Reducing Client Work

When I first got into doing web design and development I was young, ambitious but unexperienced. I thought the only way to make more money was to take on more work and build a team, so thats what I did.

And to be honest, when I first started taking on clients, it was great money. More money than I had ever made before. I even had serious imposter syndrome about charging $2,000 USD for a website.

I was taking on every client that contacted me, referrals from family and charging whatever price occurred to me in that moment, usually between $500 and $2500.

It was certainly a learning experience, making contracts, writing emails, proposals and planning projects. I knew it was important to keep clients happy, so I would work late hours and say yes to everything.

I do not resent any of it, in fact, I would not be the designer and creator I am today if I hadn't taken on this work. I am aware that I seriously undervalued and undercharged for my time.

Nuttifox soon grew and within a couple of years we had a small team doing projects north of $100,000. While this may sound like a lot, I was still putting a price on my time, having to manage a team and a bill of growing expenses. Staying profitable was not easy. I knew this wasn't scalable.

Lightbulb 💡

I knew to make more money, I would need to detach my time from money. Most 'experts' online were preaching this, but for a service business like web design, I found zero proof of anyone actually implementing it successfully.

I had to generate revenue from a business that makes money without me, it had to be a product.

I started building digital products and instantly loved the process. The creative freedom and satisfaction was next level, but the transition was really hard, I was still super busy with client work, so finding the time was difficult.

Success!

I got my first sale – $49, my side business had started generating revenue.

I had spent months starting, stopping, changing ideas, questioning everything and my return on time would be negative thousands, but I didn't care. Someone found value in my product and paid for it.

I was stoked!

Luck

When I started my exploration of digital product side hustles, I had no idea (obviously) that a pandemic was around the corner.

When it hit, everything was fine at first, business as usual, but then clients started to feel the struggle. Our contracts were cancelled, sales cycles became much, much longer, and my thriving web design business was soon having to make some pretty drastic decisions.

I feel lucky I had revenue coming in from these products. While it wasn't enough to full sustain things, it certainly made things easier.

What I learned

• Client work is a fantastic way to make quick cash

• Client work is a great way to learn a lot of new skills

• Client work is a great way to learn to manage complex projects

• I definitely wasn’t charging enough when I first started

• Client work is not quickly scalable

• Managing unhappy clients can make you unhappy

• Your time is tied to the income — no work means no money

• Businesses can fail overnight in the digital space

I decided right then that client work would no longer make up the majority of my income. I was going to continue working with clients, I enjoy it, but at a price of my choosing on projects that interest me where I can make the most impact. I've not looked back since.

What's happening?

JourneyOS

JourneyOS is still in production, but also live for beta sign-ups. The plan is to finish the first round of content for Jan 26' and start building the maker community from there. I know people having been waiting for this and it will be so much better to engage with everyone on this platform than just through email.

Framer London

The July Framer London meetup was awesome. We had a great response to the event and lot's of new and friendly faces. I am already planning the next event for mid-December. Keep an eye on our website or on Linkedin / X for further details.

FrameFast

I launched FrameFast to save hours on starting new Framer plugin projects, and you can too. It includes everything I need to skip all the boring setup and dive straight into building my plugin features.

Links

Framer Creator Micro – I had confirmation that the Framer Creator Micros are going to start shipping soon. I'm excited to get my hands on this, I really enjoyed using the Figma one, but as I spend more time in Framer now, it makes sense to switch. Sorry Figma.

Sigma 56mm F1.4 – I decided to invest a little more in my video setup with this lovely lens from Sigma. I think for my space and the depth of setup, this has a much nicer bokeh and depth with my Sony AC7III.

SkullCandy Crusher ANC2 – I got these to replace my Airpod Pro 2. I love the Airpod Pro's but it got to a point where they barely held charge and were not securing when at the gym. I do prefer cans more than pods and the sound on the SkullCandy's is incredible. I love the bass control.

I'm still considering the Apple Studio Display. I'm still powering everything from my Macbook Pro 21' edition. It's the M1 chip with 16GB and can be a little slow at times. The next Macbook Pro release is expected early 26' so I'll probably do a laptop and screen update when this drops.

UI Bakery – I've been exploring more AI development tools, all the tools I test are featured on JourneyOS. The latest tool is UI Bakery, focused on creating internal business apps. I recently built a reservation system with it that was connected to a custom booking component on a Framer project. It works really well and was super fast to build with. I've been impressed with the accuracy of the code and the UI Bakery team have been super helpful.

Anything – An AI development tool to build desktop or mobile apps. This was for a Contra Hackathon submission. I only wanted to spend a few hours on the build, but unfortunately the AI made a few errors when things got a little more technical, but I finally launched Yuccie. Anything is in early beta, so I'm not worried about the small issues I faced. I think it is a very fast tool for building apps and I've seen people create simple apps with it in under an hour.

Personal Update

I recently returned from a family trip to Türkiye, the first vacation I've had in years and very well needed. I've found the contract market a challenge this year, I think the added demand from businesses during this turbulent time has been obvious, and everyone is having to grind a little harder right now. I used this time to reflect on the year and what I want from 26'.