this episode of Hustle is brought to you by designing the best place to find creative talent. I need help with the project posted on designing and receive three proposals from the best designers. Illustrators and Anna Meters joined the hundreds of companies and startups that have been connected with perfect creative for their project, go to design inc dot com slash hustle and start your project today. All right. Welcome back to the hustle. Um, I'm here today with my new friend Mark Immune Marks the CEO and founder of designing. They're doing some really cool things. I don't know if you guys check them out. We'll talk more about that later. Mark is ah, really tough guy to introduce. So I'm gonna hand it over or let him give a quick overview of ah of who he is and what he's doing. And we'll talk about what's

on his mind. What's up, Hustle? Thanks for having me. We're gonna dive. We don't need to go through. My history is boring. Cares. I've been a designer 20 years. I built a few startups like designed by humans and t fury. Some old fun, fun ones. I moved up to the Bay Area worked at a company called Dig Left Again to do another startup conflict that got acquired by YouTube and Google spent four years of Google left. Google started a company called North with Kevin Rose That went on for two years on. We merged that with a watch company called Dinky. So that was kind of humming and hollering. And so I decided to dive back in and start my own company last year called Design Inc. There you go. 20 years in two seconds

that you forgot. You forgot. Ah, Watch

Phil. Yeah, Watch Phil was part of North. Uh, so when Kevin and I left school in 2014 we had this idea that we had this idea that we had no idea that was the idea. The big idea was no idea. Henry Stott. Gosh, why don't we build a nap every four months and if one takes off, we'll kind of go all in. And so we raised the money. We built a wonderful team. Ryan, Caleb and Jonathan, Amazing engineers very fast. And the second half we built was this thing called Watch Ville, which was an aggregation of watch news.

All across the net. It took off did really well. We found this wonderful niche in the watch world. And today, as of right now, Ah, we merged with a company called Holden Key, which is a very popular watch blogged. If you are into watches, you should go Toho Dinky, go to iTunes. Get the Ho Dickie app. It's great. Anyway, Kevin is the CEO of Oh Dinky, and he moved with his wife.

They moved out to New York. Uh, there's about, you know, it's hand to 20. I think about 20 folks who work there now. Great little company. We sell vintage watches. Now, Abby, it's mostly a content type of a thing. It's like the like the TechCrunch of watches, I guess you could say, but quite a cool little company If you are into mechanical watches. That really is not Ben Clymer, who started holding key years ago.

Just a fantastic, kindhearted soul knows everything there is to know about watches. He he worked on how dinky for almost 10 plus years before we merged with him. So Ben, still there Wonderful, uh, group of writers kind of a different kind of thing, and I frankly just as an aside, there's there's actually a ton of niches like this. You know, folks come to me with ideas and things that they want a pitch, and they're always pitching like photo and video sharing and all this other kind of silly stuff. And I'm like, You know, if you just take a step back, there's wonderful opportunities where Tak can impact industries that that you know,

for example, the mortuary business. More kicks like no one's any any tech around, like I don't know if you've ever had a plan, a funeral. It stinks like it is not easy to pick a casket and get a place to go. It's just the worst, like, that's a good thing. Ah, you know, any way we could go on and on?

Well, that's that's actually interesting topic. I mean, I I went to two international conferences in the last three months. You'd be really surprised that the topic of designing your death, you the experience of your death, it's starting to starting Thio. People are starting to talk about that, you know, like we spent all this time sort of curating or who you know, our identities on social media and doing all this stuff. And and people are starting to talk about, like, how how we can design our death and the experience

that like What do you mean? Like me? They're designing, like where I'm getting buried, What the people say, like, What do you mean, exactly?

Um, I I think little. I went to slush in Helsinki and I saw there was, like, a little breakout session of some of these companies. And it was everything from like, cos they're making industrial design products of, like, you know, like design your own, earn

all the way to, like,

you know, like, uh, you know, like creating a playlist of like, the songs you want Played it

on your funeral. I mean, our legacy, What we leave behind is is something I think about. I've three kids I think about, you know, if we as digital data being, I'm a digital designer and work that I did it YouTube I got I was privileged enough to work on the YouTube players from other stuff, but a lot of that stuff I see it in movies occasionally, which is kind of cool. But now it's 2017. That work I did 2011 2012 2013 that work. That work is gone. It's nowhere to be found. YouTube is evolved and changed. New designers have come in new teams, and that's kind of like this.

Bummer. Kind of of what we do it like we do this work, we build a nap or something, and it it's around for a while. Any work I did, a dig is gone. And if we were artists or sculptors or musicians, that song could be passed out and shared. So it is. It is interesting to think about legacy when it comes to being a designer like what is left behind, except for old hard drives on this shelf that no one can even read anymore with crappy old our files, it's It's It's kind of a conundrum, really. I wish there was a better way to archive our work beyond dribble. Congrats to those guys for being acquired this week. Uh,

maybe if we put our heads together, we could figure it out like I was, Uh, I had Mike Buzzard on the podcast Ah, a couple of days ago and we were talking. Yeah, he's cool, dude and we were talking about this, right? Like, you know, some, you know, other than the Internet archive. Like there needs to be a place where the stuff where stuff can live on and be experienced later, I think. And I don't know if you know Greg Story,

but Greg Story used to be the CEO of air of Airbag and, um, present co president of Happy Cog. Like he, he spends his whole LA lot of his free time just archiving other people's work so he can maybe do something with later, not to get too off topic. I mean, I know that you don't like to talk about your your past too much, but I think for those of you that don't know, Mark, you really should looking as background because he's got a really diverse, you know, background of, you know, agency work, and,

ah, and start up work. He's worked, you know, big tech companies. He's had his own, he's had his own businesses, and a lot of I would say six sexes and failures. Um, but instead of talking about the past and since you brought up legacy, um what what do you what do you want to be known for. Like when? When you're when you're on your way out of this world Like, um, what do you want to be known for? What? What is what are maybe what's one or two things you hope to accomplish with your career? I'm sure, you know,

And it may be personal to there's there's a great book and look it up here. Oh, quick. Clayton Christensen wrote this great book called I Don't Want to Say It's Man Search for meeting. Let me look it up here. Oh, quick. Sorry. Podcasters. Just please hold for one quick moment. Yeah. How you how you measure your life? Uh, this book had a profound impact on me. How How? Well, you measure your life.

So hit hit a pause real quick. Get your Amazon Lincoln, download it or buy it or however you like to consume. Listen to it. And Clayton Christensen is a professor at Harvard. He talks, you know as much business books. The innovator's dilemma is when he's most known for. But this book touched me more than any. And he has his premise. He says it be really neat if when you die, you're able to, uh, basically stay out of jail, be successful, and he need to find success in,

like a worldly term, he says. Success, meaning you're financially. You got the financial gains that you wanted Thio and have a great family. That's how, he says, If you can, if you can figure out those three things. So to repeat, staying out of jail, getting career and financial success and also having success in your family, whatever that means to you, which which I'm very sensitive. That family a definition, is not this.

I think traditionally it was a husband and a wife and Children. I think that the definition of family has evolved quite a bit to be. Obviously, there's many beautiful, wonderful single parent homes that make things work. There's co parenting homes anyway, but whatever those whatever family means to you, whatever secular success means to you and he, this whole book is like talks about how hard it is to have those three things and one of the examples that's interesting. And to answer your question directly, I want those three things for my legacy. I want to have a great family. I do wanna have some financial and kind of business success. See how far I can take design? See how far I can push myself, either as a design leader is a founder or whatever and,

you know, thirdly, static jail and the reason he brings the stay out of jail up, it's because he went. He went to college with the guys from Enron. Those words college homies. They were his boys. They were that they were guys they got pizza with, and nobody when they're in college, says, Hey, when I get older, I can't wait to go to jail. When I get older, I can't wait, you know,

do some insider trading. No one says that it's crazy and no one ever says, Oh, I can't wait to steal a bunch of money from someone in launch a Ponzi scheme. And this This book is such a wonderful and we and everyone sees this. Freelancers have this all the time, you know, Yet you had a difficult client. See, add on an extra three hours that you didn't really work. You lie about your building because you kind of feel slighted and you feel entitled that they put you through so much pain that you should do that. And it helps you really focus on what is integrity kind of mean to you. And I've definitely had moments in my life where I have lied or I have made mistakes. I have done things. I've gotten into a situation like crap. How did I get here?

Have had to pull back and be a bit self aware. And that contrast when he kind of talks about the young Enron guys, I think everyone today, if they met Enron guy or, you know, are Bernie made off or whoever we quickly judge that was like, Dude, they're bad dudes like don't go into business with those guys. Get into you Any of us would have met them 20 years ago. In college, they would have been friends. They probably would have been dynamic, charismatic, thoughtful, kind. And it's kind of it's It's this very interesting,

slippery slope where I think, you know, I it's hard to pass judgment on a lot of these folks because you just never know what would happen if you were in the same situation. We of course, we all think I'd never do that. I'd never fall into those kind of kind of thing and kind of that thinking. But it's it's it's It's very, very difficult running an agency, for example, in your situation, I've never actually run run an agency. I've run businesses, and you know, there are definitely opportunities where you raise money or you're dealing with a large amount of money where you can. There are temptations to do bad things with that or not do bad things. For example,

a T end of a good year where you had a good profits. Do you keep the profits for you and your partners, or do you disperse into your employees? There's no right or wrong about that. There's there's some ethics there. There's some ethics to say. You should probably distribute profits and companies like Ben and Jerry's or Patagonia have, you know. Patagonia, for example, is taking a stand like well, we distribute profits to environmental causes that we care about and you've on shard. In his book, Let My people Go Surfing, which is really a great book, talks about.

We sacrifice. We've made some hard decisions that hindered our growth. They've been around 40 years like we chose to grow slowly based on the economic decisions we made. And I You know, if you look at the cause of most conflict, it comes down to money. You know, most people get divorced because of money or sex or lack thereof. Most businesses fall apart because of disagreements with money. Most companies fall apart because of lack of money. Like money tends to be kind of the heart of all these things. And we don't talk about it enough. We don't really drill into people's relationships with money, dude, like, for example,

we inherit. We don't realize this. We inherit this imprinting from our parents of how they dealt with money. Did they use it to show love that they use it to manipulate that they use it to reward or punish? And we end up adopting those perceptions into how we deal with money, how we negotiate our salaries, how we treat our employees. You know, as you guys happen, I'm you need to jump in, man or I'm just going to keep talking. So

yeah, it's just it's interesting. I mean, those those were definitely things that, you know, I have to think about all the time to like you know an agency is different than getting investor money. And because, you know, you have to keep an agency alive. You have to do a lot of things that air you need to that mine sentence a constant struggle of figuring out, like howto how to keep you know how to keep people engaged in carrying. And I mean on that topic. You know, I'm I'm happy to say that, you know, we finally just decided that we would distribute profits. You know, it's really hard

to, but why? Why we want to do that? You've worked so hard to build up your agency. Why? What was it about you that made you say, Let's share some money with some folks? Why not just keep it all for yourself?

Well, there was one thing that we we kind of knew this, but we worked with a consultant in, and also our CFO team that that helped us really do the math. And we realized 11 thing. Um, our company doesn't do projects. We do relationships. So look, let's say your google and you hire fun sized, please. Higher school. If you If you have you hire us. Um, we we are. We're building stuff with you. You know,

the fees are transparent. We're not doing projects like what typically happens in most of our revenue. 70% of our revenue. I think last year came from current customs that just decided that they wanted to keep doing work with us. And when we realized was is that that was not the work of the sales person. Or, you know, the owner or me or Natalie, the owners of the business. Ah, lot of that work that it took to build that relationship and that level of trust, um, it required to build, you know, to keep these things going and growing was the designers, you know,

like they were they were doing that work. And so we felt because of that model that we have, that's, um more more like growing relationship than doing projects and an ending them. We we thought that it was the right

thing. Okay, So s so I'm gonna I'm gonna take over your podcast for a second. I'm gonna jump in. So you're married to your partner, right To your tears. SNC party. So not only to have to deal with money issues in a marriage, but also in a company. How do you guys not, like murder each other? Um, do you know what you do? Maybe to yell and scream and you figure it all out or something? I don't know. Like, how do you do this?

Well, s o. Natalie and I, um, met many, many, many, many, many, many years ago. We were not in a professional way, metal like 10 tennis. Years ago, we met an agency. So our relationship started on a professional setting. Um, throughout the years,

we worked together, but we never worked with each other. So by the time we decided to start our business, we had We have always supported each other, like, Hey, I need your advice on this. Or can you help me with this? And we would even, you know, even though we worked a different companies, we always helped each other. So we knew howto work. Do we knew how to make work together, But we never had a business. So we just had to set like,

certain boundaries in the early days, like, you know, let's try not. Let's let's ah, let's try not to let work from our lives, but

your phone's inside and jump in. Do you take phones? Do you take turns into the bedroom

for for a while We did. And then for a while we did. And then for, you know, And then it comes that we were aware of these things. We try toe, make sure we monitor these things. But we're trying to be open minded to like if we don't really want to talk about work all the time. I work all the time, but we realize that every now and then one of us will want to talk about it. So we have. Ah, Natalie and I have just developed these these methods that allow us to, you know, sort of asked for permission to talk about things or, you know, and we're both designers.

So, like, you know, it's very, very, very rare that we work late, but occasionally one of us work late. But we understand that another standing that the reason why we're doing that isn't because we have to. It's because we can't. We probably care about that, that thing we're working on so we just and we also do different jobs in the Mizzen So we we position ourselves with our roles to support each other, not to be in and conflict.

How do you How do you Okay, real quick, though. I gotta jump in. How do you resolve conflict? Because I can't imagine than 10 years. You've never You haven't agreed on everything. There's no way.

No, no, I'll be really honest about this one. So I think, um, until recently, things were pretty easy until we sort of hit hit these points of, ah, big fundamental questions about what's next and so well, because when we started the company, the vision was we were just gonna be really small, and we're just it's all gonna be It's all gonna be about culture and designing our lives. Um, And then, you know, we evolved and we sort of see like, new skills emerging.

And I think the most recent incarnation of that is that we want to do whatever it takes to do great work. That might mean doubling in size. It could mean like shrinking down. And so I think that's where it's starting to get hard for not only night, because we don't always have the same vision about that like, I think we're always an alignment of what we want to do. We want to do great work. We want to work with great people. We want to treat them well, but we never. It's harder for us to define what long term success in the business actually looks like. And we don't We know it's not. This is our, you know, our first business. So we don't have a lot of experience with doing that.

Honestly, you know, like, if it wasn't for we have to just really leverage the partners that we have, you know, we have We have a great financial partner at this point. Um, we have we have, Ah, we have a board of directors that advise us. I mean, some really smart people that have been in our shoes before and can advise us on a range of topics. If it wasn't for that out the these other perspectives, I think it would be really, really difficult for us. And but,

yeah, the topic of growth right now is the one that is probably the causing potential issues because, um, we're trying to figure out how to make our destiny is a line because, really, at the end of the day, um, our relationship is what matters most to both of us. And we need, you know, And but, you know, as you know, as you grow and as you get older, like you're you're, ah,

definition of, you know, things like success changes. Like at first I thought, man, wouldn't it just be great just to have a business with with my life? And then it was like, Well, wouldn't it be great if, like, ah, we had, like, more, like, awesome designers to work with,

And I'm like, wouldn't it be great if we could take this to other cities? And you know, some, you know, sometimes you know, the way that we think in the way that we work out Problems are also different. Like, um, you know, Natalie's very practical. I'm very I'm like, I will allow myself to sometimes be, uh, dangerously dreaming about things, you know,

Would you ever Would you ever ah, if it caused enough conflict, would you see yourself ever just closing the bill of the business and walking away for the sake of your relationship?

For the sake of our relationship? Absolutely. Like um, I you know, I don't, uh, not to get too sappy, but, you know, you know, Natalie's my you know, she's my

booth. No, I mean, she's every she's okay.

She's everything. She's everything to me. So, like, I couldn't I wouldn't want to do this business without her. I wouldn't want to live my life without her. Um, you know, to me and I may not. I probably need to need to go tell her this. It really it. My career is also important, but it's not. Nothing to me is worth losing the people that

just tying this all back. I think you'd really enjoy that Clayton Christensen book, How to Measure Your Life because it it does highlight this idea that the relationships we have with other people is really what matters. I know it's cliche to say, but it's true. That's why it's a cliche. And I think that for the most part, it's funny when I meet founders who are single founders and I'm like, Well, who's your co founder? I don't have one. I don't need one do that. I don't think they understand what the message that they're what they're really saying. is that they don't care about others. They believe that they can do it by themselves, and they're letting their ego can drive their decision. It is not easy to convince in your case,

Natalie in another. In my case, it's Bjorn or other folks to kind of latch onto it. It's silly dream that you might have. You know, Joel just walked by to convince Joel. Believe Google or whoever it might be. It's not easy to convince folks to buy into your idea of what you want to make and build. And to me, it's a huge social proof, right. It's not easy for my wife to sit by and, you know, I've I left. Gould, 2020 14 spent three years of doing startups.

Well, guess what happens when you start ups. You don't make any money. You don't make any money. You pay yourself very people like, Oh, it's fancy this and they don't know. It's hard, hard, hard work, and it's compounded. The stress is compounded because of lack of financial security, which you're giving up. You're delaying that gratification for hope of a future liquidity event on you're trying to compress time and effort in a way that, ah, you know,

somehow compounds and and you somehow you get the benefit five or six years from now. Um, and I think that for the most part, people really underestimate the that that you don't not happiness. I think someone did a study like over 70 grand. I mean, I'm sure you have to change us by city over 70 grand. You make more money than it does not change your happiness. It just doesn't and, you know, and there's a plenty. There's a lot of rich people that are miserable as hell, and there's a lot. There's a lot of poor people that are the happiest humans have ever seen. You know, I served down in Mexico every year.

We go to the poorest of the poor places, you know, the most third world place and the most beautiful kindness. Happy's people. They have nothing. Then I have three walls they don't even have there. But you know, they're the happiest, sweetest love, most loving people. They don't care. They didn't get iPhone seven. They don't care. They didn't have, you know, whatever might be.

There's a you know, there there's a designer. I was chatting with the other day. And if you're listening to this, and, uh, I wish I could have been more direct with him at the time, but I just kind of listened and nodded my head, but I didn't really share with him how I felt. They were complaining about their commute. They were complaining about the free food. They were complaining that they were filled on their project team. It was complaint after complaint after complaint, and they work in a very well known tech company. They have everything taken care of. They have no,

like I just was. My jaw was open was I was listening. You know, we're just texting Rather, and my heart kind of went out to this person. But I just felt like, Gosh, what? What is going to make you happy? What? How are you going to figure out how to be truly happy and how to really kind of be self aware enough to, like, create change things in your life, to be grateful and gratitude like it's It's phenomenal the world that we live and it's phenomenal. The blessings of you having a job is a big deal. I've not had jobs.

You know, I've know what it's like to go work in a start up for five months and not get paid. I've known what it's like to, like, have no money in your bank account or be like, you know, 80 grand. I was, in fact, when we when I when I was done with it, signed by humans in T theory. I have shared this before. My family and I were in massive debt. We got destroyed by the housing crash. We had a short seller house. I came up to San Francisco on a prayer.

I was like, Forget it, let's go to dig. I got a good salary. A dig. We short sold her house. I'm tone tone along my wife, my three kids. You know, they're six. I think they were slow 63 and one or 52 and brand new born at the time. No, no. 80 grand in debt. Just like All right, let's go to San Francisco.

There's a lot of tech jobs out there, so we cruise up there and why, When I was a dig, I just got lucky. I met some 33 bodies that were engineers We built a thing at night called Fleck, and it just it just happened, you know, when we released it, we did this after hours. By the way, on our own, we didn't raise any money. Ah, and we released it about a year and 1/2 after working a dig, and it got the attention of Google and YouTube and some others, and we got we got acquired.

We don't get acquired About aka hired right, Which means, Hey, I love your team. Come work here. And it was, um it was an incredible that that we made some money. We're about to pay off our debt, put some money into the bank. It was a huge blessing. Huge blessing. But I gotta tell you so if you're listening to this and you are getting destroyed by dad or whatever, it might be your financially, just like hanging on by your fingernails. It would think, like,

just keep plot along, it will get better. It always does. It absolutely will get better. But you can't give up and you can't stop and you can't like lay in bed all day expecting, you know, things to kind of emerge and this individual who's working this large Internet company that that rhymes with nook and ace is, uh, you know, in my opinion, probably the higher paid designers in the world working at a company that has massive impact and influence. And I believe that if you're in this kind of situation where you have a job, you're being paid, its life is good yet free lunch. He gotta like you gotta really check your entitlement man at the door and just be super grateful for what you're doing.

So sorry. Yeah, that's I mean that that's what I mean. That's something I think about all the time, too. I mean, it's different, you know, like it may be different for you and I because you and I have been around, you know? You know, I assume you were also doing this in the nineties as well, and I also remember how hard it was just at some point in time in Austin, Texas, just to just to get an interview, you know, And that's,

you know, that's where I developed my entrepreneur skills set out of out of necessity to survive. And, you know, I remember working at one point in my career. In an act of this, I lived. Okay, dude, I lived in this house, um, on the east side of Austin that had plywood floors. Um, and they were just kind of like the landlord just painted them with, like like brown paint. Right?

And there was this crappy hand built a ladder that went up to an attic. I had no a c. I just had a little room for a desk. And that's how I like I survived 1,000,000. So it's It's great, you know? But back then, you know, like, it wasn't as glamorous to be designing digital products. And nowadays it's like I think everyone feels like right now, like, Oh, I deserve a job like right after school or whatever. I just deserve a job, you know,

like I'm not willing to, you know, get to know people, uh, or build relationships or take jobs or commit. I'm just entitled to Well, uh, that's

bugs me. Yeah, and I definitely want to come across as I ke being the old man, telling young bucks what's what. I will, I will say, though there is been an interesting with this new thing that We're doing this Design Inc thing we see every day the convergence between folks and companies who are looking for designers and designers who are pitching and trying to get work. And one thing that we've observed time and time again is there there. There's certainly how do I say this in a way that can help people. The folks who are consistently getting work are consistently going after the work, And so for every three or four pitches they're giving to three or four companies, they get maybe, you know, they get picked up. Once. There's another set of folks, though,

try wants maybe twice and they won't get picked and they get really bombed. I tried to platform and I sent a proposal and nothing came out of it. So what the heck, I don't get it. I'm like, How many of you sent? I sent one. I like, uh, okay, just one. Let's read it, Let's read it and we go in. We read it and it's like the most vanilla, lifeless pitch ever. It's like,

Hi, here's my portfolio. I do good work. Let's work together. I'm like no one's gonna hire you. I wouldn't hire you, you know, put some soul in some effort into it. So anyway, we're probably going off topic just a bit. I will say, though, go ahead if you have a thought.

No, let's Let's talk about designing and by the way, thanks designing for sponsoring this season of the Hustle Party. I really loved designing. I know that it's it's new and it's evolving. But, um, I think it's really awesome what you're doing. I mean, you're providing a tool for people to find great designers, and you're also providing a place for people to hopefully be seen and and try to build relationships and get work with people. I mean, I think even for like, a company like ours, there's a lot of value in that. I mean, it's,

you know, just like you were saying, like there there's time and people ask me a lot. Well, how what does it take to, like, get a successful freelance business going? What does it take to start agency? And I say, Well, I don't know. I think a lot of it takes like pure guts to be fearless and constantly adapting to the market changes, you know, like what people are buying in the way that they're buying it, et cetera. But you got to meet people,

you know, like if it's if you don't try to meet people, build relationships, tried, you know, pitch, work, fail, built, you know, they may not hire you, you know, right then. But there's a chance that they might call you in a year or

two. Pretension quiet. And I think, and I think also the idea of There's a I think forget it, just come up and they read, they get, they get some bad information online. They read things like, Don't do spec work, Don't do free work, don't take And I think that I think that's kind of bad advice. I really do. I think there are times you to do free work. I think there are times you do do a little sketch and you give away you help first, you don't ask for anything. You just like, let me help you.

Hey, I know you're a small band or like you're just as business starting out and you and you meet someone like Look, Mark, I only have 300 bucks. I don't know what I'm doing I have a friend who started a charter school and, you know, I just did his local form just to help him. And, you know, it's like I did feel there was part of me. If I'm being truthful, that was Part of it is like it would be really cool if you pay me some money. There was because I thought I did good work for him, and I know now his charter school is doing well. It's been years, and he the logo's all over the place.

And Micah, it would be really kind of cool to, like, get a check for 1000 bucks or something. But that's okay. I don't It's it's That's just how what we do if you're a lawyer, if you're an accountant, if you're any other thing, those folks give away their time and their service all the time, all the time. And the biggest thing I think someone can learn is how do it is to just start doing the work you want to dio do it, No matter what the money will follow, I swear, I promise it. Will I promise it. Well,

now then you get to a point where you get to earn the right toe, actually charge people, you have to earn the right then to charge people more money. And you get well known and always kind of fun things. Anyway,

What would you? You know? You and I have been around for a long time. We've gone from print to Web design to to mobile to mobile design software designed to now, like What's next? You know, a RV are all the stuff like, What are your thoughts on what a senior freelance designer should think about, how they charge for learning a new skill that they're trying to acquire? Like So let's say there's a senior, ah, very strong designer out there that's really great at mobile design, but they're talking to someone that, you know, posted a job on designing, looking for someone that has experience in a our apartment reality. But they don't quite have that skill. What is your How would you advise Someone had a price

for something? Well, it's a really great question. What I would recommend frankly is you. You, you for me. I charge the same price for any kind of work I do. Even if I don't know how to do it because what they're what they're paying for is for my problem solving and my collaborate in my collaboration and my ideas and my thinking around it. I guarantee you there's an a r tutorial somewhere v r to tour how to design for v R. And if if you're worth your salt, you could probably pick it up and dedicate a few nights and figure it out. So I'm not worried about the technical aspect. What I am concerned about is how do we develop a solution here that's gonna work for whatever thing we're trying to make. And the same my my brain has tackled print projects the same as it has a mobile project, the same as it has. Like, you know,

uh, anything. It's just you're paying for my ideas, my energy, my emotional sweat, my blood, my tears, and make no mistake. When you do good design work, you bleed like there's a party or soul that is injected into that project. If you're really doing it right, and if you care about what you're doing and so you know when they're buying a piece of me in my time and I'm in. And when folks work with me, you're gonna get everything for me. You're not just going to get mock ups. You're going to get my you know,

my energy and ideas and thoughts and feelings and all these kind of things. And I think people I don't think all that should be cost the same. Shall we charge of Sam. And there's a lot of math around I What do you want to make for the year Divided by 12 months, divided by hours in these kind of things in project our you know, all this kind of crap. And I have this Maybe, Well, maybe when this podcast come out, what will publicize it? I have this two page engagement letter that I've used my whole career, and that's it. Two pages, No contracts, no nothing. And I developed this 15 years ago.

It's really, really simple. It says this is basically this. This is Look, we think it's gonna cost about 5000 bucks. That's what we think. That's our scope. We're gonna do these things and I kind of write out what I'm gonna d'oh. But then there's this whole paragraph that says, Here's deal, though we we have no idea. But we're gonna work closely together. We're gonna develop a relationship. And if you ask me to help you, I'm gonna help you. But I'm gonna charge you for when you asked me to help you.

And it s so it is truly a time interiors contract, but it comes across as a project based contract. It sets the expectation that says, Look, this is probably gonna be 10,000 bucks, but make no mistake, we both have no idea what's going on. And so we're gonna dive into this thing together, and And if we love each other and we like working with each other, it's probably gonna end up being a lot more than this. And Anthony, I'm telling you, time and time again, $1000 projects have turned into $50,000 projects over and over and over again. And that's the thing that a lot of young designers don't understand. They get so hung up on a project being would they only wanted 500 bucks bullcrap.

No one has a budget of 500 bucks. That's a lie And don't fall, pretend, don't fall prey to and don't fall prey to people who are trying to, you know, manipulate you. On the budget standpoint, if you do good work if you are a good human and you find someone who needs your help that there is no reason that that can turn into a beautiful, wonderful, long term kind of solution at all if you're finding that you are not getting the good work over and over again, if you're finding that you're getting told no to a lot, you need some serious self awareness time. You need to think about your approach you need to think about if you're coming off is entitled you need to think about. If you're not willing to compromise on how you approach that proposal, you have to also think about if you're even given anything. A lot of designers like I'm not gonna do anything.

I'm not going to give you the time of day until you signed this contract. That's crazy, you know. Yes, If you start working, you start helping them well, But Mark, what's gonna happen in two days when you know they don't sign the deal? What not I'm like Then you just wasted two days That's okay.

I've been waiting for a time to tell the story, and I'll interrupt, you know, So it's directly related to this. When I started this business before, it was fun sized before I convinced Natalie to join. It was Anthony Arm and Derek's design, and I was talking to my first big client group on Whoa. And they were I had just quit ever note, and they were trying to hire me as a full head full time. And, you know, I simply said, Hey, look, I'm interested in what you're doing. I love point of sale systems interested in talking about,

You know, I I just moved to Austin from New York. I'm not looking to make a move. I'd love to work with you in a freelance capacity there, and they said, Okay, great. Like, here's our Here's

we'd love to do that.

So they said, Here, here's our Here's our, uh, r r m s a. Sign this and we'll get going. And my first reaction. It was so entitled. Like I came back, I came back. I had my lawyer like Red line the show out of this contract, and I you know, I was just thinking. I'm just trying to protect myself, right? Like, But I didn't realize.

And they're just things that I didn't never thought about before. Like, and I got on the phone. Uh, he's a friend of mine now, and he's, you know, he advises our company. Um, and he was Our first client's name is Yuri Engstrom. Maybe you know him. He also was that Google? Anyway, he's at true ventures now. Um, Yuri said,

Look, dude, here's the deal. Um, our lawyers cost, like, $507 an hour, and this is a small peanuts project. Like, I just want to do some good work with you. Like, Do you want to just get started

or not like it's like And, uh, he's like, really guy. Why you red light in my M. S? A. He's like

you're making my life a living hell right now. There's no way I could go to legal and get these things done. Maybe if this was a bit like 1/2 a $1,000,000 project, but, you know, not for whatever that price point was. And he really like it. I'll never forget that, because I do. I do believe that people should, you know, have good. Um, I like to call it like a really a relationship agreement. Like how they want the relationship to work. And I I think that people do need to commit, But I think you do have to be willing to sort of,

you know, be willing to try something and just be take some risk. If you wanna get some of those projects I know someone, I won't mention their name Someone very close to me that has said no to some very exciting opportunities because the language in the contract was just, like, didn't

stroke with right away. What you don't understand with group on Facebook, whoever any most big companies, they send you an M s A or whatever. It literally is a can thing. They're saying everybody else It would be a PR nightmare nightmare if they decided to stiff you on a payment. Give me a break. You all you gotta do is take that to the press and be like, Hey, that's rad. I did 10 grand work for these folks and they decided not to pay me. Yeah, here it all is. Oh, look. While they shipped it. All right,

A medium post on that. Trust me, you're gonna They want to avoid a lawsuit or any kind of PR, you know, way more than not paying you for crying out loud, I think I think the trigger to be like, oh, legally like thought like, Oh, my gosh, they're gonna They're going to steal all my i p and everything rich. By the way, let's talk about that real briefly. I think that as a designer, designers are always trying to figure out how to protect their work and how to like, you know,

keep I don't know, the right to put it in their portfolio. So an M S Able company says You can't sign it, You can't post in your portfolio, you can't do anything and people get really turned off by that. My advice. Who care? Sign it anyway and then Guess what? When you're done with the project and you have a relationship of trust, say, Hey, do you mind if I post on the site 99.9% of the time? It's not a problem. Or at worst, you say Just wait till the ship's public, then sure,

no problem. And you know, there is something about companies where, like Apple and others who say we don't want to admit that we're using fun size, we don't want to admit that we're using an agency. And I think that's part of being an agency. You have to you have to respect the boundary that they're trying to. You know, they have their own brand they're trying to protect. And so you do need to Then this is a side hustle on the side. Hack on. That is to say, great kind, actually. Share this privately with with new customers. And almost everyone will say yes to that. Almost everybody,

all of the all of these Ah, you know, like if I could interpret what you said, you know, I think the hard skills are sort of necessary to build the trust that you actually are a designer competent of problem solving in general, right, to to consult into produced great work and a lot of these soft skills. I mean, you know, some people have them and a lot, but a lot of people don't, you know, like, you know, like some people have to be trained on howto like Just talk to someone or use a calendar or, you know, like goes on and on And it's crazy,

like, you know, like, um, you know, we were talking about the gig economy and how you know the way things were moving and and a lot of people will be, you know, consultants. And, you know, I think it's fairly true. I don't know what the out, how to predict what the math would be, but everyone that I have known that's a designer has at least spent 25% of their career, if not more 50% arm or owning their own business of some flavor or freelance are consulting in some capacity. And,

um, I just wish that some of these soft skills were top a little bit better, like, you know how to negotiate howto talk to people you know how to communicate howto empathize. I don't know, um, but it's not. It's not taught

well, and I don't know. The soft skills are usually a product of experience where you have blown it. So you've learned a very you're lucky to have someone point out a particular soft skill to you, which was this idea of intention. This idea of like, Hey, look, we have good intentions. You have good intentions. Let's not mess this up. Now you're gonna have another situation where you're going to do the same thing you're gonna get an M. S. A. You're gonna remember your group on experience, gonna sign it away. And there's probably a clause in there that may screw you that may cause some damage.

And you're gonna be a Yuri. Come on, man. Like I knew I shouldn't mind this stuff. And, um, I'll share, I'll share a story that I, I don't know. Long time ago, this prominent politician had a ranch in Montana. Yeah, he wanted me to build a website for the ranch. And it was the kind of place you could spend, you know, a bunch of money and go up there for two weeks and pretend to be a cowboy deodorant and very prominent politician.

I grew up in in Virginia routes out of d. C. So we have a network there. Those kind of folks and this person had worked for Reagan, worked for Bush, like, very prominent, and I quote in $2000 full design coated like done the whole thing logo. Everything to Grant. I was 22 22 or 23. Brand new Mary Thiago's newly married trying to impress my wife by bringing home the bacon and, uh, and he wouldn't. I sent in my engagement letter and he wouldn't sign it and he wouldn't pay $1000 deposit. So I didn't do that kind of weight. You know,

nothing happened. A month goes by and he's like, Hey, how come? How come that sites you said to be done like, What's going on? You kind of like pressed me and I said, Well, you never gave me deposit Never sent this letter and he read me the riot act. He's like, Son, if you if you can't take my word than, uh, we'd have no business doing business with each other And I was a little taken back and I said, I said I was advised that good business people will give a deposit, will sign this thing and he got really aggressive and got really upset.

And he's like, son, my track record proves otherwise. I don't decide anything with you, and you got him. He got mean, and I didn't like how you made me feel. And so, uh, I asked around a little bit and I said, Hey, this individual is kind of rides me pretty hard. Did I make a mistake that I'd say something wrong? Should I have just going through this? And another prominent politician, very prominent lobbyist said,

Hey, Mark, listen, I'm gonna teach you something here. There are two kinds of people in this world people you do contracts with and people you don't. That is someone you do not do contracts with. And you you just avoided something there, and I don't know how to teach that soft skill. But I tell you, my Spidey senses were on fire. Yeah, he made me feel guilty, and he made me feel self conscious, and he made me feel nervous. And and I felt like I didn't know what to dio. I guarantee if you were to reflect on your relation with Yuri,

he made you feel comfortable, warm, trusting, and you felt like Okay, fine. If something goes sideways, this guy's got my back, and I know it's a silly thing to say. You know, follow your intuition, but if You are in a deal and you're about to work the client and it feels shifty. It feels out of focus. It feels foggy. Do not do it. Run away. If it feels too good to be true,

get out of there. There's other work. There's other fish in the sea. And to this day, I've never forgotten that story. I've never forgotten that experience used for a long time, Anthony. I felt bad. Like I felt like, Oh, gosh, I'm not customer service oriented. Like I did something really bad there. Uh, it was also the CEO of the startup I was working for in college. That's how I paid for school.

I worked in a start up doing web design and development, and, uh, you know, sure enough, many years later, startup went under. A lot of things came out and, you know, things weren't it came out that the dude wasn't the most honorable guy, you know, And so I don't know. I I think there's, I think a lot of young designers air reading, listening to podcasts, trying to look for answers.

And when they don't look inside themselves and ask themselves, What do you like What do you feel? What do you feel? What I feel you should do right now and even with you and mentioned earlier today in the podcast about how you're just figuring things out with between you and Natalie trying to work out fun size. And you know what? What's right for you is not gonna be the right for Rally Interactive or for Ueno or for any of these other folks you're close with, and you probably seek advice out of. It's only what is right for you. All is different than what is right for everybody else. And that is so important for every designer out there. What is right for you is not the same for other folks. Drew Wilson right now is doing his cave week. He's locked himself in a bedroom for a week, and he's writing code to in Plaszow. And he was getting grief on Twitter to like, Aren't you a dad?

Like, why are you like, away from your family? And I'm like, Who are you? Like what? Do you have a crap? Let him do what he wants to do he like, Do you also know the rent a Winnebago and like spent, like months and months with his family. The dude is fed playing time with his family. He's an extremist cell ago. I'm gonna spend a year with my family that I spent a year working on a thing we cannot. We have got to stop judging one another and not to mention. And also the inverse of that is true. We have to stop pattern matching one another saying,

Well, gosh, Anthony's business. He grew up this way and he was, Well, maybe I should do a a kn agency with my wife. That might be the meanest, amazing thing that could be the worst thing ever. Like a lot of people, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, folks like me like, Oh, I'm a designer.

Maybe I should start like a designing like a start up kind of thing and raise the money and like I get, Maybe if that's inside of you, being a founder has nothing to do with being a designer. It's a different job, like, all together and and and, you know, put the damn phone, put the phones down, folks, and start thinking about what what you like. Get in touch with your heart and your stomach in your mind and think about that intuition and listen to it for crying out loud. It's not wrong. It's the real stuff, you know, and ran and ran.

Well, I don't I don't know you all that well. But one thing seems pretty clear to me is that you know, you're always you seem to be very accessible to people that that that want to, you know, here, perspective, one advice. And I think that's great. I mean, I just I think what you said is true. Like what? What is true from one. What's true North for one person is is, you know, probably a potential disaster of the wrong choice or another person. So you have to really feel these things out and and and I I agree.

You know, we have to look, you have to look at it at all the things that you know matter to you and figure out how to make those decisions that that that ah, that extremely high paying job or high paying contract could make your life a living hell. It could also make you very happy, you know, and I think it is very different. And but, you know, I don't know if there's anything you want to add on this. But why? Why is it you think that designers are so quick to judge other designers?

Yeah, we've seen a lot of there's been a lot of Twitter hate back and forth of desires hopping another. Fiona and I really feel it's because we are. Look, here's the deal in general. If you get so many super pissed off and angry, it's not you. To them, they're not happy with themselves. They have issues with somebody else and their family or whatever they gotta work out. So it's the first rule is to truly realize when folks are super upset, they're probably projecting and have something that's out of them. Having said that, would design especially. We have a really weird job where when we do the work, it is on display for everybody to see. And judge engineers don't have this problem.

Engineers, you know, looking at someone's code and like making a snap judgment on someone's code would be like really hard. You would have to take weeks, comb through re father code and like to make a decision with a designer. Oh my gosh, we're We have the easiest job in the world to judge, right, because you put the workout and anybody you don't can have an opinion on what it looks like, what it feels like if it makes sense, the colors, the topography, everything and and because designers air trained, it's our job to find problems. This is just magnified. It is just compounded.

We are trained to look at things and we're paid for. Our opinions were paid to tell you why I was broken and by gosh, that's weird because we're seeking validation. Were seeking to feel we want to be heard. We want folks to be like Yes, you're right, That's absolutely correct. Unfortunately, you know, we've had there's been there's been a lot of chatter on twitters and others. I I think when you've reached a certain point in your career, Azaz as someone you know, I used to do these portfolio reviews live. Maybe we can link him up on your show notes or something, but I I would like to do Maur. I stopped doing them because people really were wanting me to do them because they wanted me to bash other people.

Like when I was in your portfolio, that wasn't very good. That's when I got, like, the most attention. Yeah, that sucked it up. And this dog piling started happening that that really turned me off. New portfolio reviews. We're I was reviewing portfolio so we could find really great talent to add it to the designing community. I wasn't doing it to bash people. I wasn't doing it for your entertainment, and I wasn't. It certainly wasn't doing it to hurt anyone's feelings. And so I stopped doing them because it was feeding into this Kardashians like Kanye West kind of feel that we have now. It is this kind of train wreck mentality where we do get joy out of other people suffering.

And you know, that's a bad thing, right? Like we don't You shouldn't have joy because other folks, you know, ifwe knows agency wins a huge job. If you're going up against Ueno, our rally, it's it's fun sized rally verse. Ueno. You know, all these guys, your friends with Ben, you know, Hallie All right, you're going for a Facebook contract.

You guys all know it's a $2 million annual contract for the next 10 years. That's huge. That will make a huge impact to your life. And you guys all know what's going on. You lose that to Ben or you lose it, toe. Hallie, how does it make you feel if you if I think if you're if you're truly enlightened, you're happy for them, You're genuinely happy for them. And you know, you shake their hand and you're a good sport and you're like, good for you. We gave it our all. You had something we didn't. And and I'm stoked for you.

That's not human nature that were pissed. What would our word and we beat ourselves up? Why didn't we get that? What did we do wrong? The presentation could have been this. Our price was too high. We look for all these other things, but the reality is with the when all is said and done, you know, it's much better. It's a much better way of life to look at those other folks successes and Saleh brain like, you know, good for you. I'm stoked for you. Gee, annually stoked for you.

That doesn't mean you don't fight. Like how on the next one. And that doesn't mean you can't be angry. Of course. Let anger and those emotions wash over you and embrace him. But use them. Thio do better the next time and to make change whatever. But don't let the anger come forth in your tone, in your voice in these other things, does that make I don't know if that makes any sense.

Oh, absolutely. Words. It Words of wisdom, Mark. Union. No, no, no, you're right. You're absolutely right. I think we should be more supportive. And, you know, again, I think, like you said just like doing,

you know, doing good work. You know, the money's gonna come. I'm just the same thing. You know, the the investment in the relationships and being a good sport that also has its return on investment to, you know, like, um for everyone, you know, like for the community, for personal relationships, You know, You know, I I truly believe that, you know, we're We're all you know, connected a lot closer than we think. And you know,

every everyone knows everyone knows each other's intentions. And if you truly have, if an individual truly has contempt for another person that comes through in their body language in their tone of voice. Even if you're like another great. If you don't believe that in your heart there's another great book as a man. Think it that's like 10 or 12 pages like it's super short. But also it has this kind of other further idea about thoughts and like and dude, it's a real hack to get inside your heart and figure out how to truly love other people like that is not easy. Like that is super heart, you know, and, um and I think that's part of the lifelong journey. And as and as designers, I do think a lot of designers arm or emotionally in touch because because we are taught we talked about empathy of users way are constantly trying to put ourselves in other people's shoes, and I think we just tend Thio as as a as a community tend to be a little more motive than others. People like Oh, they're so emotional and that that is true.

We are where we were passionate about what we d'oh way get hurt. I think we had offended and that's what I think. It's actually okay to get offended. Things definitely okay. To be like, Yeah, You know what? This would this work was personal to me, and I really thought this was gonna be a solution that was gonna work. And yeah, it personally hurt when you rejected that idea. And, well, it's just business. And I'm like, I get it's his business.

But for me, design is more than just business. It's a reflection of my taste on my aesthetic and a part of who I am. So it's but that's okay. You don't need to own me being hurt. You know, you don't need to own my like, like, a little sad moment here. I think I think it's okay to say that word. The work is personal and, uh, Thio to get a little motivated there. You know what I mean? I don't have anything wrong with that. Like it was like everyone tries to like what?

Wash over the idea that that design isn't personal on that design is an emotional It's the most emotional personal thing there is, period. And because it's our interpretation of what the world should look and feel like, And that comes from a very deep place that comes from how we were raised, how we perceive things on DSO. So, yes, when you reject my designs, you are rejecting me. That's what sucks about being a designer. If you reject someone's accounting or someone's like legal thing, I don't know a single account or a lawyer who says, Yeah, that's like a reflection of who I am. Every designer I know believes that the work that they're producing is apart, a little bit of part of who they are,

and and, you know, I think it's about his kind of bull crap to say that it isn't personal, and it's I think the work we do is the most personal one, and I might be a good place to kind of toe end here. It looks like we've been going pretty long. I don't wantto bore your folks too much.

Well, it's not boring to me. Um, I'm sure everyone's gonna enjoy it, but I do want to be mindful of your time before I let you go, though, Um, just, you know, it's a new year. I mean, what are your what? Your mission for this year? Like, what's the one

thing you hope to know. I want to figure out It's simple for me. I want to figure out how we might employ financially help over 10,000 designers, writers, illustrators, video, video makers. And you know, we have this community of Creatives on Design Inc I just think it be really cool. If there if we could impact 10,000 people's lives this year, I'm stoked like that's all. That's all I'm focused on somehow, some way and, you know, we get messages. I got a message today of an individual designer on her platform was like, Look,

I lost my job in December and I've got two jobs for designing them, you know, Made, made a few 1000 box and was able to take care of my family. So thank you. You get something like that and like it, it feels really cool to do that, you know? And I hope that we can do more of those kind of things and like, Look, it's not all altruism, like we do more of those things to this year's 10,000 next year. Hopefully, it's 100,000. You know, we are doing this to run a business.

I'm doing this to take care of my kids and my family and and the folks that work for us and to keep them employed and keep the lights on. That's also why we're doing this. And it's I think it's unfair. When people try to polarize their motivation and say, Well, it's social, it's all social or it's all financial or what? I don't know, It's It's an amalgamation of all these motivations and it's hard. I can't tell you where one wraps into the other. They're all kind of their together, You know what I mean? Don't ask me another question or we'll be here all night.

Yeah. Okay. So, uh, Mark, how can people find you

on just my last name Hemi in h e m. As in Mary E. O. And is a Nancy Hemi in is, like everywhere Instagram, twitter, whatever, whatever you want. And of course, designing dot com. If you need help, go over there will help you. And you know, there is a phone number on there. If you call it, it dials my phone. Joel's phone and my co founder,

Bjorn Bjorn, is for phone. So if you really want to get a hold of me called at about three. In the morning, and then we'll see what happens will be funny.

I think I might call you

at three. In the morning. Right. Good. We're there. We're there for you. We'll help.

Awesome. Also, please, please check out his writings on medium. Mark publishes a lot of content there and, you know, check out his web site. Send us your feedback on the show. Um, Mark, thank you so much for everything that you're doing and their support of the show and taking time out of out of your data. Talk with me. Especially taking it twice as long

as I promise. All right, brother. Thank you. Take care. Thank

you so much. Thanks for listening to hustle. We'll see you next time. Hustles made by fun size digital design agency that works with inspiring product teams around the world. Learn more about us at fun sized dot C E o. Season of hustles Brought to you by Design, Inc. Best place to find creative talent and receive free proposals for your project. Go to designing dot com slash hustle and get started today. If you're a designer and you'd like to join you can apply it designing dot com slash apply also thanks to graveyard tea for the Music and Black River Audio for mixing the show.