From freelancing to working at a startup, this is what I’ve learned.
I’m a jerk. And you, designer, might be one too.
I’m a 24-year-old self-taught designer. I’ve been freelancing for 6 years. I’ve always combined freelancing with building my own products. I love designing and executing my own ideas. My side projects— mostly iOS apps — have been featured on The Next Web, The Verge, Product Hunt, Lifehacker, Mashable, TechCrunch and many more.
I joined a startup called Blendle about six months ago and finally I no longer get frustrated when someone says: “It should be more orange.” I discovered that I’m an arrogant designer and that I underestimated the value of working in a team at a startup. Freelancing and working at a startup seems to be a perfect combination.
Blendle aims to be the iTunes of journalism. You can buy separate news or magazine articles for a couple of cents. Only paying for what you read. If you don’t like an article you can instantly get a refund. Blendle launched in the Netherlands and got 180.000 users within 9 months (more than 1% of the Dutch population) and is turning 20% of its users into paying customers. Mostly people who haven’t paid for news before.
Alexander Klöpping — one of Blendle’s founders — noticed my side projects. Last summer (2014) I met with Alexander and Marten Blankesteijn — Blendle’s other founder — about working at Blendle. I was concerned about losing my freedom. I liked being independent. But Alexander and Marten convinced me not to worry too much about it. They actually wanted to give me, uhh… I need to say us, the opposite; a lot of freedom. I joined Blendle together with Joost. Joost is one of the iOS developers I’ve worked with the most. Joost is 18-year-old and has been developing since his 14th. He developed my very first apps in exchange for a PlayStation.
After our first meeting we could already start working on our first ideas for Blendle. All of us believed in the direction and we continued exploring — It felt like working on one of our side projects. I started designing and for the first 1 to 2 months not much happened. I stumbled upon problems, I tried solving them. All fine.
Then the feedback came. “Can you use the same buttons as the ones on the website? We need more orange. It needs more Mario-feeling.” All things I couldn’t agree on. I felt like we had a very different vision. I tried focussing on the feedback I could relate to and fix them within the boundaries of my vision.
Another month went by and the distance between Alexander and I increased. Alexander made suggestions and I told him why these weren’t the solution we should be looking for. We both got frustated. I felt I wasn’t been taken serious — if you hire me, you should have more faith in me. I didn’t feel valued. We had to talk.
I told Alexander how I felt about all of this. But I hadn’t thoroughly thought about his feelings. I could figure he was frustrated, but I was too. “I just want you to try my solution as well”, Alexander said when we finally sat down. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Why did I not want to try his solution? It turns out I’m afraid people will like their suggestions without seeings the cons. I rather find a third, not yet thought-of, solution that we both agree on. Alexander ensured me that wouldn’t happen.
Sometimes I still have to keep in mind we won’t ship something I’m not okay with. It makes it way easier designing things you’re not sold on. And in the end, people might take your word if you think a solution sucks. But don’t be so arrogant, they need to grow trust on you. I worried way too much about shipping poor solutions. We haven’t shipped a damn detail that I, or anyone else, is not fully behind on. And yes, I’ve made a lot of ugly things.
The workflow at a startup is different. You’re iterating way more. But in combination with working on your own projects— when you can ship a lot of different things whenever you feel confident — working at a startup is awesome!
In my time as a fulltime freelancer I hired a shared office space just because I needed more human interaction. I worked from 13:00 till 03:00 barely seeing anyone. Well, sometimes I went to a really pathetic bar just to have some face-2-face interactions. Having colleagues is great.
I really enjoy make the company grow, together with my colleagues. And when combining this with building side-projects and working for clients I’m still able to ship a lot of different things.
👊 — Emiel (@emieljanson)
