thanks for tuning in to hustle a show about the ideas, processes, people and culture behind designing meaningful digital products. I'm here today with my friend Dan Petty, who is a very inspirational designer. He's got a lot of things going on, but he's in town today on a trip where he's I guess we're going across the world doing a movie about a freelance design. Dan, Won't you say hello in a little bit about yourself? Then we'll dig into all the all the awesome stuff.

Sure. So, everybody, my name is Dan Petty. Um, and I am a designer in San Francisco, California. Right now. Not for too much longer. I don't think I don't know. We'll see. Maybe we'll talk about that. Um And, uh, yeah, just been a freelance designer for quite awhile. Worked for several startups and agencies as well.

Like, uh was one of first designs. Medium just was just creative director at Ueno. Um and but for the most part, been on my own. Just freelancing for everybody.

You worked at Google Airbnb, uber lux valet. You've even done work for Silicon Valley's Silicon Valley Show on HBO. Yeah.

Cool. Helped design the logos and stuff in the movie. That must have been fun. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, um, so some pretty quick work, but, uh, a lot of fun. You know, a lot of creative freedom over there. So

question about that is that narrative like, do you update that, like, as things change it?

No, it's it's per season. So, um, you know, they had they had one logo the first season. Now they have a different one and different You, I So it just depends on the story. Fits on how the story's changing. So But I haven't done anything for the If or if there is a next

one, you duel a wide range of work. And how would you How would you describe Dan Petty? That the designer?

Yeah. Um, the easiest thing for me to just say I'm a web designer and app designer. I feel like everyone kind of gets that even though I obviously do a lot more. You know, I could do branding and, you know, I do a lot of photography. I now do video stuff. Um, so it's a huge range of things, but the easiest thing is just saying a Web designer and app designer, Uh, those are two things I love the most. I think I

can't remeber the first time that I came across your name, it had been on be hands or something like that. But the first time that I met you was when you invited, not allowed to come out for occurrence, which was a very exciting time. Why you went really out on that? We stayed on all the famous houses on the beach, and it was Ah ah, really amazing few nights of conversation and quite a lot of memories. Not everyone gets to go to EP occurrence, but you've been trying to make that possible for everyone through other events like Occurrence Mon Tues Um, why don't why Why do all that work? Why spend all that money will go like, why go through all that effort to make that happen?

Yeah. I mean, for one. Thank you for coming up occurrence in Hawaii. That was amazing. Such a good time. Great to meet you guys. Um, I think it's it's it's two parts, right? So my weakest, uh, strength and design and just my personality is communication and just I'm not a good people person. I've grown a lot And, umm, since you know, I've gotten older and started up occurrence and stuff,

but there was always one of my weakest parts and I thought one of the better ways to, um, kind of improve on that would be to start something for the community. And so I decided to build on it. Occurrence, Um, that's not why I pick and started, But it's, you know, it's why I kept kind of going because I noticed it was making me grow, Um, also that I just felt like there was a need for me personally. And my friends, too, haven't excused too. Go outside,

right? We work so many hours a day. So uh, so many days a week. It's crazy. It's insane. Like there's no 40 hour weeks, you know, that's we're talking like 80 hour weeks, right in the world that we live in right now. Um, it's crazy, and no one can get off work unless you know they have this. They have, like maybe two weeks of vacation. They could use their just pencil where you work,

whatever, but I really wanted to excuse Thio let myself and my friends go snowboarding for a week or go surfing for a week or hiking for a week. Um, whatever it was just to get out of our behind from behind on our machines and just go get kind of re inspired with each other. Get to know more people because we weren't doing that. And when you go to a normal conference, which is the other execution, get off work. It's usually during the weekend, right? It's family time and also it's you're just sitting down. Listen to people talk. There's really there's community there. But there wasn't enough for me. It wasn't what I was looking for. So I decided to keep it going.

Started that it was, You know, I went to every currents Hawaii, And then I went to mon Tues. And you know, one of the things that I remember is Is this how collaborative was almost I mean, you kind of get out what you put into it, you know, and so fear if you will in tow gather your comfort zone a little bit and meet people. I mean, everyone's really you know, I met so many people that you know that. Really? Look up to there, Just as shy as myself And, um, yeah,

you know, like, I made a lot of friends that way, Like even potential business deals and a lot of cool people. You know, I've been Clyde and I are friends now. We talk on the phone sometimes just randomly and so it's really cool. So, um, are you still do? Is epic current still going on? Is

it Is it still gonna happen? Yes, it's still happening. We actually have another one in, Uh uh, well, six weeks from today, I don't know why this podcast coming up in October. Um, and it's in Moab, so it's a different. It's not snowboarding or serving. Obviously, we're gonna do rock climbing and hiking in right dirt bikes and all kinds of crazy stuff. It's gonna be a good time, but yeah, it's still going.

I actually so it's a year old now. And I was going to stop it because, you know, I spent all my money on this last year, lost a lot of money, and, um, I don't know. It just it was hard to maintain. I do all this by myself, right? um So

while you're working

while I'm still full time working, Yeah, feeling on all this stuff. So I, um I decided to keep going because people it kind of just enjoy it, you know? And it made me feel really good to see these people happy and see these relationships happening at the event. So I just had to keep going, At least try it one more time to see if I could break even and not just lose money. So I decided to go again and already have to two events planned coming up. So we have Moab. And then, uh, about that announced the next winter occurrence.

So what, you tell folks how they can find out about that or get on the wait list for that? Or what? If that's still going on

right now. Yeah. So, um, the epic Ertz Moab is is sold out. Um, though, if you really, really, really, really want to come, um, definitely send me an email at Danna epic currents dot com stand with two ends. Um, and I'll just hear your story and see. See what we could do to get you in there. Um,

the next winter, one. I will be announcing here in a few weeks, and the site will be live at occurrence dot com. And you can go and just send it invite requests to get, you know, get a chance to come to that one. Um, and these were the smaller events. So these air, like 50 60 people events. I'm still working on trying to figure out how to do another epic arts mon Tues or something larger for more people. Um, because it was that was just really special event for me, you know, Um, so I really want to figure that out, But for them, for the short term, two smaller ones are coming

up sweet. So, um, not only doing up occurrence and freelancing, but you're also working on a movie

you also operates. Uh, yeah. So thing is so OK, so I started a vlog maybe a couple of months ago, and I think I got, like, maybe 30 episodes in it. Um, was a daily log. Um, and I started to enjoy that so much and was getting a lot of good feedback from that. I decided I wanted to see how much I could push video because I've always wanted learn video. Still learning it. Um, and I got kind of inspired to do this video. Um,

and I was full time at Ueno at the time, And I, uh, left there to go back full time, freelance. And I was like, You know what? Before I start all this work, um, I want to go just talk to people and see how they freelance see what they're doing. Because I know why I love it so much. I want to see what other people love it so much. And so I hopped in my van and ah, just took off from San Francisco, and I've I've been everywhere. I've been all the way drove all the way to,

you know, Kansas to Atlanta. To North Carolina to New York City. Um, you know, and I'm I'm on my way back across the States now back home to San Francisco, and I just have probably talkto 15 freelancers so far. I'll have maybe 25 at the end of this and just kind of hearing how they work, you know? Can you work from anywhere? Can you make a lot of money freelancing? Why is it hard to freelance. Why don't you freelance, Um, just everything in between and, uh,

gonna be sharing my story, too. And, you know, the ups and downs of it and putting into a documentary for just for people to understand cause there's I don't think people understand what it means to be a freelancer. I don't think they understand what it means to to go freelance. You know, they think there's a process to it. Are are you can just hop on, and now you're suddenly a freelancer like theirs. You know, I think, uh, I think people need to talk about a bit more and yeah, and hear more

about it. Yeah. I think it's great when people are willing to, you know, you know, share with, you know, other people that might be, you know, competitors or whatever. I think it's really important for people to share knowledge. I'm curious. But when you first started this project, I'm sure you had a lot of assumptions. Or, you know, maybe things you're thinking about,

um, over the process of going all these cities, the things that you're thinking about, where they validated or did you learn a bunch of things that you didn't expect it here. Like what? What would have been some of the the big haul moments for you? A CZ. You've talked to these these other independent designers?

Yeah. You know, I was super shocked, super shocked because I always thought you had to be in San Francisco, right? That's why I'm there. And I do get a lot of work freelancing because I'm in San Francisco. I still believe that. But I going into this trip, I was like, Man, I'm gonna need a bunch of people that are They're gonna say they wish they were in San Francisco, are you know, they can't get work because they're not in San Francisco or things like that. And it was total opposite, like, completely opposite.

They were getting just as much work as I was the same type of clients I were, you know, in the middle of Kansas in the middle of the Atlanta are somewhere, you know, Um and, you know, I kind of knew you could still get work from anywhere, but I really in the front of my mind, I wasn't thinking that man. I really could work from anywhere. I always thought, You know, I still gotta be in San Francisco. Um so as soon as my first person I interviewed, they're in Kansas, and immediately,

I was like, Wow, I do not need to be in San Francisco paying $5000 a month for rent. Uh uh. It's just ridiculous, right? And then I, you know, go the next person. And I'm like, they have this crazy design studio on the bottom of their house and their their rent might be like $1000 are their mortgage or whatever. $1000 a month just like, Are you kidding me? Like there's so many things and some people they could go right outside and play basketball or go swim in the pool in the backyard and then go right back to work, like in San Francisco and take me, like,

two hours to do that, right? I have to give ha bomb unit and go find a basketball court. You know what? No one is that. Then go find a place with a pool, which I, for one, will be very expensive. Ah, but you do have the ocean there. Do you have the ocean? Yeah. I mean, And that's honestly, that's one of the hardest parts about it all. That's one of the things that's kept me in San Francisco for so long. It's just cause I love the surf and it's right there.

Um, we can always come to Austin and paddle board and do paddleboard

yoga. It's true. Wait, Didn't they opened up? Ah, surf spot

here. I heard that they that they are that they have already order Will soon.

Yeah, it's one of the two. I'm gonna find that out here.

There's another one. That's Ah, I guess it's like snowboard training. I don't know what the material is, but it you go there, I guess, and I kind of do that. That's crazy. Yeah, you know, it's from the agency side, too. It's It's It's incredible. The whole Bay Area thing. Ted Botha and job, you come in. We're here one time,

and they're like, Holy crap, like this office in San Francisco. You like $30,000 a month like and you know, like you know, I wanted to say what we're paying, but, you know, you can get a good It has a freelancer where I was a small studio or even a big company. You can still get real estates. I'm sure. In Nashville, Austin cities like that. You probably get good stuff for a dollar or two square foot a month. And, you know, do you do your thing?

Yeah, absolutely. So I I don't know. It definitely opened my eyes to do. I need to be in San Francisco that I never thought this would happen. I mean, maybe later on when my kids grow or something, But I know I'm heavily thinking about man. Why am I? I wouldn't see wasting my money but spinning so much of it. Uh, just by being in San Francisco when I don't have to

Yeah. I mean, I can only imagine, especially with, you know, with the family. Yeah. I can't imagine what that's like, but, you know, I mean, also, you know, you know, you're from Nashville. I'm from Texas. We,

you know, you're in San Francisco is in New York. People that are from those areas. It's a lot easier for them to just stay because it's it's what they know. But, um, I'm I'm pretty sure it had be interesting. It has to be interesting to go across the country and talk to all these people. Not only get to learn from others other people and make this product you're doing. But just get a feel for you know what else is going on. I mean, that's that's

really cool. Yeah, I've learned different forms of pricing. Um, I just It's crazy how many how they handle their their their clients, you know, they're up front agreements or whatever. Um, no one's writing contracts these days, which I never did. But, you know, this is the thing, right? You go online. I'm talking for your lesson on how to get agents here. You know,

if you go online, you read about freelance. They're gonna tell you. Oh, you gotta have, like, this incredible contract all these agreements and you have to do, like, 50% of your honor. You have to charge this, Ma Jor, You can't be flexible with their pricing. All these crazy things And I've always been the total opposite of every piece of that. Um, but I never really knew what other people did, because,

you know, you don't ever hear about it. So after talking to everyone like the people that are successful, it freelancing are the ones that are flexible and they jump into projects. They don't do these contracts or anything. I mean, unless the contract comes from ah, client, right, that we don't have these forms that we make our clients fill out. We don't have questionnaires that something realizes, D'oh! You know, we make it as easy as possible. We become friends with our clients. Yeah, there's so many things that it's just been so interesting to hear invalidating a TTE

the same time. A couple of things that I can share later on today I'm gonna be talkinto jewels from us, too. And he has Ah, he's one that wrote that article the state of the digital nation 2016. And he's got another video called The Agency of the Future and in but what he's really talking about One of the key takeaways is that it's about, especially when you work in start ups. It's about really partnering with them closely to, like, take this thing to market, and it's really interesting to hear some of his thoughts on that. And, um, uh, forgot was gonna say, um, we were talking about we're talking about partner with people.

Oh, so my very first project, when I was freelancing before Natalie joined, it was just me and I just left my job. It ever know. And I was on the phone, um, with who's now like on our advisory board potential client. And I was trying to get him to go through this whole process of, like, you know, was trying to evaluate the deal. And, you know, going through contract negotiator is a big company over there. He's like, Look, man basically laughed at me on the phone. He's like,

Do you want to work together or what? Let's just let's just let's just get started and do some cool shit, okay?

And I was like, Oh, man, uh, as a big learning lesson

for me. Yeah, that's

awesome. I was trying to be too buttoned up or I don't know, in time, I don't know.

Yeah, and that's what that's what some of these freelancers do. You know, if they think, uh, yeah, but I also like some freelancers like it's interesting this here. Like some people refuse to use the word freelance, they'll say, Oh, I'm a contractor. I'm Ah, uh uh. What's the other one Independent or self? Self something. Yeah, um,

but then they'll make up agency names for themselves, You know, when they have different, You know, uh, reasonings for doing all this stuff, but it's really interesting. Really interesting.

So, um, you're in Austin now. We're hanging out. We're gonna be doing some events here later today. And we were talking over whiskey earlier about another one of the things that you've been thinking about, which is what matters. And I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before there was another. This is related to the tweet that you wrote about. Like, maybe your opinion about money is changing a little bit or life. What? What is that all about? Uh, what did you mean, earlier?

Yeah, um, I'm in such a confused state right now, so it's kind of hard to put two words, but, um, you know, this trip has changed me a lot. You probably noticed from my tweets and whatnot, But for the longest time, you know, I've been after, uh, you know, success. But what does success mean? Right means many different things for many people,

but I always thought, you know, I wanna have a successful company or product and money. And you know, those those things were success, right? Like, and I worked my tail off. If I showed people how much I worked, they would like to think I'm crazy. Like, seriously, even people that work hard would think I'm crazy of all the stuff I d'oh and those things I turned down to do all this work. Um, And once I started having kids and, um,

you know, these different things it, my life and my goals really started to change. And, um, I don't know, like I would work, you know, I would work in the morning on a startup idea, then do my freelance work during the day. And at night, I'd work on a different startup idea and just kept going because I wanted to. But to me, having one of those succeed would be successful, even though I was already successful, you know,

I can pay my bills, I can support my family and, you know, yeah, I was already I was already getting work. So why did I need Maur? That's kind of the question. I'm asking myself right now. Why do you need Maur when you have enough, right? What is the importance of having Maur? Why do you need more? You're gonna spend it, you know, maybe get a bigger house. But why do you need a bigger house?

You don't, Um just all these different things. So I'm in the mindset now to where I'm not working as hard as I waas. Or maybe I'm working hard, but just for different reasons. Um, how do you know if this is making sense? Because I'm still like I said, I'm in this confused state. I think we all are. Yeah. Um but but for the longest time, like I always did like yes. Okay, but a time I'm I'm 33 now. By the time I'm 30 I need a $1,000,000.

By the time I'm 35 have to have $5 million. By the time I'm 40. I better have you know, 100 million and be retired or whatever Had you know, my successful startup. And I don't know just why, right? I don't know when I making enough right now. Yeah, just freelancing and having all this free time and getting to spend time with my kids. Get to go surfing snowboarding, doing these things. Um, which is what life's about, right? Life isn't about working behind a computer all day trying to make a $1,000,000.

And what you gonna do when you get that money dollars? You're still gonna work again? You know, you you know, because that is that gonna be enough, You know, um, so, no, I my priorities were just different. Now, you know, I still love design. I'm still hungry. You know, I still love absolutely love it.

Um, I just I'm tired of being ah stressed. I'm tired of Ah, not having that extra hour with my kids before they go to bed are not being overto, you know, wake them up in the morning or something, you know, because I have to hurry up and do a project before the client wakes up. Um, just different things like that.

Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't know how I don't know how you're able to do it. When I when I was, You know, when I was in my twenties, I could I could do

that. I don't do that. You're 30. It's I'm not healthy. I'm telling you, I am not healthy. Um, I remember when I first got married. Um, I was, uh, uh, 28 or some like that. Um, and it's just the stress hit me so bad that I needed to work like crazy because I was just like I would work every now and then. I'm just kind of and then try to do start up stuff, so,

you know, But once money, once I got married, I like thing. I really need to make money to support my family. Right. Um, and I just got so stressed out, took on every single project that could work. I couldn't even do until the client I could do it. And I would just figure out a way to do it. Um, And I got so sick, I had my first anxiety attack and had to be rushed to the hospital. I literally thought I was eyeing. My wife had to rush me to the hospital and say that we're living in San Diego and for like,

two years later, I was suffering from he's really bad. Ah, uh, symptoms from from all this stuff and, uh, kept going into now the doctor trying to figure out what's going on, but at the end of the day, it was just overwork and stress constantly. Then I got really healthy again. And then over the past year, I kind of fell off the bandwagon again and just kind of work and work and work, and I don't know. It's it's crazy. It's not a good feeling when you you have a three year old daughter and you can't it hurts to pick her up or something. You know what I mean?

Because you've been sitting down all day. You know, it's hard. Yeah, it's really hard.

Yeah, well, I mean I mean, you're definitely a person that, you know, the hat has a good value system. I mean, even though you you say you're unhealthy and you I'm not gonna argue with you, but you do do things to try toe, encourage yourself and other people, too, you know, to get out and do other things. And, you know, every currency, I think,

is an embodiment of that, you know, like taking people taking people out of their comfort zone, not only to meet other people and have really meaningful conversations with the tri completely new things and I don't know if that is, if that was one of the reasons why you started it just for, like, some personal reasons there. But, I mean, that's awesome. And, you know, I guess like, you know, I guess, you know,

as we progress as human beings and as designers, I'm sure that ebbs and flows, what with these needs and once our, you know, like, I kind of battle that too. Like I see fun size kind of on the upswing. And if we really wanted to, we could probably get really big and make a whole lot of money. But we don't like right now, like Natalie, and I just we like working Monday through Thursday and having you know, we don't work with clients on Friday. Well, it's all investing, expiration and growth.

And I like that. Like, at least right now I feel like I'm making just enough money to live the lifestyle that I want last dollar one. But you never know, like, you know, that next week that could be different, I guess. You know, I guess that someone's going out on their own or is already on the known. They they probably need to figure out there. You know what? They're y statement as and sort of designed everything around that. Yeah. Yeah, it's very true.

Very true from, uh, so I have a couple of questions for you. So you you have been in the van and you've also been freelancing. You are freelancing. You're on your way back. Back home. Do you think that you know how it feels like when you go to a conference and you're on, you're on the flight back and, like, I can't wait to get home? Do you think that Do you think that as soon as you get back to the barrier like these things do you expect that these some of these

feelings will change immediately? I'm so glad you brought that up. Uh, because I've been thinking about this, and I do think San Francisco's such a magical place, and it's a very important place to me because they gave me a job The day I graduated college. They just found me online. It was so random. And it's just been my career was because of San Francisco. So every time I step into San Francisco when I'm away, I just like man's is home. Like, this is magic, you know? And the surf is over there, and I quickly go see the servant, just like,

yes, you get your tech. You got the beauty of the beautiful landscape. You know, all the greatest food and coffee that you never asked for. And they're surf there, snowboarding, like, three hours away. It's just a magical place. Um, and I just This is first thing that comes in my mind every time I'm there. All right? But then once you okay, you sit back down in your chair. You're like,

I don't ever see this stuff. I mean, I do. But when I'm busy, I don't ever see this stuff. And I'm busy a lot. Right? And the buy time I've done working those two hour window I have for my kids go to bed. It's with them. Right? Then by that time, it's dark outside. So not surfing, obviously, about snowboarding.

You gotta wake up. Really? I've watched like some of your videos. Like, I guess you wake up really

early to go before 4 35 I'm up and I'm working, you know, um and and once I'm back in the zone that it's like, You know what? Why? Why? You know. So I I do know that once I hit the city of light, man, I've never leave this place. And then probably two weeks later, I'm like, Well, remember all the stuff that I've learned, you know, as I've been gone So, uh, I do think it changes coming. I do think no doubt I change is coming.

Well, be interesting, Thio Touch. Basically, when you get back and see, you know, see what?

See what's going on? Yeah,

I got a couple more questions for, if you don't mind, a couple more. So, um, what advice would you give someone that is thinking about going out on the road

like freelance wise? Yeah. Yeah. Um I think do it right. It doesn't hurt to try it. You can always try it. You can always get a job if you have a job. Now you can get another job. Um, don't wait for anything, right? If anything, but at the same time. Don't do it. If you don't have any money, you don't have a potential project coming. Okay?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying just jump in tow. You heard it. Kids just quit. You know, if you have a project that's coming, you know, and you can make at least 2 to 3 weeks worth of money on it, you know? And you've been thinking about going freelance, and you really want to. That's your opportunity, right? Take it and run with it. Um, and in a good way to do it also is to do that project and full time.

It's the same times you do that project the morning, at night and at lunch, and then you just you know, once you're done with the project, you have money you can jumped in, and then you possible to try to get another project. Um, I think most people they want to do it, and two years later, they still haven't tried it. You know, I think you just have to do it or you're never gonna do it. Um, it's, you know, it's an easier transition than you think.

Don't. One of the biggest excuses is, um, insurance and security. That

was my biggest concern. And it turned out to be the to the easiest

things today. It's crazy, right? For one. Insurance is incredibly easy. I think most people are scared because they never had a research because you would go full time. There's just there's your options right there. Right? It's incredible. Easy. Okay. And it's not expensive. Um, so don't worry about that. Another one is security. And let me Are you secure right now

on your job, you loser, You get fired or like

go any minute, anything. It happened. I think

you're more secure when you're in control.

That's my theory, too. I totally think that because, you know, if you don't get work, it's kind of on you in a way, in a way, you know, um, but don't let security keep you from going freelance, because I don't think, uh, yeah, that just doesn't make sense if you think about it, because you're not security anything. So I just hacked your two excuses. So what's your shoes now? Yeah,

Yeah, the 1st 1 is is really special to me because I've gone. I've started to business to design agencies Now, the bull started from going freelance and they were started because Natalie told me. Basically, we said, Just do it. Give it three months If you hate it, what is the worst possible thing that could happen? You go get another job. You know, it's, you know, you really think about that. Unless you Unless you live somewhere where there's, like, only one place to work,

and then you just burn that bridge. I mean, there's probably that's it. That's the worst case scenario. And that's something you've always wanted to show. You should do. You know, I totally tried

to do. Absolutely. And if you're if you're thinking about going freelance, I mean, there's also a deeper question there. Right? Uh, are you not, like, super stoked on your job right now? You know? So what would hurt trying something else? You know, if you don't, If you try freelance, you don't work out. He seems like you already want a new job.

Anyways. Yeah, maybe I don't know your circumstances, but, um, yeah, I don't know. I

don't I don't know what the numbers are now, but, uh, one of the things that I preach to my team all the time, I try to get try to get them involved as much as I can. And like the business development process and like sa w writing and all these various skills because I think I believe that over their career, especially younger ones, they're gonna probably spend at least 50% of their career. It's in some form of self employed, And I don't feel like people get the education, like the business education in school, especially designed school or or even a most job. So I don't know if I'm overwhelming and with you by asking to learn those things, but I think it's pretty important, you know, because, you know,

you know, you know, two of our founding team, like they went and started their own business. And, you know, um, I hope I just hope that those things I think they did help them prepare for that.

And I'm sure did. Yeah, that's amazing. I'm gonna let you do that.

Yeah, um, the other question that I wanted to ask you because you and I could be wrong, So correct me if I'm wrong, but you worked a lot of startups, and I think I overheard you on a conversation up occurrence, talking to someone about how some of these project mayor may or may not have involved equity um, today moving forward, someone that's freelancing. How did you think about that? Like, if they want to go work for, you know, like, you know, a unicorn started. Sorry to use that word.

I shouldn't use that word. There's a there's someone they really want to work with. But, like, you know, equity is important to them. How did how should people think about that? And do you think it's, um how much do people really need

to think about that? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, there's opportunity when you work a start ups, right? So and this goes, just goes back to being flexible. Uh uh, when you're with their pricing, um, So, startups, you know, they some of them have a lot of money. Someone don't. Even though they do have a lot of money,

they have budgets, you know that. Can no one spends certain amount on certain things. Um, and you know, if the client comes to you and they need a project, um, let's say let's say you charge. They'll say they need a website, right? Their product is a website. They needed a facelift, and they're going to give you, um, you charge them 20 k, um,

and say it's a month work work. 20 k. Um, they come back to, you know, like the way we really don't have 10 right? Uh, 10 grand. Still a lot of money in a month or at any amount of time. It's a lot of money. Um, so 11 way to approach this is this is how I usually get into my design by equity. Uh, is when this happens a client, you know, I'll be like,

Okay, well, I can't drop it down half my price for that. But what if we, you know, throw in 10 k worth of investment, you know, and they see how much other angels or whatever, have put in their 10 K, what's that worth to them? And I get the same amount of these angels that put into getting straight equity or straight equity just like just like you literally are an angel investor at that point, Um, and I've done this from, you know, things from 10 K 200 k on projects. And,

um, you know, it's only been a few years. Nothing's happened yet, but the chances are pretty

big, especially when those air promising San Francisco

company. Yeah. Yeah. And you know a good way to handle this is I wouldn't necessarily, Even though sometimes I've done just 100% equity. Um, I think the best approach is to split equity and cash, um, or equity and pave it. So, um, you know, like, the example I just mentioned earlier, You would still get 10 grand, and then you'd have 10 k and equity, which might only equal,

you know, half a point or something. But still, that's that. Could be worth a lot of my could be worth a hunger. And one day, you know, or more. So you just gotta look at it as an investment. But if you

cut me for Rome, but doesn't it also kind of build a portfolio enough Where you you someone like that's doing that? Could be would be illegitimate. Angel investor.

Yeah, I totally, totally think so. And another thing is, um, these startups talk to each other right there. Founders talk to each other, their investors talk to each other. And if you're helping these companies by doing things like that, you're helping them, and they're helping you write, um they're gonna tell their friends that their investors that and then when the next startup comes, they're gonna hear about you and you're gonna have an opportunity there to help someone. It just snowballs. It's

ridiculous for for being a freelancer or an agency and spending 10 to 20% of your time or more doing business developments a great way to build cast a wider megaphone.

Yep. And I think I think that's why that's why I do enjoy San Francisco, because, you know, there's not a lot of us freelance designers there. There's really not a handful of us, Um, and it's getting slimmer and slimmer because we keep getting picked up by people. Um, they're the investors will talk to each other like, Oh, well, Dan did Lux L. A. You know, and whoever their investors has invested in, like,

20 other companies, you know, the next month or whatever, and then their first who do you think they're gonna call first, right, Right. So, yeah, it's just good to It's good to get in with these startups and help him. Um, it's good to get in with any company and help him, So don't It's going to fall back on the be flexible. Your pricing thing? Um, if you e I don't know how you want to phrase this, but what's that? Ever seeing 10 K and take a right? Yeah, it's two grand, but you could have zero K or we can have a k

a K could convert into 16 K. Why don't you build trust with that? Exactly. Is take that first

risk or whatever Exactly. I did a project Nixon dot com. I did it for free in the weekend, the concept for the weekend because they're about the long something. And the next week they picked my design and we wanted to build it, and I built it again. I designed the whole thing in a week again for free. Um and this was like my dream project, and I got so much work from that. I mean, they could have charged someone 250 grand easily to design that thing. Um, I did it for free. They ended up sending the watches and a bunch of cool stuff, but, ah, the amount of work I got from helping them out.

It was insane, and we just insane. So I think. I think, uh, just helping people being flexible is key to almost anything. Yeah,

I agree. Especially if it's Ah, let's say you're you. You really want to learn mobile or V R, right? Like, be flexible in those cases to cause you're learning and that you know that one project that's V R. That may not pay as much, mate. That may, you might then be able to do a project with Google. You know, if you got to be willing to, you know, put in the time to build, you know the expertise. Absolutely,

absolutely. Well, Dan, what is it that you What kind of design work do you Let's end with this. What do you What kind of design work do you want to be doing in 2017?

Is that next year? Yeah. Ah, what kind of design work don't want to be doing, man, I'll tell you what I want to be doing. I want to be doing epicurean full time. I want to slow down on my design work. That'd be my passion. And I want to do more things with video. So if I the design work I do. I wanted to incorporate more video. Um, more. And I wanted to incorporate Maur photography and things that can't be created on a computer. Um, like no illustration or three d things like really tangible things.

If you look at my work in the past, it's always been that kind of way. But I want to learn. I want to, like, basically do it myself, learn all these skills myself and, um, making even crazier. Um, if you look a, um, Jessica Walsh. Yeah, Kurt work. Um,

some of that stuff, like it's it's really working. I mean, they could they could do that stuff in three day in a day, right? But they'll spend a week and make it right the real way, and no one would ever know. Uh, but think about the amount of think about the things they learn in that process, you know, from just being hands on. Um, I don't know, really inspired by that, and I kind of want to get to that level. Um, do things away from the computer.

That's awesome. Dan, I really appreciate you coming, Austin and

taking time to be on the podcast and my pleasure. It's awesome. It's cast been great to hear it on the road trip. So awesome.

Cool. Looking forward to having some beers in just a minute. Until then, why don't you tell our listeners how they confined you on the Interwebs?

Yeah. So, um, thanks for listening. And you could follow me on Twitter at Dan Petty. That's down with two hands. Follow me on instagram stories. Damn petty. Um, and, uh, please check out occurrence dot com.

And what about your video log?

I saw? I've slowed that down a little bit, but you can go to, ah, youtube dot com slash Dan Petty. Um, give me tunes and ah, see my block and I'll pick it back up here pretty soon, but yeah. Awesome.

Dan, It's such a pleasure to hang out. Um, we would have a great time chatting. Thanks for stopping by. And I look forward to

hanging out with you this week in Austin, Texas. All of you tuning into the hustle podcast. Thanks your time and we'll see you next thing.

Episode of Hustle was brought to you by envision Designed better, faster together. Learn more at in vision app dot com Hustle is brought to you by fun size, a digital product design studio that craps delightful digital user experiences with inspiring product companies. Follow us at hustle cast and fun size on Twitter.