Loading...
Answers
MenuHow can I leverage my skillset as a designer to move into more product based offerings?
I have been designing for 15 years but would like to work on a project where I can sell a product using my skillset.
The market is flooded with design resources, so it doesn't have to be a 'design industry'. I have no idea where to start.
Answers
You have to start building you conscientious, “how i can improve others ppl work?”. U have a great experience in design field which can give you many answers. My suggestion is that you should find answers on a few most common problems that you’ve experienced. From there ideas will just start flooding your mind. The market is overwhelmed with the copy/past stuff. You can also research that and try to eliminate same ideas. Find something unique, and u’ll find your light.
Answer by Vukasin Colic Head of Creative @ https://www.mysticsense.com/
Start with Adkins yourself the question “what problems can I solve?”.
This is the fundamental approach to designing products, look around your room, look for things that could be better and start there.
Don’t be concerned about practicalities yet, just focus on looking to making a better ‘thing’.
- - -
Arrange a call If you would like to my help more.
Thanks
Pete
Do you know how to find winning startup ideas?
This is a question I get asked a lot.
There is a huge misconception on what makes a successful startup.
Many people think they need to crunch out code, come up with a million-dollar idea, have previous startup experience or raise millions of dollars in funding. The truth is that most startup founders make this one mistake – they focus on what they are good at.
Good businesses have something in common.
They're about people.
People who want to feel good about themselves and be happy.
People who want their families healthy and safe.
People who want security and opportunity for their children.
People who are frustrated with their jobs, their current life, not feeling loved or appreciated at home.
Good businesses are built around these themes AND they solve a real business pain point by shifting the focus from "me" to "you."
So if you want to find the best idea, talk to as many people as possible. Often times, they will raise issues and problems that are worth pursuing.
I will say start with 20 new conversations per week.
UX copywriting skill is one of them. This builds a stronger connection between design and text, which can massively improve product development and minimize revisions. Both writers and designers are responsible for imagining different user interactions and exploring all the “what if” scenarios of their project. PayPal, for example, has a great interplay between text and design during their onboarding process. New users are provided with a quick walkthrough that shows the key account menus and explains their purpose using conversational language.
You can read more here: https://99designs.com/blog/freelancing/designer-skills-career-advancement/
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
15 years is a long time. This has to make you an expert. Which is the most important to you, being your own boss and create wealth or being apart of a well known brand? Those are two different paths that I have the proven strategies to achieve. However, both paths requires a real effort from you. How much longer do you want customers (domestic and international) to wait on your brilliance? Let's talk further on a call.
It's great that you have this many years of experience. It's all about coming up with unique or innovative ways to get new opportunities and to start a business where it would work for you in the long run. I'd suggest a few things:
1. You can create a website with your portfolio and build up your online presence through on-page and off-page SEO.
2. Create an innovative style for your personal brand and this can be in the form of video reels.
3. If you'd like to sell a "product" using your skillset, you have to identify what it is that you'd see yourself passionate about even after 5 years. In this case where you have 15 years in the design industry, you can offer online courses in designing.
4. Use Pinterest, IG, and Tiktok to get new opportunities and organic traffic
5. Research is Key, even cold calling still works but you have to identify your prospect, pitching to everyone will not work.
6. Youtube, Tiktok, and even Pinterest have many resources to help you come up with new business ideas and also show you how to accomplish them.
7. Fiverr, Upwork, Toptal, Designhill, Peopleperhour and many more sites are a great place for you to find projects. Check out my blog post on this it will help you a bunch https://virtualbossmindset.com/12-best-place-to-find-freelance-graphic-design-work/
If you need any assistance with how to start a profitable business, schedule a time to chat with me.
It may be about transforming your skillset into a product or a new product that can help customers to design to win.
When you seek to learn "how-to" for the above subject, avoid a linear approach as there is no clear "how-to" available in the market.
You may think the product is ideal now, but the next moment you may change your idea. Moreover, you probably hesitate to invest in product development due to high cost as you don't know whether the market exit or not. Uncertainties ahead and unable to detect the correct trend make it hard to decide.
Lastly, many people always overlook this "shortage of time available to execute current projects while developing a new product".
There are a few important areas (but not conclusive) you need to skill up: 1) marketing, 2) product development, 3) technology management, 4) understand mega/ micro-trends, 5) know how to choose a direction, 6) build business model, 7) Agile management, 8) design or design similar thinking mindset, 9) prioritisation, 10) automate current business
The above are conclusion made is based on me helping 400+ companies to grow. Hope it is useful to you.
Please contact me for clarification if you need it.
I suggest talking with a mentor so that you can get the initial assistance you are looking for. Once getting your plan together then you may or may not want to invest in a coach, but it will really depend on what direction you decide to pursue.
Hello.You can priotise on creating refferals for your product work who will contribute to marketting tour designing skills
Related Questions
-
I finally found my billion-dollar startup idea. Now what?
The idea is a very small fraction of what it takes to earn the first million. Certainly billion. What actually matters is your ability to *execute*. Entrepreneurship means "having the talent of translating opportunities into money". Or, as Alexis Ohanian of Reddit said, "entrepreneur is just French for 'has ideas, does them'." As much as it may seem that transitioning off your 9-to-5 is the biggest hurdle, it's not. If you can't "get out of the gate" then you're also not ready to deal with the real challenges of business, like "competition that has 1,000x your funding" or "suppliers that jerk you around" or "customers who steal your intellectual property". It's easy to have a "billion dollar idea". I'd like to mine gold off of asteroids; I'm sure that would be worth billions. I'd also like to invest in Arctic real estate that will become coastal vacation property after fifty more years of warming. And, of course, to make a new social network that everyone loves. But saying these things is very very different from accomplishing them. Prove your concept by first taking a small step, such as making the first dollar. (Maybe try Noah Kagan's course at http://www.appsumo.com/how-make-your-first-dollar-open/). If you can't figure out a way to "make it go" without a giant investment, then you're kidding yourself about your ability to execute the business. If you *can* figure out a way to get a toehold, then by all means do it now! Happy to advise further, feel free to contact me for a call.AS
-
Should I create a WordPress site or build a custom website?
Go for Wordpress initially. -- Custom website will delay your launch plans considering all factors. -- Wordpress can be used to meet your requirements from day 1. -- Once you have enough visitors and decided the revenue model + business objective plan for a customized website to be developed from scratch.BK
-
VCs: What are some pitch deck pet peeves?
Avoid buzzwords: - every founder thinks their idea is disruptive/revolutionary - every founder says their financial projections are conservative Instead: - explain your validation & customer traction - explain the assumptions underlying your projections Avoid: - focusing extensively on the product/technology rather than on the business - misunderstanding the purpose of financial projections; they exist in a pitch deck to: a) validate the founders understanding of running a business b) provide a sense of magnitude of the opportunity versus the amount of capital requested c) confirm the go-to-market strategy (nothing undermines a pitch faster than financial projections disconnected from the declared go-to-market approach) d) generally discredit you as someone who understands how to build a company; for instance we'll capture 10% of our market, 1% of China, etc. Top down financial projections get big laughs from investors after you leave the room. bonus) don't show 90% profit margins. Ever. Even if you'll actually have them. Ever. Instead: - avoid false precision by rounding all projections to nearest thousands ($000) - include # units / # subscribers / # customers above revenue line; this goes hand-in-hand with building a bottom up revenue model and implicitly reveals assumptions. Investors will determine if you are realistic, conservative, or out of your mind based largely on the customer acquisition numbers and your explanation of how they will be achieved. - highlight your assumptions & milestones on first customers, cash flow break even, and other customer acquisition and expense metrics that are relevant Avoid: - thinking about investor money as your money - approaching the pitch from your mindset (I need money); investors have to be skeptics, so understand their perspective. - bad investors; it's tempting to think that any money is good money. You can't get an investor to leave once they are in without Herculean efforts and costs (and if you're asking for money, you can't afford it). If you're not on the same page with an investor on how to run/grow the business, you'll regret every waking hour. Instead: - it's their money; tell them how you are going to utilize their money to make them more money - you're a founder, a true believer. Your mantra should be "de-risk, de-risk, de-risk". Perception of risk is the #1 reason an investor says no. Many are legitimate, but often enough it's simply a perception that could have been addressed. - beyond the pitch, make the conversation 2-way. Ask questions of the investor (you might learn awesome things or uncover problems) and talk to at least two other founders they invested in more than 6 months ago.JP
-
What is a good/average conversion rate % for an e-commerce (marketplace model) for customers who add to cart through to purchase order.
There is quite a bit of information available online about eCommerce conversions rates. According to a ton of sources, average visitor-to-sale conversion rates vary from 1-3%. This does not mean the Furniture conversions will be the same. The bigger problem is that visitor-to-sale conversions are not a good data point to use to measure or tune your eCommerce business. All business have some unique friction factors that will affect your final conversion rate. It's very important to understand each of these factors and how to overcome them. The best way to measure and optimize is to take a conversion funnel approach. Once you have defined your funnel you can optimize each conversion rate to better the total effect. For example: Top of the funnel: - All web site visitors, 100,000 / month First conversion: View a product page, 50% of all visitors Second Conversion: Add to Cart, 10% of people who view products Final Conversion: Complete Checkout, 80% of people who put items in a cart In this example we see that only 10% of people who actually view products put them in to a cart, but 80% of those people purchase. If you can figure out why visitors are not adding items to their cart and fix the issue to increase the conversion rate, revenue should increase significantly because of the high checkout rate. You can use free tools like Google Analytics to give you a wealth of information about your site visitor and their behavior or there are some great paid tools as well.DM
-
Business partner I want to bring on will invest more money than me, but will be less involved in operations, how do I split the company?
Cash money should be treated separately than sweat equity. There are practical reasons for this namely that sweat equity should always be granted in conjunction with a vesting agreement (standard in tech is 4 year but in other sectors, 3 is often the standard) but that cash money should not be subjected to vesting. Typically, if you're at the idea stage, the valuation of the actual cash going in (again for software) is anywhere between $300,000 and $1m (pre-money). If you're operating in any other type of industry, valuations would be much lower at the earliest stage. The best way to calculate sweat equity (in my experience) is to use this calculator as a guide: http://foundrs.com/. If you message me privately (via Clarity) with some more info on what the business is, I can tell you whether I would be helpful to you in a call.TW
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.