Posts Tagged ‘entrepreneurship’

Every designer knows what I am referencing, those little changes that clients ask for at the last minute. They are requests that are not thought out or followed by reason, yet they must be completed in order to reach a sign off or finish the project. You have heard it numerous times before “I am not sure if this would work, but can you just quickly try making the copy more bolder.” Let’s take a second to discuss why this is not an ideal situation to be in, and actually how insanely counter productive they can be.

Ever since I was a kid I have had the entrepreneurial spirit, making things to sell at my aunt’s store and selling golf balls that popped over the creek into our back yard from the neighboring golf course. In high school when I was a little older and a little wiser, I began selling my creative services. I had always been creative and loved to draw and around this time I discovered the internet. So I started selling websites and then I started thinking about developing my own websites without a client. Trying to make something that would be profitable.

But this all stopped, quickly. Why? It was fear. Not my own fear either. Unluckily for me I had been exposed to those who had tried a project in the past only to fail. I was completely naive and open minded only to have these dreams smashed by disabling fear. Here are some of the questions I heard when I brought up my ambitious internet plans to others:

Inevitably in every designer’s career there comes a point where you no longer feel that a client is a fit with your business. If you have never had to fire a client, there is sure to be a time when you will. This is unfortunately just a part of doing business that is pretty much unavoidable. Even the strictest screening of potential clients is not 100% fail safe. Organizations can restructure, move, or corporate cultures can change. I tend to look at the client / vendor relationship as a “team”. When one side feels the need to control the other, then usually this is the time where you decide whether the relationship can be salvaged or it‘s time to move on. But how do we handle this potentially awkward situation?

There are numerous reasons why a designer would want to start a personal project. They could include gaining relevant experience (see my earlier article on gaining experience), raising awareness, or possibly even making money. In reality it is almost impossible to not have a personal project give you all of these things. This is the reason that I highly suggest that designers, developers, and writers alike either contribute to a personal project or start one of their own.

It seems like every day I come across a new link to an eBook that claims it will revolutionize the way that I do this or that. Each time I research the eBook, it is nothing more than a poorly written word document that some no name person is selling for about 5 to 15 dollars. Most of the time this is information that can be easily found elsewhere on the internet. I am not saying that all the eBooks are bad, Cameron Moll has a great one relating to Mobile Web Design, and Freelance Switch has their wonderful offering. However these are the exception and not the rule.

Today I was looking through the article archives on A List Apart, and I came across the article When You Are Your Own Client, Who Are You Going To Make Fun Of At The Bar? written by Jim Coudal. As many of you may know, I find Jim to be a revolutionary in thinking outside the client / designer relationship and fully embracing entrepreneurship. I have written about him numerous times. In this article Jim raises the question “Should my blog have a business?” which instantly stuck with me.

When was the last time that you had a great idea, but never saw it realized because you got too caught up in all the details? I have entire Moleskine books full of great ideas that were never realized because I got lost in the minutia. I was so caught up with all these details that nothing ever happened with the idea. Inevitably someone else comes along with a similar idea, and I have lost the competitive advantage I would have had by just getting started on the project. The repetition of this process over and over again has led me to one conclusion; stop thinking and start doing.

Why bother worrying about what could happen in the future, when you can get right into the project and actually see what will happen. Chances are that you will figure out whatever problems may arise, when they do. By over thinking what could happen, not only do your persuade yourself not to take risk, you also plan for contingencies that may never happen.

Why you may be worried about what the consequences of these actions could potentially be, I ask you to think about what you could be missing out on instead. What if your idea does take off? What if you get 300 potential clients knocking your door down asking you to work for them? Those are great problems to have, much better than worrying about where you will get your next client from, or what kind of project you will have to accept just to pay the bills. So next time you think you may have a good idea, why not try it out before writing it off? At the worst you will learn something along the way.

How many times have you attended a meeting and realized that by the time left you have actually moved backwards in your progress on a project. Because of this and other reasons, I have come to the conclusion that meetings are just utterly pointless. I have come up with a few reasons that hopefully may help you see my side of the situation.

What can I say, the event was just spectacular. Each presenter had their own memorable and interesting points however to me the overall underlying theme was taking control of your business. Carlos Segura persuaded us to take control by setting precedence up-front with our clients. He suggested that we as designers inform our clients about how we function, and give them a take-it-or-leave-it mentality. Jason Fried gave us ten tips of starting a business and how having a small business can be more productive. He also stressed simplicity in everything we do, from our business models, to the products we develop. Finally, Jim Coudal presented the idea that a short attention span can be a good thing, leading you to new and interesting ideas. He also urged everyone to take greater control of our own crafts or means of production to create new business opportunities.

Every designer I know has a list of self marketing plans that they hope to accomplish, however for numerous reasons these projects always find themselves on bottom of the stack of priorities. We as designers create marketing materials all day long for our clients, however we find creating these same materials for ourselves to be some of the hardest tasks to tackle. There are a number of reasons why this is the case…