Designing an Entrepreneur
Let’s start with a little bit of background…
I knew it would be important for me to investigate entrepreneurship. I am driven, can talk “a bit” too much, and love being in control of my own destiny. Actually, working for “the man” has not only been stressful, but I’ve never truly felt fulfilled with my role in society as a young adult...and I’m not that young, annnnd I’m not that inexperienced in working in the real world. :/ Needless to say, it was a no brainer to invest my time into learning about entrepreneurship.
So, it is 2020 mid Global Pandemic and I am trying to learn how to become my own boss as an Industrial Design Student… from the desk in the corner of my bedroom. After talking with my Professor, Wally Meyer, we came to the realization that I need to be talking and learning from others that have already done exactly what I am aspiring to do.
The first person I reached out to for an interview was someone I knew. I thought it would be good to dust off the mic with a familiar face. I am also trying to control my nerves as I asked these individuals detailed questions about their professional and personal lives. I have never conducted interviews like this before, so starting with someone I knew really helped warm me up.
First Interview
David Starr 2020
Introducing David Starr. To me, he is my junior year, spring semester industrial design studio professor. To the I.D. Community he is not only a teacher, but a leader in his role as the Vice President of Research and Development at Tesseract Ventures.
David’s ability to facilitate design and foster growth of an idea within a group, is how he builds real value for his clients. Throughout the interview, David’s leadership characteristics became the foreground of our conversation. He said:
“I realized pretty early on in my career I was not going to be a stylist…For me, it has always been about being a Design Leader and the bridge between business and design.”
From the beginning, it seems David’s career has not only been building up the value of the company’s he has worked for, but also defining and creating his role within those companies. He talked about the value of being an entrepreneur within an existing business. Learning to institute growth on the companies’ dime.
So, it went like this. David graduates college… He is designing in an established company. Naturally, other design opportunities start to open up (as we all hope the same will happen for us)…And just like that, he is ‘rockin‘ and rolling, picking up speed. With every new job comes more knowledge. Maybe not all entrepreneurship knowledge, but indirectly it builds him up to the confidence level that allows him to make the decision that he is going to start his own consultancy!
Working with a friend, David helped to build a company that was pushing between a million dollars a year in billing! He was also staffing 6 to 8 designers within that venture. After this advanced level of “real world” design profitability and seeing exactly how to implement that growth into value, David eventually moves on to his next milestone.
He talked about the desire to see projects move from start to finish. Consultancies only take the project so far before it is eventually handed off to the next group. So, he goes back to working for a corporate product design company. With David’s new knowledge in working as a leader within a team, building a team, and making moves for paying clients, he completely redefines his role in his new corporate job. He also initiates change of project delivery methods….for a billion-dollar corporation that already had a system in place. That’s like convincing a bowling ball it could be rounder. Super challenging but absolutely amazing rewards for the company.
He talked about the advantages of learning to be successful outside of the corporate machine. He did not rise in the company through yearly employee reviews, or political advantages within the group. Instead he offered innovative thinking that drove actual growth. He provided outside experience and perspective to an already moving system, to make it move even that much faster.
And just like an entrepreneur, he built his position from nothing more than a title of Design Manager to achieve that goal. Thinking outside of the box, utilizing resources in new ways, and having the drive to do more for the better is exactly what entrepreneurs do. This story of David’s career is an awesome explanation of how you can learn and become an entrepreneur within a company. And David has only continued to grow and learn more since this.
If I can flex an idea within a controlled environment to push a project, or open up new opportunities for my design team, it’s okay to take initiative and discover if it works. It’s just how some of us are wired. It’s not about being the best employee in the office or getting that raise at the end of the year. It’s about utilizing your skills to ADD VALUE to the project. That’s what David taught me being entrepreneurial really means.
We ended our interview talking about his current goals. David wants to continue to push innovation and grow Tesseract Ventures. Carefree, confident, and driven, I am very sure David Starr will be successful.
Second Interview
I could not have asked for a better person to interview for this task!
Whether you are seeking the goal to work for yourself or an industry leading company, Michael DiTullo is an Industrial Designer that has the resume any young designer would aspire to match.
So, what did I take away from my 49 min 14 second conversation with Michael? Well, before getting into the entrepreneurship stuff, one big thing that was important was the sense of perspective that I felt after getting off the call.
We started our conversation off by talking about school and classes. What it was like for him while he was in school and working with actual companies through class sponsorships or internships. Towards the end of our conversation we found ourselves drifting into subjects of design philosophy and Instagram sketches. These are all the same kind of topics I have with my classmates and friends every day. It’s comforting to see what someone with the same interest and passions has been able to do with their career.
To sum up the rest of our conversation quickly for you though; it was actually a revelation after hearing what Michael had to say about each position or job he has held throughout his career. Just like David, Michael also bounced between working as a designer or design admin in smaller or larger consultancies, and then when the time was right, shifting to larger corporate environments. While at consultancies, he is learning the cause and effects of his weekly outputs. “Did that presentation add value?” “What did my output actually do for the company this week?”
When a designer’s “work” …or aka “their ability to generate a deliverable to complete a strategic goal” goes well within a small consultancy, it is directly seen. You as the designer can understand how that “work” affected the company. Michael talked about how his work with smaller consultancies helped to give him perspective on this.
While at larger corporate affiliations he is learning about different roles, and what expectations are in place for a design department responsible for a large amount of sku’s. He is traveling to China 4 times a year learning how to generate products at a much larger scale. He is also gaining perspective for the amount of time and energy needed to generate products for this company.
Next comes the opportunity for Michael to work at Sound United. Michael was asked to join this team early on. He came in with the expectation to build a team of his own and begin consulting 6 brands that the company had already procured, right off the bat. Another example of learning to run a consultancy on another company’s dime.
Just Like David, Michael is utilizing his leadership capabilities to open doors for design management roles within companies, and in return, he is learning constraints around managing a consultancy without taking on any more personal or financial risk.
Michael talked about the benefits of running a small operation versus a larger design consultancy. He said:
“If you’re a company looking to make another white box with a blinking LED, there are hundreds of designers that can do that for you…how much can someone really charge for that? If you’re a designer that can offer a unique point of view that helps shift a business…well now there is no limit to what someone would pay for that.”
Michael was 30 years old by the time he was a Design Director at Nike. HE was 35 as he entered his role into Frog, and 45 when he starts his own business. One of his business mentors said if there was any lesson that he should understand at any age it would be this:
“Do the most amount of impact for the least amount of work…for the most amount of money.”
With more designers, you as the entrepreneur are no longer designing. More people equal more computers, more overhead, and more HR. It is something that we as designers must realize we are signing up for. Michael prides himself on building quality ideas, not quantities of ideas...that may not even be the real value add to a company or our society.
He talked about a project that he turned down from a client. Not because he couldn’t complete the objective, but because it wasn’t the most efficient design prompt the company could have asked him to work on. He explained that the company needed a design of a product that Michael intuitively knew did not require his expertise. So instead he offered an alternative design prompt to another lacking product within the organization. This was a much larger and valuable task to take on. The call ended and Michael thought to himself, “Well, I’ll never hear from them again.” But no, two months later the company had time to process the recommendation and now wants Michael to begin execution on the design prompt he proposed.
Stories like this are why Michael has no desire to grow his consultancy into a massive design firm. He understands his deliverable and knows that keeping it small not only works for his business overhead, but also works for the goals he has set out to reach within design.
Michael prides himself by being present on social media and teaching others. You can see that expressed in his YouTube channel, his Core77 interviews and new remote learning platform for designers called Offsite. He is focused on donating profits to charities and managing his personal life. After talking with him, I could clearly see that he is a well-rounded individual and designer.
The most valuable take away I got from talking to Michael was when he said:
“Design is not an academic activity. Real education doesn’t begin until you are working on the job.”
I have learned so much at design school, but after working as an engineer for the last 5 years (what I did before design school) and interning at GE Appliances for the last 7 months (my first I.D. gig...woot woot) I truly can relate to what Michael is saying. “Not an academic activity” …No. It is a real world, make moves, and get stuff done kind of activity. Design inherently sounds pretty entrepreneurial if you ask me…which one could argue is also not very academic.
Third Interview
Fed Rios 2020
Fed Rios is the Founder and Principal Designer of his own design consultancy, Fed Rios Design Studio. There is no shortage of insight or expertise he brought to our interview on the topic of working for yourself. Fed has had an amazing career learning and perfecting his technical abilities and finding his niche in design subject matter.
Before I asked Fed anything about entrepreneurship, I asked him to describe how he defined his role in society right now. His answer felt like someone giving a “Step One Guideline to Becoming a Design Entrepreneur”! 😊 I knew immediately this was going to be an awesome interview.
Fed talked about the importance he has placed on identifying and nurturing individual skill sets that differentiates each of us apart as designers. He has been advocating for designers, who are working for themselves, to find a “niche”. Fed explained that when he talks about a “niche”, he means it in two different ways.
First, people should focus on building that one technical skill; the one they believe they can do better than the next designer. For Fed, if you’ve ever looked at his Instagram or website ( https://fedriosdesign.com/ ), Visual Communications is a particular skill set he heavily focuses on. In return, he builds his business with this skill. Fed went onto explain that when a client is looking for a particular skill set for a job, they will FIND YOU if that’s your expertise! That’s a huge advantage, and if the technical skill is what you love doing, this ensures that you’re getting paid for what you love.
The second interpretation of “niche” is knowing a particular subject matter within Industrial Design. It’s strange, the reason we go to school for Industrial Design, is to learn about “D”esign methods which can be applied to all “things” in industry. Fed recommends zooming into a focused subject matter as an important step though….And his logic is sound.
Just like clients looking for particular skill sets, there are clients looking for particular subject matter experts in product design as well. Fed said:
“You haft to put out the work you want to get in return.”
Now, Fed went onto say, if your goal is to have a larger operation you shouldn’t need to be so focused. The more designers you have, the more knowledge you can market to find clients. But just like in the skill set description, if you love something, you’ve spent the largest part of your career learning about a subject (for Fed, that would be bike components) and you want to spend your time doing what you know and love. So, the goal in this scenario is to obtain clients that are asking for that one thing you know more about than anyone else.
And that was just my first question for Fed…lol
One subject in this report that I have not brought up yet is Mentors. Of course, this wouldn’t be a legit entrepreneurial learning experience if I didn’t stress the importance of finding a good mentor in business and design. Fed talked about his prior boss, Todd Herlitz.
Fed expressed how important having a mentor was. Todd’s experiences and entrepreneurial thought processes were what led Fed to his Founders Philosophy today. As entrepreneurs, we are basically signing up for a lifetime learning mindset. Whether life brings knowledge and insight to you by chance, or you must Google out your evenings to find it, connecting with someone who has been there before and wants to help is priceless.
Moving into the next part of the interview, Fed described the transition of working in the office to working full time for himself. It started with a sketch a day on Instagram; building his technical skill set. Eventually, Fed’s sketches gathered enough attention that he began getting freelance inquiries. “Can you sketch my product?”, “I love your style can you render this?” He was doing these side gigs until eventually he had enough money coming in from his side work that he felt confident in leaving his job to go fully independent.
Fed talked about how long he saved before leaving his job. He also confided in his mentor group. Last, he didn’t fail to mention how awesome it was that his wife supported his decision to make this leap. We always talk about the importance of surrounding ourselves with the people who can help propel us into our best eventual outcomes. I think it is worth noting the importance of evaluating your personal relationships as well, when trying to go out onto your own.
I myself think I have a decent sketching skill set…but it’s not what I feel differentiates me as a designer in the pool of designers on Instagram. So, for me, If I wanted to utilize my resources well, I need to work on communicating how I am different. If you look at the previous interviews, David Starr markets and differentiates himself by facilitating design within a group. Michael DiTullo provides experience and design rationale to businesses. Fed Rios expresses superior visual communication and product specific knowledge. So, what is it that you offer “specifically”, that is different from the other guy?
Well…So What?
My ego tells me, “Okay, the SO WHAT of this report is to be a master at all three of these design characteristics!”. But I don’t know how relatable or maybe even realistic that may be. These are three very different types of designers and I think we all relate more or less to each of them differently. Some of us may be more about facilitating growth within larger organizations. Some really are the talent and insight that motivate growth. And I am sure we all are searching for that niche subject matter and skill set that sets us apart.
No, I think I am going to take a little bit of everything, in the right quantities, that apply to me specifically. I hope you do too. I am excited for my next round of interviews. If you have any suggestions or recommendations for people that I should reach out too, please email me! Hey even if you would like to be interviewed yourself, please reach out. Let’s talk.
I hope I was able to pass on as much valuable insight as I received from these interviews. If you enjoyed and feel like this was helpful to your journey, let me know!
Thanks for reading!