Lessons from building design companies with CSJ
Episode 005: Serial Designpreneur
Christian San Jose’s design career started only when he was a mere seventeen year old. Ever since then, he took on almost every kind of design role there was — illustrator, graphic designer, website designer, to name a few. It was a few years later, after he had accumulated horizon-breaking experience, that he decided to start his own company, Create.ph.
Just like every designer who had learned the ins and outs of a certain role, Christian thought he was going to be a digital illustrator forever. It was when he got his big break creating a logo for a baseball athlete, which eventually led him to working on Kobe Bryant’s website, when then decided that this was something he could really pursue, so he quit his then full-time job at Team Manila.
Creating and scaling a design studio
Once he decided to start his own company, Christian was ecstatic. This was his chance to do the things he couldn’t do back when he was working for other companies. He wanted to do those things “the right way,” which, to Christian means to do it without compromise.
“Do things at a level where it could be comparable to companies outside the Philippines.”
He wanted his company, Create.ph, to be competitive. It was around this time that Christian’s work was becoming more popular. Starting Create.ph allowed him to separate himself from his work, but it also got people coming in. However, he knew next to nothing about starting a company. That didn’t stop him but it fuelled his enthusiasm — he simply did.
“When you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, you want to do it more.”
He had to do things way outside of his field of expertise. That didn’t slow him down because it’s really part of the venture he took on. Having a small team also meant that he had to learn things that he hadn’t been able to hire people for: Wordpress, code, deploying websites, managing clients, etc. For Christian, he had principles that he wanted to accomplish with the company. The growth of Create.ph wasn’t meeting his expectations and Christian believes it’s because he didn’t have a solid plan for scaling his company.
In hindsight, Christian doesn’t regret it because he feels that he can do what he’s doing now at a higher level because of what he learned before he started his company. Christian had a chance to play around with his first company, valuable experiences that he will later on bring to his next job.
Years later, Christian decided to sell his company to Jump Digital, a digital marketing agency. He felt that he had to learn more and he can’t do that being the sole proprietor of the company. Though he considered Create.ph to be his baby, he knew he can start again. For him, learning his first company with Jump Digital was to give him the chance to learn.
Skill Stagnation
Christian had been in the industry for almost ten years at this point and he felt that the things he was good at — creating websites, illustration — were becoming easy over time. His professional growth was something he was always so conscious of. Whenever Christian found himself at the ceiling of his career, he knew he had to grow more; improving his skills was of great importance, as it should be. He wondered how he could address these concerns. It was this time that he realised that he could learn a lot more from a bigger company. Enter: MullenLowe Group, an ad agency.
At MullenLowe, he worked on Digital Marketing, something he wasn’t so familiar with either. He has to learn on the go within his six-month stay there. Very quickly, he realised that digital marketing wasn’t for him. He knew that other people were better than him at his job, and that he wasn’t doing as well as he wanted to.
Finally, he moved on to Make, the UX arm of Ace Saatchi & Saatchi. They approached him because they wanted to start their own innovation department where they could take digital production in-house. Finally, with his current job, he is able to do the things he really wanted to do. His scope of work included hiring the right people, controlling the budget, and working on everything UX-related.
He finally felt that he was at a place where he could steer the company in a direction where he’s comfortable, and that he’s learning as much as he’s teaching. Make Technology has given him so much control that somehow he could check things off [from this list in his head] that he could not do for Create.ph.
Servicing clients
For Christian, client servicing wasn’t just responding to a need. It’s understand your client’s business and working hand-in-hand with them. It was important to Christian that his clients respond to their work in a way where they proactively seek his team’s guidance. After all, it was important that their clients understand the important of UX in their work. He wanted to position Make as their client’s partners, instead of suppliers.
With Make, he was able to work with big and international companies. This gave him and his team the chance to learn through practice, while teaching the clients how to do things the right way through UX. Oftentimes, he gets lucky when he gets clients who are more proactive and innovative with their work. Christian was finally at the place that he wants to be with enough learning and a solid vision for the team. He wants to bring it to a point where they are able to work on creating their own product. This is where Christian sees Make Technology should and will go.
“Where I see the most growth is creating products and have the market respond to you, than you responding to the market.”
Christian urges UX professionals to be a leader in the industry, dictate where the trends should go, and work hard on it. You have to be more in charge of your future.
Advice for Filipino designers
As someone who has been in the industry long enough with experience in both startup and corporate life, Christian urges designers who want to start their own businesses to pursue what you’re really good at; put a good amount of time and effort into it. Passion, of course, should be a given, but that is only the first step. With many competitors around you who have all sorts of expertise, it’s important that you don’t get distracted and focus intensely on the skill you want to be good at. That could be your edge over other designers. It’s important that you’re well aware of your advantages, getting into any job.
