He Built a $2M/Yr One-Person Business - Steal His Playbook

1. 0:00 – 2:47

   Aakash and Brett’s $1M+ one-person business milestone + why Brett waited to quit

   1. AGAakash Gupta0:00

      So I've actually never revealed this before, but in the last 12 months, my business just crossed $1 million in revenue. You didn't quit your full-time job until you were earning $80,000 per month.

   2. BWBrett Williams0:14

      It was a, a long journey there, a lot of painstaking hours managing my full-time job with DesignJoy. But, uh, happy that I finally had the guts to do it, 'cause I don't do traditional marketing, I don't have lead gen, I don't have pipelines, I don't have a team. It's just, it's just me, right? Been a journey on just kind of believing myself and trusting myself and, like, going, like, full in, betting on my own abilities.

   3. AGAakash Gupta0:35

      So for people who don't understand what it is and why what you're doing is different, can you describe that for us?

   4. BWBrett Williams0:41

      How designers engage with their clients and how design is sold.

   5. AGAakash Gupta0:45

      How do you handle, and is this the hell and back you're talking about, weekends or vacations or just sometimes in life we have slower periods?

   6. BWBrett Williams0:52

      You know, I don't take vacations. I'm notorious for that. Really don't even know what I would do with myself on a vacation.

   7. AGAakash Gupta0:58

      [laughs]

   8. BWBrett Williams0:59

      But now everything is X. You know, that X is where everything comes from. It's the only platform that I have any involvement in whatsoever. Only place I post, share things, interact with people. It's exclusively X today. I'm enjoying having the reach right now, but I see a lot of other people struggling with it, and it's platform risk. It's everywhere. I've had a lot of success on social media way before DesignJoy. [bass boom]

   9. AGAakash Gupta1:23

      Really quickly, I think a crazy stat is that more than 50% of you listening are not subscribed. If you can subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple or Spotify podcasts, my commitment to you is that we'll continue to make this content better and better. And now on to today's episode. [bass boom] So I've actually never revealed this before, but in the last 12 months, my business just crossed $1 million in revenue. We have two people on today's podcast who have created $1 million one-person businesses. Brett, welcome to the podcast.

   10. BWBrett Williams2:00

       Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

   11. AGAakash Gupta2:01

       You're about to cross two million ARR if I multiply your MRRs for last month by 12.

   12. BWBrett Williams2:07

       [laughs]

   13. AGAakash Gupta2:08

       So you're a little bit further ahead than me, and I want everybody to hear your story.

   14. BWBrett Williams2:14

       Yeah.

   15. AGAakash Gupta2:14

       And I think it starts with everybody wants to build this one-man business, and I think what both of us did that probably most people don't think of doing is we actually built this business while we still had a full-time job. I didn't quit my full-time job until the revenue from my business had exceeded what I was making as a vice president of product at a unicorn. You didn't quit your full-time job until you were earning $80,000 per month. Take us back to that time period and how you created this business on the side of your full-time job.

2. 2:47 – 5:51

   Building DesignJoy in a weekend, then juggling it for 4–5 years

   1. BWBrett Williams2:47

      Yeah, I mean, um, look, I mean, under the hood, DesignJoy is really about as, uh, lean of a, a startup, if you wanna call it that, as possible. Uh, it's really... It's, it's a lot of just grunt design work. You know, there's not, there's not much going on under the hood. There's not these, uh... Everyone thinks I have, like, all these fancy, you know, elaborate automations set up and this and that, but it's really, uh, it's really a, a landing page, a Trello board that I manage requests in, and my day-to-day is just doing just pure design work. It's a completely output-focused agency, which is very contrarian to other agencies that exist out there. A lot of them are process-driven and, um, and very slow because of that. But yeah, I, um, I had a corporate job, just like many probably people listening.

   2. AGAakash Gupta3:37

      [laughs]

   3. BWBrett Williams3:37

      Wasn't, wasn't super fulfilling. [laughs] Um, I always had that, like, entrepreneurial desire to, you know, like, screw working for somebody else. Like, I, I just wanna do my own thing, and, uh, but never had, like, the guts to really jump out and do it. Uh, but, you know, I, I had this comfy corporate job that allowed me a lot of, uh, stability, or so I thought. [laughs] Uh, so I, I seized the opportunity, built DesignJoy in a weekend. It was a Friday night project that launched on a Saturday, and Sunday my life was [laughs] was di- was very different than it is today. Uh, and then, yeah, I kept that job, the corporate job, for I think it was about four or five years of running DesignJoy. Yeah. Uh, and then, um, kept hitting those revenue marks that were [laughs] anyone else would've jumped ship a long time ago from their full-time job and went all in on des- on y- you know, your thing if it was making 70, $80,000 a month, but I, that was not me. But I did it long enough. I hit those revenue marks long enough month after month after month that I finally, uh, finally had the guts to, like, start thinking about it. Um, and I got laid off from a job, and then, uh, ab- about the time I was b- about to make the jump, I got laid off from my corporate job, but still was not ready, so I looked for another job. I applied to 60 places. Even though I was making $80,000 a month, [laughs] uh, I still looked for another job, got another job, and then, uh, stayed there for a little while. And then I just woke up one day and was like, "Screw it. Um, let's, let's do it." So I jumped all in on DesignJoy. And it was the most, like... It was the most freeing feeling ever to, to have built something from the ground up that you can now, like, sustain you and your family, uh, was a really cool feeling. And then, you know, things just quickly grew and, and scaled after I, after I went full time on it. Not that I even really changed much about my approach, but it just... The, the focus that I had on it just, uh, it... Like, ev- I think revenue doubled, like, within just three or four months, uh, for DesignJoy. Um, so yeah, it was a, it was a, a long journey there. A lot of painstaking hours managing my full-time job with DesignJoy. But, uh, happy that I finally had the guts to do it.

   4. AGAakash Gupta5:48

      I had no idea it was four to five years. That's an incredible amount of time.

   5. BWBrett Williams5:51

      Mm-hmm.

3. 5:51 – 7:59

   Fear, founder insecurity, and the ‘this could die tomorrow’ mindset

   1. AGAakash Gupta5:51

      What was holding you back? And looking back, would you have jumped ship earlier?

   2. BWBrett Williams5:56

      Yeah, I mean, the thing that held me back the most, it was, uh, the way that DesignJoy kinda spawned into the world.... was very fast. I mean, it was a, it was a tw- it was really 24 hours from like ideation to execution to launch to getting customers, right? It was like very, uh, very minute time in, in history and I, I guess in my mind I'm like, "Well, it could also go away just as fast because maybe it's a trend. Maybe, uh..." 'Cause no one had really done it before. No one had really tested the waters. Maybe it was just something that like s- you know, sparked really big and then just faded away into the ether like a month later. And so I always, it was always in the back of my mind, I'm like, "Okay, no one's done this before. No one's done it like I've done it. Um, maybe, maybe I just had a stroke of luck at first," and I needed, I needed to like actually... It was so unbelievable that I needed to see it continue on for a long period of time before I realized this is actually something that's sustainable, that I can actually do for a, a long period of time. So it was a lot of like, it was a lot of founder insecurity in not having done it before, and I felt like I wasn't deserving of the success that I was seeing. [chuckles] So I thought, thought maybe it'd go away for that reason as well eventually. Uh, but yeah, it's some, it's those things I still struggle with even now having, you know, done $2 million last year. Like, I still have those, those like voices in the back of my head that says, you know, "This thing could die tomorrow," right? 'Cause I don't do traditional marketing. I don't have lead gen. I don't have pipelines. I don't have a team. It's just, it's just me, right? So yeah, there's a, it's a scary world but, um, you do something long enough and you start to, you start to kind of trust the process and actually see yourself for who you are versus what, you know, you think you are, which is this, um, some, you know, incapable, inferior kind of, you know, designer in my case. So yeah, it's, it, it's a b- it's been a journey on just kind of believing in myself and trusting myself and like betting, going like full in betting on my, my own abilities. But yeah, it's a, it was a long time to, to juggle both.

4. 7:59 – 9:54

   DesignJoy explained: productized design subscription (Netflix-for-design)

   1. AGAakash Gupta7:59

      So for people who don't understand what it is and why what you're doing is different, can you describe that for us?

   2. BWBrett Williams8:07

      Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, what I'm doing is not necessarily revolutionary. I would say it's actually the op- the opposite approach of just grossly oversimplifying, uh, how designers engage with their clients and how design is sold. So design, I sell design like I sell, like you sell a product, meaning that like you can go to my website, you see exactly what it is you're getting. Um, it's a subscription, which is a lot of people kind of conflate it with a retainer, but it's, it's totally not a retainer at all. There's some similarities. There's some overlap. But it's basically you subscribe for a fixed rate per month. You can pause or cancel the engagement anytime, so it's very flexible, very budget friendly. Um, it's a great alternative to hiring internally full-time or, or working with kind of in- inconsistent freelancers out there. Kind of get the best of both worlds from like a freelancer and agency perspective. And, uh, you pay, you know, $5,000 a month, which is the base rate, and you, you're allowed one request at a time. So, uh, your request could be a landing page. It could be a, a branding project, like a rebrand or a logo. It could be, you know, a product flow within, with an application. Um, it could be anything really. Uh, and you get that usually within about 48 business hours, um, so to speak. So it could be a little more, it could be less, and I do that across the board for about 20 clients at a time. And, uh, and then, yeah, that's pretty much it. It's like, it's kind of like Netflix but for design is the best way to probably put it.

   3. AGAakash Gupta9:32

      And that is really the revolutionary thing is your offer, your packaging, your service, right? Obviously, your design is really good, and that's why people come to you and stay with you, so that's the base. But I think the takeaway here is how you've basically productized yourself. How did you discover this packaging, and how can other people think about developing similar packaging?

5. 9:54 – 14:02

   How the packaging emerged: adapt a model, keep tools simple, raise prices with demand

   1. BWBrett Williams9:54

      Yeah, I mean, I, I would love to say it was like, it was an original idea for me, and it, it, it was in a way but also wasn't. So there was another company that was doing something kind of similar in the beginning, but they were doing it for like very low level design work for like small shops. Like, it was, it was purely graphic design, no web design, no product design, no branding. And but that was one of the things that I took favor with. Those were the things that I felt like I was good at. And so I basically applied that model to, and I thought, "Well, why, why couldn't you do it?" And I'm, I'm super fast. Like, I've been fast since from the beginning of my career, right? Like back, going back to 2009 when I was in college, like I was designing in Photoshop just insanely quickly and having to just crank out a bunch of, bunch of assets every single day. So it, it really kind of groomed me to be able to take on a lot of clients at a time, and I felt... You know, at the same time, like going through it also allowed me to do it as well. Like, a lot of designers look at it and like, "There's no way you can take on 20 clients at a time." And I'm like, "Well, if you do it for two, two years or three years, you'll, you'll start to kind of, you know, get a little bit quicker and more efficient with your craft." Um, but yeah, so it wasn't, it wasn't a totally original idea. How, how I did it and how I sold it online kind of was in a very simplistic fashion. Like, I didn't build my own tool. I just used Trello. Um, I started out charging like 450 bucks a month, which is just nothing, right? Now I charge 5K. So, um, but basically the business is the same as it was eight years ago. I use the same tools, same processes, different price tag. Um, but how I do the work and how I facilitate the work is ex- is precisely the same with drastically different revenue numbers. But, um, yeah, it's, it's like one of those things where it's a pain point 'cause I've been on the other side. I've been a, a, a, a product officer. I've d- but I've done a lot of agency work as well, being, you know, working for agencies, and I've just seen a lot of the pain points of clients working with agencies and just being slow, expensive. Like, if you have a design project but you're also pay- you're also paying the salary of like the dev guy, the product manager, the designer, the CEO, and you... It's just, it's just bloated costs, you know, everywhere. And so, and it just, it just overcomplicates tasks like branding and stuff. It just becomes... It's almo- o- over, over romanticized, over glamorized. We have to go through these 16 different steps to arrive at a logo.Um, so I just cut all that out and like, "I'll give you a logo in 24 hours, you know, and it'll be good. It'll probably be as good, if not better, than those that take six months to do for you," you know? Um, so yeah, I've done a lot of things different than most agencies out there and, uh, turns out there's a big segment of people who want just that. So that's, that's where I am today.

   2. AGAakash Gupta12:31

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6. 14:02 – 17:05

   How to replicate: prerequisites, scope discipline, and a clear productized promise

   1. AGAakash Gupta14:02

      Jira Product Discovery: build the right thing. That's so interesting, and I think part of the magic here isn't just the skill of how fast you are, but how you've really put this packaging on it. It's the subscription. You have this turnaround. You submit a Trello request. So how can somebody else who has a skill-- Let's say I'm a, a good YouTube thumbnail designer, or I am a good fractional product manager and I want to productize myself. How can someone else replicate your success?

   2. BWBrett Williams14:36

      [lip smack] Well, I mean, there are some prerequisites. I mean, I don't, I don't know-- Look, I mean, the success that I've had individually, I don't know if someone will ever do it quite like I did it. I mean, there's been a lot of other designers in particular who have reached the 100K a month mark in revenue for their subscription business, but they always have teams. It's like always, always, always, uh, always have teams that they, they use to do the work. I don't know that anyone's insane enough to do what I did by myself, right? And I don't, I don't-- I wouldn't, I definitely wouldn't, uh, recommend it because I went through hell and back to get to where I am, and that's not an understatement. Um, but yeah, I think, like, the prerequisite is that you are both good and fast at what you do. That's the two terms that I always use. Like, I am so strict on the type of work that I take on at DesignJoy so that I can be efficient, I can take on more clients, make more money, g- deliver work faster. Like, there's things that, like, i- in the design world that I'm, like, moderately good at. Like, I'm moderately good at 3D design. I'm, like, learning animation. I'm doing all these things, but, like, not enough to plug them into the DesignJoy offering because those would bog down everything else. So, like, if you're a fast, like, thumbnail designer, like, stuff like that, I mean, now with, like, AI-

   3. AGAakash Gupta15:52

      Mm-hmm

   4. BWBrett Williams15:53

      ... um, you could take on an insane amount of clients with something like that. But yeah, you have to, you have to f- d- define what it is that you're good at, only offer that, set up a price, probably, like, really s- start really low to get, to get people in the door. Um, I always advocate for demand-based pricing, so, like, your price raises as demand increases, and that's, you know, I-- that's why I started out really low at DesignJoy, and it wasn't, it definitely wasn't hard to get clients at 450 bucks a month. Um, and now it's not hard to get f- clients at $5,000 a month 'cause I kind of proved myself along the way. But yeah, it's like, it's really as simple as setting up a website, s- constructing some sort of package around what it is you offer, attach some sort of time deliverable to that, and, uh, and that's pretty much it. Go to market, right? It's like, and then, um, ah, it's really, it's really, it's really that simple. It's just pick things that you're good and fast at, and that's, that's ultimately the key to it. And it's like a lot of people get hung up on the agency part, but it's really, it's, this is really just a way to freelance nowadays. It's, it's really like a new, just a new freelance model. You don't have to necessarily, like, look at it like you're building an agency. Uh, Gl- DesignJoy is just basically a glorified freelancing g- gig for me, if you wanna call it that.

7. 17:05 – 20:47

   Offer boundaries + delivery mechanics: what clients request and how 48-hour delivery works

   1. AGAakash Gupta17:05

      I think you're making it sound easy, but there are some key steps here, right? Like, have a really strong intake system that works for you. It sounds like your Trello board is working for you. Have a really clearly defined timeline for deliverables, and also the types of requests that people can come in. So maybe you can clarify that for me a little bit. Like, what are the types of things a client could request from you, and what time could they, um, expect back?

   2. BWBrett Williams17:30

      Yeah. No, I mean, you're right. You're right. I do-- I am vic- I fall victim to oversimplifying it just because this is what, this has been my world for the last decade. Um, but also distribution is al- [chuckles] is another big thing as well. But cer-certainly all the other things are true as well. Um, but what you can request from my service in particular, and there's a lot of others that do things differently than me and offer different things, but where I, where my strengths are, I call, like, the four or five primary offerings of DesignJoy would be branding. I do a ton of branding at DesignJoy. Pretty much brand most startups or companies that come through the door or rebrand them. So branding, um, landing page design. Do a ton of websites.... more websites than just about anything else. Product design is one of those... Product design is one of those things where, like, I wish I did more. It's just, it's hard for product owners and, like, just, you know, product people in general to see how that would work within this model, uh, because it's usually just, it's more, it's more like, like close-knit, like talking with your designer and working with your PMs and stuff like that. It's just, it's a different process altogether than, like, doing a logo. But I do a lot of product design, web development. Um, I do a lot of slide decks. I do a lot of social media stuff. Um, but that's, that's the main stuff is, like, branding, landing pages, product design, web development, slide decks. That's what I do a lot of.

   3. AGAakash Gupta18:50

      So you don't need to just package one thing like YouTube thumbnails. You could actually put in, like, those are, like, four or five very distinct things. But the key is then there's this system of expectation, and so how long does it take roughly? Like, some of those projects, it sounds like could take a dramatically longer than others for you. What's the guarantee on the customer side?

   4. BWBrett Williams19:12

      Yeah, I mean, there's like, there, there's the average request that I'll call it, which would be, in my case, like an average request would be like a landing page. It'd be a logo. It would be, like, an email design or, like, a, a 10-page slide deck. Like, all of those things that I just described, 48-hour delivery window on all day long. But of course, there's, like, the possibility, because I don't limit the, the size of requests that you're allowed to tackle under the DesignJoy model, that I could get, you know, a 50 or 100 page, you know, mobile app request come through, and it's, like, a single request, and it's all broken down within the Trello card. And, um, but in that case, it's, it, it sort of follows the same suit. Like, I'll break it, I'll break the project down. I'll jump in where I w- wherever I see fit and just do interval deliverables every couple of days until the project is done. You know, it's like, uh, I, I don't rely on them to break it down. I don't provide ETAs up front that says, "You're gonna get this, this, and this on these dates." No, just, just feed it all to me. I'll just do it little by little each day, deliver it, get consistent deliverables, keeps the client happy, keeps the development team busy. Um, and that's, that's what I do. But yeah, most things do fit within this nice, like, cookie cutter 48-hour window. But how long it takes me is a different story. So it might take me two days to deliver a landing page, but it really only takes me 30, 45 minutes to design, which, you know, you could start to see how many clients you can kind of stack on if it only takes you 30 minutes, but you're allowing yourself two days to deliver it. Um, if you take eight hours in a day, that's a lot of clients you could take on, you know? And that's not, that's to say that every client has a request for you every day, which is far from the truth as well, so...

8. 20:47 – 22:46

   Work-life structure: weekends off, no vacations, and managing expectations around weekends

   1. AGAakash Gupta20:47

      Yeah. So you can kind of take, like, your time to complete a request, let's say 45 minutes. If you have eight hours and 50% of clients have a request at a given time, that's something like 12 that you could do, and 50 client- 50% of the clients have a request, so that's 24 clients you could staff. So you can kind of do this math based on how long the things are taking you and how much time you have guaranteed as your turnaround. How do you handle, and is this the hell and back you're talking about, weekends or vacations or, you know, just sometimes in life we have slower periods? [chuckles]

   2. BWBrett Williams21:22

      [chuckles] Yeah. Um, I, you know, I don't take vacations. I'm notorious for that. Uh, I truly don't even know what I would do with myself on a vacation. Um, but yeah, but is that, is that what, is that kind of what you're asking is, like, how, how I, how I disconnect from it?

   3. AGAakash Gupta21:39

      Wow. So you don't take vacation. And does the 48 hour... It doesn't include weekends, right? So it's only business days?

   4. BWBrett Williams21:45

      It doesn't, but I mean, it sort of does in a way too, because, uh, if you were to submit a request, let's say, on Thursday, I don't really wanna make you wait until Monday, 'cause that's really, in your eyes, it's like three or four days later. So there's some, like, leniency there. Like, if you submit a request on Thursday, I'll usually try to deliver it on Friday. Or if you submit something during the weekend, I'll usually try to deliver it on Monday. So there is this, like, I, I sort of circumvent the, the weekend thing that way. Uh, but yeah, technically it's, it's no weekend service, you know, for DesignJoy.

   5. AGAakash Gupta22:19

      Okay. So you can at least get weekends, but no vacations.

   6. BWBrett Williams22:22

      Yeah.

   7. AGAakash Gupta22:22

      That's mind-blowing.

   8. BWBrett Williams22:23

      No, I, I take weekends 100% of the time. I used not to, you know, for the fir- you know, especially when I had my, my full-time job. But I haven't worked a weekend in, in years, I feel like, at this point. Uh, yeah, I w- I work a pretty normal schedule, surprisingly. I mean, I have, you know, about 20 clients at a time, but I, I work less than a full-time job for sure. Like, way less than a full-time job.

   9. AGAakash Gupta22:45

      Wow.

   10. BWBrett Williams22:46

       So-

9. 22:46 – 24:43

   Distribution in the early days: Product Hunt + Indie Hackers + communities

   1. AGAakash Gupta22:46

      That's amazing. That's what people wanna do. They wanna, they aspire to that. We covered a lot on the package and the offer. I really do think that's the key. Productize yourselves, folks. The second element, as you said and alluded to, is distribution. So walk us through the very first few customers that you got and how you acquired them.

   2. BWBrett Williams23:05

      Yeah. It was a goldmine back, back then. I feel like I reference these as, like, the good old days when it used to be way easier to get distribution than it is today because we had tools like, you know, the Indie Hackers community was super... Were you ever a part of Indie Hackers?

   3. AGAakash Gupta23:21

      No.

   4. BWBrett Williams23:22

      Okay. Do you know what it is?

   5. AGAakash Gupta23:24

      Not really. I mean-

   6. BWBrett Williams23:25

      Okay

   7. AGAakash Gupta23:25

      ... I've been to their website because they have some SEO-

   8. BWBrett Williams23:27

      Yeah

   9. AGAakash Gupta23:27

      ... ranking blog articles. That's about it.

   10. BWBrett Williams23:29

       Yeah, they do. Yeah, I mean, it used to just be this, like, kn- tight-knit group of founders, indie hackers that were just building whatever, and it was, you could just share articles on there, and you just got good engagement. So I, I built DesignJoy publicly on that platform. You know, when I would hit a certain revenue milestone, I would, I would share it on there. When I did, you know, did whatever along the way, that was the only platform that I used initially other than Product Hunt. That was what I launched within the first, like, 24 hours of actually putting DesignJoy out there. That's how I got my first clients and rode that way for a really long time. Unfortunately, that opportunity I feel like now is just nonexistent 'cause Product Hunt has just gone down the drain, unfortunately. Um-But that was awesome. That was like the biggest hack in the world having that available to me. I don't know that DesignJoy ever really would've taken off without it. But then yeah, I, I supplemented that by, by building in public a lot through, especially on the Indie Hackers platform, on Facebook groups and Slack groups, stuff like that. Um, but now everything is X. You know, that X is where everything comes from. It's the only platform that I have any involvement in whatsoever. Only place I post, share things, interact with people. Uh, so it's in, it's exclusively X today.

10. 24:43 – 28:29

    One channel at a time: all-in on X (Twitter) and the platform-risk tradeoff

    1. AGAakash Gupta24:43

       So at any given time, did you mainly focus on one distribution platform?

    2. BWBrett Williams24:48

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm like, uh, I am a really-- I mean, it's really product, byproduct of DesignJoy. I'm just a really, I'm a really simple guy. Like, I can't have all of my hands in all these different things. I like to just be like, I have like an obsessive personality towards, towards a lot of things, and I just dive all into it. So like, even though right now, like today I should be probably diversifying the channels that I use, but I'm just like, I'm all in on X. I've just been all in on certain things along the way, and especially when you see su-success from those things, it's, it's way more attractive to just continue pushing than to like explore other opportunities. See, I'm a very like one-track mind guy. I like to stay on one thing at a time. I'm not like, like levels that just does, you know, 50 startups at a time. It's, it's not me. It's not the way my brain works and how I'm successful. So yeah. I'm a very like, let's just do one thing at a time. One, one channel at a time, one, one thing at a time for me.

    3. AGAakash Gupta25:44

       Yeah. Although you might be helping 50 startups at a time, so you still have the ability, I think you're underselling yourself on your ability to task switch. You know, when I task switch from the newsletter to the podcast, I still feel like I lose 30 minutes. But it seems like you're task switching-

    4. BWBrett Williams25:58

       Yeah

    5. AGAakash Gupta25:58

       ... between clients and able to not really have that. So you do have that skill, but I love this one offer, one distribution channel advice for folks. I would say the same, like although the people might see me distributed like, oh, I have YouTube and X and LinkedIn, 80% of my revenue comes from LinkedIn. [chuckles] When I'm waking up-

    6. BWBrett Williams26:18

       Yeah

    7. AGAakash Gupta26:18

       ... in the morning, I'm checking LinkedIn. When I write a post, I'm thinking about LinkedIn, and I think that having that focus really allows you to like learn the platform, because these social media platforms, th-there's a huge arbitrage between being like the 99.9th best per-creator and the 99.99 best creator.

    8. BWBrett Williams26:39

       Yeah.

    9. AGAakash Gupta26:40

       Like it's the difference between me and you on X. [chuckles] I'm getting hundreds of likes. You're getting thousands of likes, 'cause you are at that next decimal point, that fourth nine, and I think that that's very, very important. And you can only do that really, I think humans probably, unless you're Greg Isenberg on one platform at a time.

    10. BWBrett Williams26:58

        Yeah, you gotta-- Yeah, most of us have to stay focused, but there, there's-- That's not to say that there aren't some unicorns out there that just have their hands in all kinds of different things, and everything they, they touch seems to turn into gold. Um, I'm surprised I did anything. I'm surprised anything turned into gold that I touched, so [chuckles] I'm not, I'm not gonna push my luck. But, uh, yeah, there's, you also run the risk of putting your all, all your eggs in one basket, 'cause I come from the, I come from the social media world. That's where my career started in building really big, you know, Facebook pages and stuff like that, and I've seen firsthand the, the risk in, in relying too much on a single platform. Um, and I've seen startups die that I've been a part of because of, you know, because of just small algorithmic changes, you know? So yeah, it's, it's, it's not something I would 100% recommend, but it's, it's worked well for me while, you know, while it's working.

    11. AGAakash Gupta27:50

        Yeah. My 2023 X impressions were 250 million. 2024 was like 150 million. 2025 is on track for like 10 million, so they can definitely drop off a cliff. [laughs]

    12. BWBrett Williams28:01

        They are. And it may not be anything to do with you, you know? And that's-

    13. AGAakash Gupta28:05

        Yeah

    14. BWBrett Williams28:05

        ... that's the sad part, is like I like to have control over it, and I just realize it ma- you know, these algorithms make me feel just so unimportant, because they can just change one night and your reach is just gone, you know? Um, it's, it's very scary. So I'm enjoying having the reach right now, but I see a lot of other people struggling with it, and it's, it's just, it's platform risk. You know, it's, it's everywhere, so...

11. 28:29 – 32:34

    X content strategy: playing the algorithm with AI design tutorials that ‘serve’ the audience

    1. AGAakash Gupta28:29

       So break down a little bit of what you're doing on Twitter or X these days, because I see s-

    2. BWBrett Williams28:35

       We can call it Twitter.

    3. AGAakash Gupta28:37

       I see you using it in a way that's very different from the average person. You're giving away a ton of content. You're walking through tutorials of art. You're creating amazing art. Talk us through how you're thinking about this.

    4. BWBrett Williams28:51

       Yeah, I mean, it, it's, it constantly evolves. I think going back to our discussion on the algorithm, you know, like you'll wake up and that one thing won't work anymore. And so in my, in my brain, I'm like, "Well, I gotta find something that does," because my entire business rides on this platform working for me. And so I like, I'm a big, like I, I have this almost intuitive sense of virality that I've always had. I mean, again, like I've had a lot of success on social media way before DesignJoy. Um, and so I've always had this like intuitive, like emotional sense of like what kind of content is going to get a lot of reach. Um, so I, I'm like, I'm a full on, I like, I'm a, I'm a self-admitted, like I play the algorithm hardcore. I'm not the kind of guy that just like dumps his brain on Twitter or X or whatever you wanna call it. Um, so yeah, it started off like, it started off around being based around the numbers that I'm generating for DesignJoy. That got a lot of notoriety, a lot of engagement, a lot of conversations. It start, kinda kickstarted the entire productized service movement in a lot of ways. And, uh, and then I switched to some other things, and now I'm like, now I'm into making tutorials, which is getting more reach than anything I've ever had on, on X, uh, consistently day after day. Uh, and I think the, my approach to it is like you see a lot of, uh, like AI is like the big thing in the design world right now and in, in development world, in a lot of worlds really. It's the, it's like the big elephant in the room.But so much of what's generated out there in terms of this AI content is really not-- it's, it's just self-serving. It doesn't actually serve a need of anybody actually consuming the content in a lot of ways. So like, you know, doing these anime, you know, things in, in ChatGPT, it's like, it's cool, but there's nothing really to like give to you with that. So I've tried to center around like showing you how to use AI to actually do something that's going to serve you, whether it's like, oh, adding this material to your logo or giving your logo like a 3D, like a 3D spin that you can put on something or, you know, here's how to do dithering effects or like, it's all content definitely geared towards designers, but it's like even content that if you're not a designer, you can sort of consume and look like a designer, right? Um, so yeah, like this showing-

    5. AGAakash Gupta31:05

       I love this one.

    6. BWBrett Williams31:05

       Yeah. So this is, this right here is basically just showing how to use AI to, to kinda put different elements together. So you can see those four elements that I generated in a mix of like Midjourney or ChatGPT, and then I put them in together in a collage, and then the step after this is adding the textures on. So it's just showing step by step how to actually do this stuff. And again, like you really don't even need to necessarily be a designer in order to do it. Um, this is like, again, like who wouldn't want a cool looking avatar? So, [chuckles] um, I created all these different avatar, you know, studio shot, you know, avatars in Midjourney and ChatGPT, and then basically curated them and gave them away as a free, as a free sort of pack. They're basically all just like reference images is all they really are, but they're curated, you know. Um, and you don't have to go generate the pro- you know, with the prompt and stuff. So yeah, they're all-- I mean, you can see the impressions. It's just, it's m- it's almost mind-boggling how popular they are. And now I see a bunch of people d- now a bunch of people are doing it. Um, yeah.

    7. AGAakash Gupta32:09

       Now everybody will copy it, yes, after seeing this.

    8. BWBrett Williams32:11

       Now everybody will copy, n-not only on Twitter. People have seen me, like show me p- things on threads that's like going viral and this stuff. I'm like, "That's fine." You know, it's, it's the way it goes, right? Like nothing's original. I certainly was not the first person to do tutorials on X. So, um, but yeah, it's, it's been an interesting journey and who knows how long this, this will last well, before I switch to something else, but it's just the name of the game, so.

12. 32:34 – 55:12

    Live teardown + redesign: Brett’s one-shot, high-fidelity Figma workflow

    1. AGAakash Gupta32:34

       Okay. Well, we might come back to the business a little bit more and productizing yourself, but now I think it's really time to see it in action. I think my mind was blown and my entire podcast team, we knew we really wanted you on the podcast when you had the live battle versus Lovable, the AI prototyping tool. You used Webflow to win, but in general, you design fast, and I know you do a lot of that design in Figma. So can we kinda do a live cooking session in Figma where we get to see how you design so fast?

    2. BWBrett Williams33:04

       Sure. Let's do it.

    3. AGAakash Gupta33:06

       So I ha- you h- I know you haven't really even had any time to prepare for this, but, uh, here's the, the task, right? Let's take a look at my website, because I know you do a lot of websites.

    4. BWBrett Williams33:17

       Okay.

    5. AGAakash Gupta33:17

       Let's take a look at my website. I think it gets something like, you know, two million visits a month. So it's a, it's a decent website out there.

    6. BWBrett Williams33:24

       Ooh. It's a lot of pressure.

    7. AGAakash Gupta33:24

       Um, how would you redesign that? [chuckles]

    8. BWBrett Williams33:29

       Um, I mean, look, like th- there's, there's the, there's the, uh, actual tactical like designing in Figma, but there's also like my approach in general, and then I'm happy to just spin something up in Figma real quick if you just wanna see like a, an example. Um, but I pretty much one-

    9. AGAakash Gupta33:48

       But where should we start? Yeah.

    10. BWBrett Williams33:48

        Yeah, I mean, I pretty much one-shot everything. That's my general approach to design, which is [chuckles] you'll never probably hear anyone else say that, even if they actually do it.

    11. AGAakash Gupta33:57

        [chuckles]

    12. BWBrett Williams33:58

        Uh, I'm not the type of guy that's gonna like, if you hire me to design your site, I'm not the type of guy that's gonna sit around, come up with 12 different directions, go and explore all these different rabbit holes, put together mood boards and stuff like that. No, I'm just gonna like come up with the direction in my head and just go with it and send it to you. And if you like it, wonderful. We just saved ourselves a bunch of time [chuckles] and money. Uh, but if you don't, then I can just take an hour and spin up something else for you. It's an entirely new direction, you know. Um, so that's, that's part of the approach. And then, you know, I, I'm probably just as fast as anybody in Figma. There's nothing necessarily special about how I use Figma in, in a certain way. It's just more so the vision that I cr- that I, that I cast immediately w- w- upon s- doing something, and then just like jumping straight into high fidelity and executing. I don't do wireframing or sketching on a notepad or none of that jazz. It's just go straight into high fidelity.

    13. AGAakash Gupta34:53

        Awesome. Let's see it in action.

    14. BWBrett Williams34:55

        So-

    15. AGAakash Gupta34:55

        That is, that is radically different than I guarantee 100% of listeners of this podcast who work in big companies, and they're used to that wireframe, then prototype, then high fidelity. They're used to-

    16. BWBrett Williams35:08

        Mm-hmm

    17. AGAakash Gupta35:08

        ... five rabbit holes. So let's see how it all goes down.

    18. BWBrett Williams35:11

        Yeah, let me share my screen.

    19. AGAakash Gupta35:13

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    20. BWBrett Williams36:12

        So, um, I mean, again, [chuckles] we did not prepare for this. We ki- kinda came up with the prompt like right when I got on this call with you, soI haven't had a ton... I haven't had a ton of time. Like, normally I would sit here and, like, and brainstorm some, like, like, look at some websites and stuff to get some sort of direction.

    21. AGAakash Gupta36:30

        Okay.

    22. BWBrett Williams36:30

        But the main thing that I saw for sure, if I can go back to your site again... Oh, it's probably not gonna let me. Maybe I can do it in a-

    23. AGAakash Gupta36:37

        If you go incognito it will.

    24. BWBrett Williams36:38

        Yeah, let me do it.

    25. AGAakash Gupta36:39

        Yeah.

    26. BWBrett Williams36:40

        'Cause this was something that, uh, surprised me because you said, "Well, how would you download all these components?" And I'm like, "I don't see any components." And then I saw this No Thanks button right here. [laughs] Which is good because, you know, it, it, it's, it's s- you know, e- newsletter subscriber, like, centric, which is awesome. Um, but there's no, there's no real content unless you happen to see this button, which I'm sure most people do because they're, they're interested. But then I get here and, uh, there's not r- a lot to, there's not a lot to, like, get ex- super excited about, but it's also, it's also, like, pretty busy. Um-

    27. AGAakash Gupta37:16

        Yeah

    28. BWBrett Williams37:16

        ... and it looks like you're using a lot of the, the content inside of these things, I would assume as the thumbnails, which can get a little bit cumbersome, visually speaking. So I... My first approach of this, if I were just... If you're gonna give me any direction, I would just, uh, come up with something that's much cleaner. And we can talk while I'm doing this 'cause it's gonna be probably pretty boring. Um, you like the blue?

    29. AGAakash Gupta37:44

        Yeah.

    30. BWBrett Williams37:45

        Okay, you like the blue. Okay. So we have, like, a cool blue color. I don't like pure... And I'm not, I'm not a pure white guy. Um-
13. 55:12 – 1:01:41

    Thumbnails, templates, and scaling the design system without templating everything

    1. AGAakash Gupta55:12

       So how are you gonna handle those thumbnails?

    2. BWBrett Williams55:16

       In what way?

    3. AGAakash Gupta55:18

       Like, those images. Or would you just give the people guidance on better how to do them, or would you remake them, or?

    4. BWBrett Williams55:25

       Are you talking about the, like, your thumbnails?

    5. AGAakash Gupta55:27

       Yep. Those images for each article.

    6. BWBrett Williams55:29

       I would create a general, like a general style for it. So it would be like, um... Like, you, you create... This would be, uh, in a, in a larger corporation, probably th- this would be, like, within the guidelines itself on how to actually create these. So there would be templates involved. Um, so, but with something like this, I'll just go ahead and create one for you, and you can kinda see, like, a... And for every decision I make here, there's 1,000 other ones that you could make.

    7. AGAakash Gupta56:01

       Mm-hmm.

    8. BWBrett Williams56:02

       Um, so just because I'm gonna go ahead and put, you know, a square in the middle of this, uh, nothing that says you have to do that. And then I'm gonna go, um, probably, like, grab... Come over here and grab, ah, grab, like, a background element here that's like, uh, let's see. This one. Download and style. Yeah, you definitely create some, some sense of design language-

    9. AGAakash Gupta56:50

       Mm-hmm

    10. BWBrett Williams56:51

        ... around these. And it, it... Like, usually it would be set up either in Figma or, like, in some cases it might even be set up in, like, Canva, depending on the level of technical ability that these, you know, whoever's actually building these. A lot of times it's, like, a marketing person or something if you don't have a designer.

    11. AGAakash Gupta57:12

        Yeah. I make my infographics in Canva and my thumbnails in Photoshop.

    12. BWBrett Williams57:19

        Infographics in Canva, thumbnails in Photoshop. Okay.

    13. AGAakash Gupta57:22

        That's what I currently-

    14. BWBrett Williams57:23

        Yeah. I mean, I'm a, like, I'm a hardcore designer, and I, I appreciate Canva. I, I've thought about building an entire... I wouldn't be the one actually doing the work, but I've thought about building an entire agency for Canva. I don't offer Canva design through DesignJoy. Um, but I know there's a lot of companies that, like, operate off of Canva. Like, their, their teams definitely rely on it for all their assets, and I have to just turn those people away, you know?

    15. AGAakash Gupta57:52

        Mm.

    16. BWBrett Williams57:57

        Um. And then I love texture, so I come in here and add a nice little, like, texture to this.

    17. AGAakash Gupta58:09

        So from your point of view, I should create kind of like a custom, rectangular, more simple image for each article-

    18. BWBrett Williams58:18

        Yes

    19. AGAakash Gupta58:18

        ... that can go as the thumbnail.

    20. BWBrett Williams58:19

        Like a fixed, fixed aspect ratio. So maintain, like, the same aspect ratio as before, um, as, as all of them do so that you don't have to worry about things being cropped out or whatever. But, um... And then, you know, you could see, like... Put these in here real quick. Not necessarily worried for the sake of this demo of getting the spacing right, but, um, or consistent rather. Yeah, this could be, like, your purple. Um... Now again, like, would I do all of them this same style? No. Like, I, I wouldn't do that. I'm just doing this for, for the demo. You'd have, like, if I ha- For example, I have people that hire DesignJoy all the time, and part of their, part of their request is like, "Hey, we need blog graphics. Like, but we need templates. We don't want you to just... We don't want you to do the individual graphics. We need, we, we want you to create, like, a framework and, like, templates." And so I'll create, like, 10 or 15 different layouts for them with some with text on them, some without, some using images, some using icons. That sort of thing.

    21. AGAakash Gupta59:33

        Mm-hmm.

    22. BWBrett Williams59:33

        So this would be just, like, one of many templates for you to, to leverage. Um, you can start to see how it doesn't make it, it doesn't make it a lot more, a lot more interesting. And then up here. This in here as well.

    23. AGAakash Gupta1:00:02

        It's really coming together now.

    24. BWBrett Williams1:00:05

        That's the thing about design is, like, one moment it's like, okay, there's nothing really here, and then it starts to, really starts to kinda take shape. Lessen that. You can see I added, like, almost, like, a texture in there.

    25. AGAakash Gupta1:00:20

        Yep.

    26. BWBrett Williams1:00:22

        Um, and then these would... Yeah. Then we'd do your... How long's it been right now?

    27. AGAakash Gupta1:00:31

        Probably-

    28. BWBrett Williams1:00:31

        Hasn't been that long

    29. AGAakash Gupta1:00:31

        ... about 20 minutes. Right about that 20-minute mark-

    30. BWBrett Williams1:00:34

        Yeah
14. 1:01:41 – 1:05:48

    Figma hot take: too developer-focused; emerging alternatives like Paper

    1. BWBrett Williams1:01:41

       Not a huge fan of Figma in a lot of ways. Like, I-

    2. AGAakash Gupta1:01:44

       I wanted to ask you about that. You have some hot takes on Figma. [chuckles] As soon as we finish this, you gotta tell us more about what is Figma not doing right.

    3. BWBrett Williams1:01:55

       Figma, and again, like, they, they have every right to do whatever the heck they wanna do, right? It's like, their, it's their company. Um, they do a lot of things right. The problem with Figma is they, they, they captured the design market. Like, they own, they own it. They've owned it for years. They know it. There's no, there's no real, like, there's no real players. Now, there's about to be, for sure. But there's no real, like, solid players in the space. So they're, they're relatively, like, the threats are minimal for them. So they, they just clearly took a turn to try to capture an entirely different segment altogether of developers. Um, which makes sense because to bring design and development closer together makes a lot of sense logically. And they sort of morphed Figma into a tool that developers are using now more than ever, like more than Photoshop and stuff. And they've started just really tailoring the content towards them. And then the, the, yeah, the feature updates and everything is very developer-focused, I guess, just to put it simply. And there's not much being, not much progress being made or love being shown to actual, like, just visual designers, UI designers.

    4. AGAakash Gupta1:03:02

       Mm-hmm.

    5. BWBrett Williams1:03:02

       Right? So it's just a general, like, grievance I have with where their focus has been for the last three or four years. Like, every co- config that they have, it's like everyone's like, "Oh, there's gonna be big updates for, like, this and this and this." And it's just all just like, "Hey, we got dev mode," or, "We did this," and, "s- and we got tokens or whatever." And, and it's just, like, nothing that I, nothing that I use, right? Figma, for me, is relatively the same it has been for the last three or four years, which should not be the case in 2025. Like, we should be making, like, giant strides towards, um, you know, toward, towards re- really revolutionizing design, design tools. But their focus has just been entirely on, on developers, and it's, it's a, it's a revenue play for them. So I could, I could go on, but I'm definitely not alone in it. It's, it's a lot of people kinda see it the same way.

    6. AGAakash Gupta1:03:56

       That's the major criticism I've seen, of course, is like, yeah, they're just not giving much, it seems like, product team love to designers. It's going a lot to developers and other ca- user groups.

    7. BWBrett Williams1:04:07

       Yeah. And, uh, there, there's a stat that, um, two-thirds of Figma users aren't even designers. So you... And it's like, it's either marketing folks or it's developers. So if you're looking at it just from, again, like, from a s- revenue standpoint, it do- it makes a lot of sense, right? Um, but then I just, I, me and every other designer on, on X [chuckles] have demoed, um, Paper, which is a new design tool coming out. Have you seen it at all?

    8. AGAakash Gupta1:04:42

       No.

    9. BWBrett Williams1:04:44

       Yeah. So it's, it's a lot like Figma, but they have a ton of creative tools inside. They have shaders, which I didn't even know what shaders were before I, before I, uh, joined the demo call. But they're, they're, they're kind of, they're doing everything Figma's not doing. So they better watch out, for sure.

    10. AGAakash Gupta1:05:04

        Yeah.

    11. BWBrett Williams1:05:04

        Uh, 'cause [chuckles] I think d- I think designers would jump ship real quick, just like we did with Photoshop, just like we did with Sketch. Um.

    12. AGAakash Gupta1:05:13

        Yeah. It happens so fast.

    13. BWBrett Williams1:05:16

        Yeah, you gotta start showing, yeah, you gotta start showing some love because it's, it's been talked about for, for years now. And it's interesting 'cause Dylan Field, like, the, the founder of Figma, CEO of Figma, always jumps into the comments of, like, whether it's my post or Dan Petty's post or whatever, and acts all like he's listening, which [chuckles] is, is nice, but it's like, it's the same... We've been saying the same things for years now. So, like, it kinda just falls on deaf ears anymore when, when he gets involved. Um, yeah.

15. 1:05:48 – 1:08:49

    Closing lesson: conviction + experience beats endless iterations

    1. AGAakash Gupta1:05:48

       Wow. So that is our 25-minute homepage. I think the takeaways for me, like, the big thing that I think most people aren't doing is they aren't, like you said, one-shotting it, right? [chuckles] They are, they don't have the conviction to make these choices. Like, they're adding those gradients, then they're taking them out. They're adding those textures, then they're taking them out. They're creating this layout, then they're saying, "Oh, what if I try this other layout? What if I present all these different layouts?" And so it really comes down, in a, in a sense, to having a lot of conviction about your design taste.

    2. BWBrett Williams1:06:21

       That's a good way of putting it, yeah. Um, [sniffs] it's a lot of conviction, but it's also, like, just a lot of experience doing these things, too. Like, I, I used to just... I don't so much anymore, but I used to live and breathe, like, I used to eat design inspiration up like I, like I eat food. You know? It's like I just constantly... I was more obsessed with, like, consuming good design than I was actually even creating good design. And so it, what it did was just, it just creates this, like, your ability just unconsciously almost just reach into your brain and just pick out, pick out some sort of direction, right?Um, and again, like this direction may not even be the right direction, right? Like we didn't, I didn't sit here and talk with you about like what you wanted or what style you wanted or whatever. Like we could take another 20 minutes and spin up something like entirely different than this. But the point is like the way that I handle client work is I would rather spend 30 minutes on something visual, send it to you and maybe we're 90% there and we don't need to have all these conversations and meetings and whiteboard sessions and mood boards and stuff like that. If maybe what I just did in 20 minutes is like what you want. And if it isn't what you want, it's no big deal because we can go back to the drawing board and give me another 20 minutes and I'll spin up something else. And then maybe you like that direction, but it's not quite like as refined. Okay. I can take this, duplicate it over here and then just start really spicing it up, you know, doing different things like that. So this, this would be like an example of maybe like a first draft that I would send to someone that's like, you could call it a draft, but it's really, I mean, it's, it's pretty pixel perfect like already. Um, so you could actually go into production with it, but it's certainly not like the be all end all, right? Like this is a, a 25 minute render of something, you know, and this is without even me like going through what I typically do is I have a list of like inspo that I've collected over the time. So I'll usually be referencing that. That'll help me kind of craft these layouts and patterns. So that I did that.

    3. AGAakash Gupta1:08:23

       I really hope you guys enjoyed that episode. It would mean a ton to me and the team if you could please subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple and Spotify podcasts, and leave a rating and review. Those ratings and reviews really help grow the show and help other people discover the show, and they help fund the production so that we can do bigger and better productions. Can't wait to share the next episode with you. Until then, see you later.

Episode duration: 1:08:59