensive design, four thousand and nine hundred and ninety five dollars a month. Our design plus web website, fifty five hundred dollars months and the even enterprise like book a call and people can book a cause you don't have the pricing on the levers and imagine it's pretty pricy.

I just doubled my Prices last friday ethic. So yeah and I wasn't as expensive. But yeah.

yeah, yeah, yeah and I click sign up, I put on my email just on my password. And the first thing that does to say confirm and pay four thousand and five hundred ninety five dollars a little check out forms. So it's like straight to business. Get out OK immediately to pay straight .

the business right after that too. And it's not like we don't happen a call or like or I don't have any like fancy on boarding forms. I just I have an automated system that creates a triller board. You're sent an invite and then you're in that that you're ready within like thirty second suba request.

So I think one of the biggest questions that people have for you, and i've seen this all over I L less than hacker news the other day when there there is supposed kind of about your business. I saw this on andy hackers. I see us on twitter where you're talking about how many people are coming to design your and how much money you're making.

And people like but bread like how can you possibly as a one person Operation handle this kind of flow? People even even like done a bunch of like math in the comments, which had to figure OK. But bret has you know making million dollars a year.

That's twenty thousand dollars a week. And he has he needs this many customer is thirty five customers. That means he has to be working one hour week per customer.

There's no way could possible do IT. This business is bullshit. How many customers you have, I guess, and how do you handle that workload?

Yeah, i've wrestled with this question because I didn't start out being able to do what I do today. I mean, it's been a gradual sort of growth as a designer to be able to handle the voice than i'm at and no one can really understand IT. And then this is just something that I ve just been enlightened of recently because I never knew how.

And so this I would always just say like just fast, like i'm just a fast designer, you whatever I think what what i've come to the conclusion of is I I give this reference of like i've been like forged in this fire for five years. I started out running IT for three years, managing seven and ten clients. IT gradually started growing after like the three year mark to where IT is now, which is in the forty to fifty range.

And without going through that, I understand how IT seems impossible, especially like from a designer standpoint that understands how projects typically go. But I i've been forged to able to pump out design work at is insane rate of speed that other designers just probably can't match because they haven't gone through what i've gone through. But aside from just just sheer like a ability in skill that would be more like there's other things that are involved to with allow me to do this, like I have a zero tolerance meeting policy.

So if the client signs up, they want to have on a call, the answer is always no no matter what. Um managing forty clients, you going to imagine if I help on a call for an hour. I mean, I get three or four clients work done in an hour and IT is true um and this sounds crazy, but I don't I don't really spend more than hour a week on a client. So my hourly rate is actually really high, but the volume work that I give you is more than a typical designer spends an hour. So it's hard to kind of compare typical designer with myself having gone through what i've gone through with.

So basically, you've become a superhuman is the answer to this question.

I mean, you put anybody through what i've been through, I mean, whether you take for development or content writing or any any kind of skill or you know shooting a basketball, right? Like if you go and shoot a thousand hoos today, I like you're going to be good and that's what i've done with design. You ont typically make that same reference, but that's what i've done through design. Joy, just god density.

professor, and I found this post that I have something earlier from january twenty forth, twenty twenty. So this is those precious couple months before the pandemic you posted on andy hackers, I supposed six thousand page of view.

You said, I want an unlimited design service by myself, by bret Williams, and in the end of you say any given point, I ve about six to seven clients subscribed with another two to three pause while their product is in development that results in about five or six thousand dollars a month s in recurrent revenue, two hundred twenty thousand dollars today, never going to out. But it's a side income, you said, have been given multiple opportunities to blow design to even into a multimillion dollar business nearly overnight by people like the day empty show and others. But i've been no position to do that.

I can't duplicate myself. I can't hire designers, work as quickly as I can, or if I can, they can produce the level of quality that I demand my service provides. So I guess, as I enjoy forever, just be a side project, not a real company with real employees.

But hey, if I can make actually six thousand dollars every month, I suppose I should be fine with that. That was a long time ago. Six dollars a long, small of far right from what are doing right now. What happens since then? That's obvious.

Things have changed. Yeah really the pandemic really accelerated things for me. I was kind of like and overnight prosper.

I don't know. I can't necessarily directly correlated the pandemic, but IT around the same time. That's when design to I went from lake, okay. It's a side project making a really good side income for me to now this is be quickly becoming my life and taking over my full time job.

Certain things have happened over you, the the sharing my story about being a one person design agency is in in doing the way is in a way it's it's a very notable thing that people catch on to curious about and want to duplicate themselves. So and part of sort of my story of it's funny, like my growth has fuelled my growth in the sense sharing my my milestones that i've hate sort of feel more growth and more growth, more growth. And then um yeah like all the way up until four weeks ago I was doing, I think like A D K M R R.

I I had my I had a full time job until last october when I was doing at k and four weeks ago somebody tweed up, dig in around on twitter, tweet about design enjoy and it's jumped up fifty k in revenue a month, one hundred people plus on a waiting list, double my Prices like that. That one tweet just changed my life. I got on twitter.

Finally, I was like force to go on twitter, started building an audience, giving insight, looks into how I run things, what my travel boards look like, an air table looks like, kind of piling back the layers. And so that was the biggest grow spirt IT. I mean, that was not just a matter of two weeks at my business, basically grew by fifty percent, almost so.

And i'm looking at the way back machine. Classic, classic websites is awesome because you just go back in time, see any website and want to look like at some point in the past. So you way back, machine design, enjoy duco is your website.

And I can see a snapshot from two thousand nineteen snaps shot from march two thousand and two thousand, right? And you are charging, you know, I think this is probably a big part of your success. You're charging like four hundred dollars a month, four hundred ninety five month, literally ten times less than you're charting today. You have ten times to your customers, right, and make the same amount today are making them and you have more customers now than you did then. So it's like this kind of explosion and like popularity of your website, combined with the fact that you're charging way more for what you do.

The Price increases every time i've increased my Prices IT hasn't been I mean, sure it's to make more money, but the the reaction has always been to stifle growth. As an entrepreneur, I don't I never intended to grow design. I had no, I never had a formal traditional market.

He strategy never spent up and add on a dollar on paid ads, anything like that. I've been content with wear. I mad, no matter where I mad.

So yeah, every every time that i've increased my Prices, I thought they'll stay for growth. I thought that i'll prize myself out. Of market.

And it's a funny thing i've been told, especially any hackers, right? Like propose a problem, even like greaser Prices, like that's just the common answer, right? You know if if you're overwhelmed, the demand is is higher than the supply.

So and I always thought this kind of insecurity part of me, as I didn't want to press myself, I don't want to make myself too expensive, that I thought i'd lose people. But IT has had the opposite reaction every single time. Even doubling my Prices a couple days ago has had an opposite reaction. So i'm sure there's a ceiling to IT. But the idea that, that raising your Prices will will hinder you in any way has not been the case for me.

Now i'm talking to patching machines later today. I'm actually talking to him tonight because these in tokyo, i'm going to be talking to one like japan time but he's like his hold like montreal for the last like fifteen years has been charged more like literally just those two words. He has helped so many entrepreneurs a ton more money and make their business is work. And I think consulting and the agency work in particular, there's accommodation of like charging more that helps you, but also charging for like a more broadly defined sort of thing.

And so I think one of the reasons why a lot of people don't want to be contractors, our free answers are run in agency because that seems like you're just trading dollars for hours, right? And in some sense, like you are right, like you at the end of the day you stop designing tomorrow, you can send money, right? Yeah, it's IT your customers leave and like that's a rap, right? And so a lot of people, when they become freely anc's, they charge hourly.

And the downside of charging hourly is like very clearly communicating to your clients like you are paying for my time. This is not a service to help your vitious grow, is not a service help making you money. You're just paying for my time and like that screw ze you over. We're as like Better than that this to charge a daily or weekly or monthly because you say like hey, you're not paying for my time. You're in for a business outcome that might make you millions of dollars, so might be worth millions of dollars.

You to pay me IT might take me a few weeks, so whatever, but that's the Price and making you that much money, I want know you to pay me comment that and you shift from charging for your time to charging for work that's done and I think you've done is like the best version of IT, which is not only just charging monthly charging like basically on retainer, even if you don't do any work for somebody, they're still paying you. So it's like almost a digital design version of like paying for a gm membership and be getting to go. But you're still ying you. You want the convenience of being able to go whenever you want you.

I have to sign up again. There's a large subset of my clients that really utilize this sign joy on a daily basis. And quite I can see there's a lot that I go over a month without doing any work for them.

And so it's yeah it's it's a beautiful thing for for me and and also you know it's not just a beautiful thing for me, but it's it's nice for the client too because they're out of this sort of will have like of having to get quotes from designers and having to work with them on a consistent basis when often times they are very inconsistent, sometimes unreliable and difficult define. All these sort of like pain points of finding designs are completely true. But IT offers predictability, and they can budget for IT.

They can cancel IT when they want to. They don't have any upcoming work. They can pause things right, like I made IT as client friendly as I can, while all still offering myself the predictive ly too, around what i'm going to make this month. I I want to be concerned about about that.

Do you think this is something that anybody can do? I mean, this guy, I think you saw the post that was like a blind post where this guy I made who's an ety hacker and he wrote the agencies of one storm is coming. So are predicted post like here's what's going to happen in the future. We're going to see more people like bread and there's like a little manager case study on how your business works, how an agency of one and why it's the future. Do do you get to them if you think it's going to be the future?

I don't know. I think that um you've got ta be two things to make this work. I made three things really. You ve got ta have a good sense of business.

Some designers are just designers and I almost that I have i've created businesses in the past and understand how they work and how to run one. But you got to be you got to have some sort of a good business sense. You ve got to be a really good designer and you got to be really fast.

Those those three things rarely go together. They've certainly do. And there's a lot of people out there, I think, could run a very successful agency of one, whether you're talking design or again, content or some sort of even deeper nitches than that. I I think so I think especially borrowing off of what we've done with design and crane, the parameters and restrictions that i've set around IT really allow for a lot of people to be to do what I do. As long as you're eight, you have a good business sense, good at design, good at your skill and our fast at IT.

Yeah that makes sense. And I think one of the cool things is like, let's say you're a typical designer or everything, what kind of talks with cly, you get to sit down to have a call, figure out what their particular needs are. It's not streamline. They're different than all your other clients. And so you get to shift your head space.

So we do something you've never done before in a different way is all this back and forth feed back IT just slows you down, you know? Or as if you structure yourself instead of is a free answer the way that you've done IT, it's more that can intake form. Hey, i'm bread.

This is what I do. Do you fit like got out of a square hole? You a square peg come on in. I can process quick if you're not like goes somewhere else like you're not my customer.

exactly. I mean, that's i've fortunately been able to get to that point where I can be selected with who I work with. I can be brutally honest on my they are like calls that people most people don't just like sign up the form and like drop five grand without talking to me first.

So I do allow I do now calls before signing up to ensure its a good fit. And it's not need to benefit the client to make sure it's a good fit, but it's also opportunity for me to determined this client a good fit is. And i've got to the point where i've been able to just be extremely transparent, honest about my process.

What design enjoy is where is what IT is not and it's allow me I think people trust me more because i'm not I don't try to sell design joy to you on these calls. I don't really need more clients, but I want to work at same time. I want to work with people who this model works well for. It's a wind way. So yeah.

I think what you done this very cool because I think a lot of entrepreneurs doing with like more of a scarcity minds around customers, like it's so rare to get anyone coming to pay, right? It's such a luxury to have somebody wants to pay you over the internet, like you can't turn down anybody if someone's going to come and going to pay you for something like you gotta a say yes to the right, the same as a scarcity to inside around anything else in life give you a starving.

You're not going to turn down any food that comes here where you're going to say yes to IT. But if you come from a place of abundance, which like obviously is easy here, millions in revenue coming in from tones of clients, then you can be picky. Then you can say, this is not my customer. Did you start that way? You know, at what point did you begin to get picky?

No, man, I was so desperate up front. Um I won't taken any anyone and everybody I mean, of course, the records along the way that just suck the life atomy and just the mental energy atomy. And I got one of those.

But I am a three thousand percent more picky now than I was back then. And you have to be I mean, it's it's in an effort. It's not to be conceded or to be harsh. It's really to protect what you build and to protect your client base and allow you to continue to serve them well. If you let one bag egg into the mix, if I have to spend thirty minutes, like on the call with you, are typing to you, email to you, that takes away from someone else's work. So yeah, I have to be very protective or what i've built.

How stressed to you. You look not stress to the chAllenge. It's a lot of work you doing all the time. How much of the toes are taken on you?

It's been different at different times. I would say the last month has been pie the hardest, just growing as much as i've grown. I was in a really good like sprint where I was working Normal hours somewhat, especially since I quit my job, and maybe eight to nine hours, which is like nothing.

They run a in a million dollar one person business, right? Yeah, but the growth that i've experiences over the past a month, I just has sent me back in to my old ways where i'm just working to one A M every night. And even then, i'm not getting all the work done, having to started early the next day, go out IT again to one and one.

I like my cutting time. That's like that's my closing hours and I will not buy any stretch imagines work till then because I know how to affect me the next day. So i'm pretty much stressed yeah especially I have a family I mean that place a big part into if I was just like a single guy like just run in this business by myself, I could provide just go and go and go and go and go but yeah.

how are you what your life like? What's time of your family?

And thirty years old married? I have a four year old, a two year old in a newborn coming in four weeks a well.

yeah.

it's a lot stress yeah and like no vacations, you know, right? I don't live a luxurious life. I just, I just work, not stop. So right? Yeah, I saw this thread .

on twitter the other day. It's like, ironically, it's common to the opposite conclusion and this guy saying, old, would your kids be if you die eighty five and so he's kind of saying, like if you think about this and make you want to work less than you do and for him, if he dies eighty five, his oldest daughter will be fifty.

So I guess either when he was thirty five and he'll probably be a belief of decent inheritance, he asked, is that really the best outcome? But the time is daughter is fifty like she's not that saying going to need is inherent. She's going to be retirement in the face like it's maybe his grandkids will care.

And then he's talking about the fact that generally speaking, like saving a tone of money when you're old is like camera use IT as well as your camera. You're Young. There's other ways to insure yourself.

We are worried about risk. And like if you you want to leave IT behind, like essentially like your kids might not even needed that much. And so ultimately, people might spend their lives like working and accumulating all this money and then look back and realized that actually the needle, this money, that was fine. And I got to just work to less and I would have been been my life.

No, I think I think it's like it's tough to you because the more money you make naturally, the less money means to you. And that's that's been the case to me. And then then the focus becomes just how much you work and what is taking away from other things. And it's been burning at me.

Feel like the last, especially the last three, four weeks where I have my nights have basically been taken from me and that's usually when I spent with my girls and my wife frighten i'd like to be a rested down the dinner table, have dinner instead of having to here my desk see, yeah, it's been something that I i've been malling over and strugling with, especially for the last three or four weeks that i've had moments of, just honestly, like just one and they run away from at all or or cut, like three quarters, my client base. Or to start something different, to go get a Normal job like I with Normal hours, right? Like I have those moments of weakness where I just want to like escape. But you are still figuring out how to get to something that's that's more sustainable and more like family friendly.

So I think that s right to some degree. You this is too much right, and you have like so many different leverage you can pull like the fact you doubled your Prices if you are sort of the king in your chain is that is not getting new customers in the doors, right? It's scaling yourself, then you can afford to charge more and more, more and more and more.

And just tell everybody also know your customer and that's something you can do. But then what happens to your register customers? I think they're still on the old Prices. So the grandfather.

then I wouldn't reach the certain things I would recommend following what I do. And there's a lot of things I wouldn't recommend following what I do, and I think that's one of them. I i've been I have a client that have had since day one of launching on product in twenty seventeen.

I i've kept two or three of everyday one customers, but most of them were like right around there. And i've kept at that same Price. I had several that are still on the one K A month plan that I had few years back. So yeah I mean, especially since outed ling, my crisis and gain still a lot of interest in people signing up. It's get into the point where and I apologize if if a current client is watching this, but it's get into the point where i'm going to have no choice but but eventually kind of a grandfather people and and probably released them, which will not probable happening from in the most cases.

But I think that's absolutely right decision. Yes, it's totally OK. There's other designers on earth, I give you stop designing stuff for people. They're not going to be like completely screw that will be fine, you know and your life can be a lot Better. And if like all of your customers are paying the new rate, if you could get to that point, like the home of my god, would you your life be so much similar and Better? Everybody else would be just .

fine if I could take just twenty like if I could just not my fingers have twenty clients instead of what I have yeah I I would buy a work six, seven hours a day, no problem of, right? So yeah, that's that's in the Carter's. When I can do IT, it's a it's a little scary to do something like that.

It's a little scary to cut like, you know, half or even a quarter of your clients. I mean, that's something anyone enjoys doing. No.

another vel you can pull tiring. And so I think i've seen that you like you've been looking to try to find the finance to help you have that been success little?

Oh, man, i've had so much interest. I mean, not just from that, but just I get message all time on on chat. It's like, you know people wanted to to sort of join the team and take on some of design work.

I I too feel the pain and it's exactly why I created design joy. I feel the pain of hiring good designers. I'm a senior level guy, so I only want to work with a senior level people, nothing against people who are I know I had just started at one point my life.

But where I md, where I position is I enjoy IT is certainly on the more premium of things, no paying attention, every single pixel, let's put on a screen right following conventions and in seeks like that. So IT is a particular type of designer and i'm looking for and I just haven't not been able to find one that if I find one that that does designs pretty things, they're slacking in the detail side of things. If they're really going to detail side of things are slacking on the creative and the things. Now i'm still trying to .

find someone that does both. Have you had to fire someone and give you like trying somebody out? And okay, this is gna go well and then .

never I I mean my my process here is like find someone that that looks good on the outside. Put him given a couple of a project to do you in fig ma going there, inspect every detail of IT checking pixel and checking just, you know, aesthetic and general and that's where the majority of them fall short.

And that's tank le's work like you're spending your time vetting designers that potentially higher that goes nowhere and you get to from that time make another five thousand dollars do work for a .

new client yeah I think it's also it's like I don't like managing people. I don't even I don't call myself an entrepreneur. I am like i'm a designer. I don't mean to like downplay IT by any means, but i'm a designer. I don't have interested in managing people on on a very introvert to person. Doing something like this is a lot, a lot of like energy that that taken from me though I enjoy IT early, but it's like i'm an introvert or person. So you bringing on a team, taking on the livelihood, other people, having the manager, having to make sure that they have a consistent of work, reviewing the work, ensuring its quality, that stress in my head at this seems greater than taking on all the work myself.

Yeah, i'm the same way. I don't want a giant team. I don't want ideally, almost no. I mean, at any hackers, we have some contractors. It's me and my brother really full time .

and that's IT as a good time is always that's awesome and amazing.

It's all to work with people that you actually like if you're going to work with anyone at all. And I think the vast majority of the hacker should do this because like, we don't want that lifestyle like I don't know very many people who stated to business and say, you know what I love. I love that i've gone away from the early days where which was building and creating stuff and using my creative brain and now i'm just managing .

people like no one. No, no, no. It's I don't know. It's am i'm content. Where am I? They may grant I like and i'm sure you are the same way, right? Like you see maybe other teams on twitter that are getting together and like creating some cool. And I think that interests me a lot.

Like I do for sure know that there could be a potential huge value ad and building a team and just being around like minded people sort of going after the same goal, right? As like as as corny is that sounds that does sound really fun to me. But getting there and staying there is a whole other, a whole other ball game.

Yeah, you didn't a in the actions and you talk about this. So the world tells you that every business should grow, but in reality all comes down. Their own persons desires what you want out of life. And i've chose in the path fewer headaches, less meetings, less managing people and less constantly worrying about expanding and growing, all at the end of the day, making a child living, working for myself. And I think that's like the dream, right? Like less bulshed, more of the good stuff, hopefully that the point stressed down, saying them to one I am, but like, at least it's not going to use meetings.

silly. It's kind of silly to hear that back knowing where i'm at scale wise, but it's important like I didn't choose to gay here like this was not something that I actively pursued to be volume that I am at. Now when I wrote that post, I pie out of far less volume, I would imagine I know what I was, but yeah, sounds kind of silly. But the philosophy is still hangs true, right? Like.

well, I think this is like the the beauty of your business. If you start a business, that ability, it's like the beauty of charging more. If you start a business, your charge five dollars a month are twenty five dollars a months or even one hundred dollars a month, like the number of customers that you need to get to the revenue .

run rate that jurat is astronomical.

You to be super good growth, right? Like, okay, like what is a million dollars here is like eight, three thousand dollars a month for charging. One hundred dollars a month means eight hundred and thirty paying customers at one hundred dollars month.

And even one hundred dollars month is more than the most end hackers want to charge because most people will come out of the gate and say, oh, i'm no good. I'm brand new. I'm just a one person company.

No one's going to pay me more than five or ten or twenty box month, which is absolutely wrong. Here you are charging like five thousand dollars a month. And I know you know that all of the customers are paying that rate. But assuming like they actually got to that point like that you like sixteen and customers to make a million dollars, sixteen and customers .

when you're like I got I just really like Prices to get. I sign two people on yesterday at the at the new race, actually fifty five hundred because they built with low and IT really is like it's amazing because in one day, I mean most most the hackers and entrepreneurship am of growing the M R R by 1k in a day， right? That's like a lot. And we d like to get to tankage just at all. But charging more and offering a premium service and just executing a well allows for me to do that.

I mean, my I can grow twenty K A day if I have a good day, right? And yeah, likewise, they can also drop by the out of people, drop off, right, which has happened far and far less often as i've gotten Better and worked with Better people in charge higher Prices, right? But yeah, when you charging more, like you said, if like i'm charging, if I was charged four and forty nine books, a mother would take me forever to get where I am and I would never be able to the handle well, I mean that that would be uni maginness. They are charging more is always Better.

I was reading this tweet from, do you know Peter levels behind no mad list remote. Okay, yeah yeah, yeah. Like prolix on twitter, he's tweet yes, over the weekend, he's like a month ago, I bought the domain, rocked that code for eight thousand dollars, and I made IT into a short links service for remote jobs.

So he's got the job boards in mode OK. And like if you post a job on there, like and you send the link to somebody, the link to your job is like w that remote OK that comes like blab law ba ba ba, blab. Okay, what do you want like a linked shorten version at IT, right? Well, he now has that as an option where when you're going to job, you can do a links ort. He searching ninety dollars to one hundred dollars to get a link sorted version.

That's that's the dream right there.

Hundred dollars. He did that. He said, I did this a month ago. He's now sold one hundred and twenty five of them in one hundred dolla month. So he added basically twelve thousand dollars in the months of recurring revenue, literally charging for links.

What i'm doing is like, yes, it's cool.

That's the dream. It's it's crazy, right? But I think it's going to show that people will pay money for things you know like they could go a bit ly and pace copy, pace their job listing and there and get their own short link for free and they are paying a hundred box.

I just think that like as entrepreneurs, like a lot of research naturally insecure, like not all of us suffer from this like uninformed optimism where we think everything's going to work and everything to be great. Like a lot of people like myself are very risk of adverse in overanalytical about whether something applausive or ottaway I am charging too much. Yeah, there are so many people out there that are in such you so many different situations that what they can afford and what they can. And we forget that there are a lot of people out there will pay a prayer for something .

that they like so many people. yeah. And the amount of money I spent on food is ridiculous. Like, I like, I want to cook. Like I just .

order out .

and say the amount of money.

food that is the biggest budget.

The same here is the ridiculous it's ridiculous.

I used to play poker with one of the founder of who is not really he was very reckless, the poker table and I was always, hey, and going to be just A A lot of and people people will do IT though I think it's that's the point, right? So I want to think about like what IT takes to build sort of agency of one we talk to about a few things, right? Number one, you need this amazing skill set, right? You are super streamline.

You have done the same thing over and over, day after day after day after day. At this point, it's like probably just in your bones. So like a virtuoso magician, musician, right? I can use with the x phone.

And like what I started, I socks and after, like five or six years, like I was super good at the sex box, it's all like you. So you need that. I think like the streamline workflow part is really important or it's not just that you're good, but like you're getting predictable sort of customers coming.

This is not completely different every single time, but right you like, this is what I do. I do apple, what I do. Design, what else do you think you need? Like what what else makes this possible for other people who are trying to do this?

The three, my workload, honestly, like that's probably IT, goes hand in hand with having the skill and having the ability to do IT quickly. It's not one of the other. It's making IT as simple and as manageable for yourself.

It's also important dimension like you don't have to get to the scale design joy. I mean, if you're making ten k among me, that's a very healthy living for most people out there. And most people would love that people.

And i'm not saying this is because i'm a designer, right? A lot of people suck IT like their landing page just suck. You know, they like they create this like beautiful service that's like on the back in works very efficiently.

And then they just totally neglect the actual selling part of IT, which like, if I could, like, live in a world, right, money wasn't a thing and I could just help the hacker is like, just create gorgeous landing pages that just sell what they do. Like that's that's my passion. I would love to be in a position to do that because I feel like so many people need IT.

They like investing and investing in like your your brand. And again, sounds illy be designed investing in your brand and your market positioning and like kitching down and like going out for something very specific. That is something that isn't have to be reoccur ring IT could be one off podcast IT could be i'm like literally helping my sister like build product size, like entire or design service that's like a physical is like physical stuff and the moral can be applied anything. But honestly, like just making IT as simple as you can for both both parties. I'm not going through and like investing a lot of money and building my own tools to like men, right, using is this stuff out there that again has been proven I don't have to manage or pay for IT or like I was scale IT.

Tell me about that you because I I think these tools are super like I was looking at the source, your website, some like your website is clean. It's slike. IT looks really good, but it's also like well made.

It's responsible. If I sick, my window IT still looks good. It's got these animations and you're not like a computer programmer or that you don't do so yeah you don't do code. So how do how did you .

make this web flow? What flow is like? Probably my favourite oil that i've come across the last four, five years.

I've been using a sense like, gosh, like twenty eighteen or something like that. And i've gotta very good at. I can design pretty much any landing page design at all with with zero code.

One of my best friends got like SHE learned how to code I actually had on the podcast couple times. And her first thing out of the gate was not just like to make customer, you know, after people SHE learn how to code and just went to a web flow, which not even need to know how to code to his weblog, but if you do, it's like a way Better. And you just made website websites for people and became like a web flow consulting. I was like a love low expert.

I can tell you straight up. I mean, i've seen i've been at the forefront of love low work for a long time in terms of doing the work and seeing its growth. It's very rare that I talk to a started that is not interested in angle and convert in the welfare starting in waffle.

It's no where closer taking over wedding ss by any search imagination. Just give me a history. And given the fact that so many companies are already like invested in IT and stuck in IT, but web loo is honestly, it's like the future.

The web is honestly the most impressed of websites being cool out there. And that allows me, as a designer to design whatever I want to imagine, A F igg. Man actually be able to develop IT pixel, perfect with zero code. Yeah, which is incredible.

Feed people don't know, weblog is check out episode number one, forty four of the pocket I thought of lad, the founder web flow yeah. And like they are going to die like their company was like like there is a point where was like our company is not gonna, right? And now there raised of hundreds of millions dollars, raised evaluations, just crushing and it's like a sweet guy ever. So check out that i'm so if you haven't heard IT so website one of your secret weapons. What else so what other tools do you use to?

Yeah, a couple more tools. I use tro. So tro is where my client's design q lives. And there's other tools out there that are be fear to have more features. But trio is a very streamline, simple tool.

Most people are used to, like the combination boards are ready or even used to trade itself. So I have set up people's q in there and that's where they input, request and provide feedback. And that's why deliver designs.

So that's that's the whole project management side of things. And then I use air table for internal purposes to consolidate the fifty years old boards that I have each client into a single view. That's where I managed, ed, that project status and just a single, a single table.

And that's IT so much your kinds come in. They're using the software because if you could just do IT all over email, like, okay.

email me. A lot of people that do start out doing partial design services, they also a lot of invest in their own you know tools that they've gotten build a in you know q base like product or platform that client could sign into. It's like a branded experience. But even then, I mean, you're you're never going to be Better than true. Mean, you may get more specific and I may eventually get there, but. For me is just so much simpler to just use a tool that exist, allow some team that I don't have to do anything worth allowed to make IT Better right energy and if he goes down right like it's, they'll take care of IT 来到 have have dev dev debt in that regard。 So no, what about intercom?

Because I knows when I go to your website, you ve got like the classic intercom, which is in the bottom right, can click, presumably chat with you. You ask you questions like how valuable .

is after you oh my godness um and um insanely valuable. So for a long time I didn't I didn't offer calls like again i'm an interview. T I don't like to get on like face to face calls or calls and general. So for the first like three and a half years, inter com was my soul like route for customers to get in touch before they sign up. And most of them do. It's still the day is I mean, it's like it's been completely like I would pay a thousand bux amount for in our com and IT still be more than worth IT to me than more than fifty bucks or so well that I paid today.

People complain constantly about how expensive and comment is as as your business grows. Like I guess it's not a big issue for you because you don't need millions of customers, but it's super expensive of tool. And that sounds like he get .

your moneys for me IT is yeah I mean that I can't speak to those that receive hundreds of intakes a day and like in day for that. But for me, it's I couldn't imagine going away from IT.

Yeah, I know i'm looking at the pricing one right now. It's like get two tabs for most businesses and for very small businesses and look for most businesses, all of their plans are like get a demo, but they do not show the Price on their website. People go with the enterprise pricing out. And even if you started business, IT starts off at seventy five bux months, which doesn't cheap for people who are just getting started.

F for me as funny because I I was on the the start up like the the early actually was the early stage program up until a month and a half ago. They email me and they're like, hey, you're ready to move on from this like early stage now like I was doing a million boxes years. I like, of course I but I was just funny that I I was able to do that first long as I did, but now i'm actually paying what everyone else but still well worth IT.

So let's talk about just to finish off you like the marketing aspect of IT because IT seems a quit conversation. You haven't really had to do very much like how do people find does I mean at this point, like you're on podcast, your twitter accounts blow up. But like in the early days, somebody just starting this when you are just starting this, like nobody knew who you are, like nine nine point nine nine percent people never heard of you, didn't eja services. How do you how you get past that area or every customer is a rich I mean.

I had no audience at all when I started design. Joy IT was actually called you at the time. But when I started design Y, I had, no, I didn't have a twitter, I didn't have an instagram.

Nothing right. I was just a nobody. But I had a good idea, and I had the ability to like to design something that looked nice and a concept that was appealing.

So I did what a lot of people do, typically, is the quick is weight into the market. That doesn't work. Everybody worked for me, which is product on.

So I I found a good, like solid hunter and product. I had a good following. I actually built design.

I thought of the idea on a thursday built IT on a friday, and saturday launched on a sunday at midnight. And that is one page side, just like IT is today little different, but one page side. And that was really IT was instantaneous.

And then sleep for two days. I was up all night on inter com, you know, any kinds of questions made, all kinds of mistakes offered, free tasks which never got around to doing, but got hundred of those. Of course I went, I and yeah, I mean, that was where I entered the market.

And then that honestly IT Carry me for a Better year or more, just because these new design tls pop up and in with on the bar, got a lot of referral, click that way. And then as i've grown, like I started to share my store on the hackers. And hackers is unequally the number one source of of customers for myself, really not not even close, not even close.

It's rare that I get on a call with someone and I asked how that they don't say the hackers now. Now it's getting like twitter because I started that a month ago. But andy, hackers, nothing is even to come close to that.

I was going to say if I wanted to start a business like this and I want to my first customers, there's a whole group on in the hatters called the landing page feedback where people post there are land page they have together for their product. And I don't know, like hundreds of posts of the month there, and like almost all of them are super crappy.

And these are all people with businesses who want to grow and are financially motivated to have a good landing page like I would literally just go through here. You like here's why it's not great now here's I could help you and I find clients because there's so many people on any because you have money, have businesses and they want help and they're literally asking like, can somebody please help me? It's hard.

It's hard. It's hard to hide developers. It's hard to hide to designers is it's funny because they're everywhere, but they're very hard. They're like actually get engaged with.

But one one interesting thing that i've done with design ra, i've never heard anyone else talk about before in terms of getting clients. And i've said this on a couple of podcast I was on recently, but that was his landing page in sport. Sites have been massive for me as well.

So sites like handbook, nice, very nice driver, even if you think about IT. Like luckily, I had A A good looking landing page that actually was accepted in these sites. And a lot of people that successful in their services out there, like design, enjoy others that can give that to them.

But I I posted design joy every time I redesign IT, which is every you, I D like to do IT more, but I ve done a few times and i've posted these sites. And it's like, if you think about, it's really the perfect place because you have designers and volunteer's entrepreneurs there to get inspired for their own sites. They come across the site that they like. It's a design firm and like what like what Better yeah like resource. Can I use something like that in front .

of your customers, your potential customers?

Yeah and it's those who ve been huge for me as well. And then I created a side project called scribes as well. And I was like a twenty four, our project.

I posted the product time. I was only one person that voted to get you. I get IT.

I did get a attraction, but I posted on landfill. And then now it's like booming and twenty thousand plus down those. But it's it's connected to design joy.

And IT sends a lot of referrals my way too. So i've leveraged i've created other thing that took six hours of my time and IT now filters leads to design joy. And I was able to leverage lang book time. They're working out. But like that that's a strategy too is to create these like microprograms set out yeah and their .

own traction that filter over to you yeah I see you got road and like four dollars or bugs and how much .

a result twenty twenty thousand .

plus .

seven that's crazy yeah I yeah like invision uses, like a lot of people google, like a lot of people have used domini spent IT like honest, just like scribes. That idea, my ipad that was IT and I vectored zed them because I can draw with the crap, but I could do scribes, right? yeah. So yeah.

most people pay money to advertise, like, i'm going to buy ads, like I want to make money with my ad for, and people are paying. I love this thing. And then the legal, let's a design enjoy thing and the super cool this and bright, we've Better talking for an hour. I could talk you for probably two more, thanks to time for coming on and and chain the story behind this. Andrew, I I love, I love stories where it's just one person live in the india aerie crushing IT hope you got to find a way to work less and stomach but like you're count .

now is my pleasure and thank you for everything you've done and me for writing a platform for me and I know sounds quite like every every other indie hacker out there like the hackers. The platform has been invaluable to me just from not just from like a you know getting clients, but also getting wisdom and inside.

And there are the reason why I raise my Prices is the feedback that i've gone on there and it's it's somewhere that I go every, every single day and and get inspired. So thank you for the platform that you you've built continue to run. Yeah.

yeah. Well, will you tell listeners where they can go to learn more about you? I mean, you're on twitter.

Where can you on twitter? Where can they find design joy? Where can they find scribes? What else you do on online?

The people to know that find design joy to design to be that code or google design enjoy. Um i'm now on twitter at ret from D J. Ah that's my handle. And then um yeah the scribes pack is is actually scribes with three bees um that design so yes alright .

thanks so much bread. Thank you.