Freelance

Nick Disabato: Proving Your Value

February 09, 2019 17:45 - 52 minutes - 48 MB

For the curious Buy Value-Based Design Sign up for Folyo

Robert Williams: Underwater Agencies

February 02, 2019 15:35 - 12 minutes - 11 MB

In this episode, I talk about how I'm helping design agencies fix painful staff shortages with my referral community for product designers.

Margo Aaron: Virtual Coworking

January 26, 2019 16:45 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MB

For the curious You haven't read Margo's blog? WTDH Check out my private referral community Folyo

Kaleigh Moore: Authentic Networking

January 19, 2019 16:10 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MB

For the curious Kaleigh has a great contact form for her writing clients on her website She teaches a freelancing course called Creative Class with Paul Jarvis She specializes as a freelance writer for SaaS and eCommerce She's hosting a retreat for like-minded business folks soon What's Rob up to? Join my private design referral community Add me on LinkedIn (I share a ton of referrals)

Liston Witherill: LinkedIn vs. Podcasting

January 12, 2019 19:20 - 47 minutes - 43.4 MB

From the episode A lot of people get frustrated with low numbers and say “Ah! It’s terrible I only get 100 downloads per episode.” I’d challenge you to picture yourself talking in a room of 100 people every week. That’s actually pretty incredible. For the curious Join my private design referral community Check out Liston's website and podcasts Add me on LinkedIn (I share a ton of referrals)

Robert Williams & Jason Forrest: 2019

January 05, 2019 20:45 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MB

I'm growing a community for agency owners and freelance designers designed to help you share projects, referrals, and tips on running a successful business in 2019. Check it out here: Folyo Please rate the podcast on iTunes if you liked this episode. Check out Jason's newsletter Grow Your SaaS.

Robert Williams: Portfolio to Product

December 29, 2018 16:00 - 16 minutes - 15.3 MB

I run a Slack for freelance designers where companies share projects, referrals, and tips for running a successful business. Get access for free here. To get more info on this topic, I'll be sharing with my newsletter in January. Sign up here. And be sure to rate the podcast on iTunes if you liked this episode. What's Rob up to? Join Folyo and get remote projects hand-picked by designers free. Take my short course on Where to find design clients in 2018

Joe Workman: Products People Want

December 22, 2018 15:00 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MB

As an indie developer, how do you create plugins and products that customers want? Joe Workman stops by to talk his process and how he's made $280k/year selling niche plugins as a one man shop.

Philip Morgan: Choosing Clients

December 15, 2018 16:30 - 1 hour - 63.5 MB

How do you figure out which clients to go after? Can you choose to target better clients and improve your business forever? Yes! In this episode Philip Morgan and I talk about the exact step-by-step strategy Philip recommends to narrow in on your ideal client and choose a specialization. He's helped dozens of designers, coders, and other freelancers become high-value consultants by specializing and we talked about how. For curious Philip is the author of the Positioning Manua...

Robert Williams & Jason Forrest: Overhead

December 01, 2018 14:00 - 53 minutes - 48.6 MB

For the curious Let’s talk about startup costs by Justin Jackson Article about how I cut $5k article from last year Jason’s newsletter for Saas owners

Jonathan Stark: Big League Pricing

November 17, 2018 17:00 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MB

Link to Jonathan's pricing seminar.

Paul Jarvis: Company of One

November 10, 2018 17:25 - 34 minutes - 32 MB

For the curious Paul has a new book coming out called Company of One in January. He also publishes a weekly newsletter that's one of my personal favorites called the Sunday Dispatches. On the podcast he broke down some interesting revenue numbers. His business makes about $500k per year and he isn't trying to grow beyond that. He spends $90k of that on living expenses and about $70-80k on business expenses (mostly freelancers almost, no software). After taxes, the rest goes to s...

Ben Manley: Radical Productization

November 03, 2018 15:00 - 40 minutes - 92.2 MB

The story behind Knapsack Creative, Ben’s design firm, that goes against the grain - and why he designed his business model that questions common advice, like always charge more. How Ben’s tiny 3 person team, low pricing, and a fast, fixed turnaround approach came about. The exact structure Knapsack implements including: the reasoning behind their one day turnarounds, the concept of timeboxing, and their weekly innovation system. How Ben used product design to rethink his company/service...

Robert Williams & James Sowers: Consulting to Products

October 27, 2018 17:35 - 55 minutes - 50.5 MB

James of Bootstrappers.io and Robert of Folyo.me talk about going from consulting to products, selling community, creative constraints and more.

Adam Wathan: Building Products

October 20, 2018 00:40 - 41 minutes - 95.8 MB

Topics covered How does Adam come up with new product ideas? What does scratching your own itch mean practically? How exactly do you work in public to build an audience? Is podcasting and video content better than written? How can you make live streams engaging and fun to watch?

Robert Williams: Content FOMO Challenge

October 12, 2018 19:30 - 5 minutes - 4.62 MB

The more business-related content I consume, the less I get out of it. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I have a constant stream of invisible opinions and rules running my business for me — that I never approved. It limits what I’m capable of, sucks the joy out of having a business, and it’s a huge time waster. So it ends today. I’m starting the Content FOMO Challenge. It’s simple… No more reading articles all day, everyday. Instead give yourself one day to binge on bu...

Jonas Downey, Basecamp: Designing a Company

October 05, 2018 20:05 - 56 minutes - 129 MB

Jonas Downey, a principal designer at Basecamp, joins me to talk about one of their guiding beliefs: that your company should be your best product. We do a deep-dive on why Basecamp, the company, is designed how it is.

Robert Williams & James Sowers: What's Next

September 13, 2018 12:30 - 18 minutes - 16.8 MB

For the curious… James is the owner of Bootstrappers.io, a site he took over earlier this year. I asked James to come on and have a mastermind call with me. Hoping to do this regularly, so if you enjoyed it – please do let me know. Show Highlights 1:45 What is Bootstrappers.io? 2:58 Sending out a survey to find out what to build. 5:04 Amy Hoy and Kai Davis’ formulas for finding out what’s worth your time. 9:43 How NOT to use surveys. 11:48 Giving away samples as a marketing ta...

Ashley Baxter: Bootstrapped Marketing

September 01, 2018 00:55 - 51 minutes - 47.5 MB

[1:00] How Ashley got the idea for her podcast Bootstrapped Digest. [5:00] What's better in content marketing? Short or Long form? [7:34] Where Ashley focuses for creating better quality content. [9:45] How do you know if your content is going to be interesting. [15:26] How do you market a product as a solo-founder in a difficult industry? [24:30] Why Ashley is doubling-down on content marketing. [30:45] The process of rebranding her SaaS, With Jack. [50:25] What success means as a s...

Robert Williams: $2.5k in 60 days

August 12, 2018 20:30 - 19 minutes - 18 MB

Topics: What did I have in place already? My existing audience on Folyo, Workshop, Medium and Twitter and how I built those things. Why I decided to change things up and how I approached the change. How I’m changing the product design, marketing and churn rate for this new business. Business examples I drew inspiration from: Scotts Cheap Flights, and Amazon Prime. How I de-risked changing everything up all at once. The results of my change: getting 60 customers in 60 days ...

Laura Elizabeth: Full-time Products

July 30, 2018 02:20 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MB

For the curious… Today's guest is Laura Elizabeth, the founder of Design Academy and Client Portal. She's been able to quit freelancing and move to selling those awesome products full time. Show Highlights 0:30 When to hire a freelancer vs DIY. 4:32 When to hire a freelancer vs hire a full-time designer. 11:53 How Laura got the idea for Design Academy. 17:59 What Laura’s latest marketing strategy is. 22:25 How to pick what content you should create. 24:10 How to approach...

Robert Williams: Fortnite

July 23, 2018 19:15 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MB

For the curious... I’ve played over 600 Fortnite matches myself… and yet I’ve never spent a dime on the actual game. Fortnite gives that part away for free. Their revenue instead comes from upsells that happen inside the game. On the podcast I take a look at how they’ve taken away the hardest part about getting a customer… the paywall. Whether paywalls are absolutely necessary in my business (and yours). And how I’ve taken parts of the Fortnite freemium business model and put them...

Nathan Barry, Convertkit: Rebranding

July 20, 2018 22:05 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MB

For the curious... On July 2nd, Convertkit announced they'd be rebranding to Seva. So I reached out to talk to Nathan Barry about the process of designing a new brand name in 2018. Show Highlights 1:30 - Why Nathan changed the name of his company and how Amazon influenced this huge decision. 5:01 - Why Aweber and Constant Contact are going to fail and why Drip's rebrand didn't resonate with current customers. 9:32 - Whether Nathan would blog if he were starting his company toda...

Shawn Blanc: Focus

July 14, 2018 01:15 - 1 hour - 56 MB

For the curious... The Sweet Setup has been on a roll recently, releasing 3 new courses. All the things: a productivity course on the app Things 3, Day One in Depth, a course on journaling with the app Day One, and Time Management Training, a course on taking control of your time. 3:38 - What I've gotten out of Shawn's course on Things. 16:18 - The 3 apps Shawn uses everyday for daily productivity. 35:10 - How Shawn stays engaged with his work + a music recommendation for focu...

Nate Kontny: Highrise

May 26, 2018 04:50 - 1 hour - 55 MB

For the curious… On April 15th, 2018, Basecamp announced that Highrise was “moving back in with Basecamp.” This meant that Nate Kontny – and the team he had built during his time as CEO of Highrise – would no longer be working on the product. If you want to follow along Nate’s story, he’s been vlogging daily over on his youtube channel, that’s the best place to to subscribe. Show Summary 4:52 Nate talks about what he learned from Paul Graham and starting two YC companies. Clip of...

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