- Your website confused me and I had no idea who you are. You may want to add a menu or "About Me" page etc at the minimum.
- Design jobs are becoming more rare because of AI (in my opinion as a founder myself). I want to move fast and I can prototype with tools like v0 or claude etc. May be I am not the right fit for what you do but most founders may not be looking for a "designer" anymore. This is something you have to think about.
I think that no one is going to hire only "designers" or even "frontend" devs. Now you need to be fullstack and own the end to end AND move fast with AI tools. I say this as a founder who recently ended a frontend role for someone who wanted to only work async on "tasks" based on requirements and that is not needed anymore. I just talk to my AI tool now and get things done for the most part especially for prototyping/brainstorming ideas.
way-too-slowly coming into the realization that if my customer base has always been founders and hustlers then I am in deep shit since those are the exact type to DIY as soon as it becomes viable. Either I need to update my value to them so that it works in tandem with their new abilities, or I need to find a new customer base.
I think it might be D. Your website has a whole section on why not to hire you. One of the things is not to hire you if “I need approval,” and then there’s a pull quote roughly saying you tell it how it is. That’s all well and good as something to value about yourself, but it reads to me like you’re an asshole. I don’t know you- I don’t think YOU think you’re an asshole- but if you’re trying to get hired then I think I’d take a look at the “don’t hire me” section and figure out what you can compromise on. It sounds like you wanna stay near your kids- that seems very doable. Maybe you could work with an agency for a bit. Maybe you can find the space between yes man and firebrand. Just my two cents- good luck!
I think I lead with that level of transparency because I find corporate interactions incredibly inefficient/difficult and I'm trying to filter out managers and speak directly to founders and engineers, or people that aren't put off or threatened by self-knowledge or honesty. But you're right.. like I shouldn't complain about not getting picked up when I'm literally turning people away.
Yeah, exactly. I really mean what I said- I respect this value. And usually I think filtering out people you don’t want to work with is wise. But the more you want work the more you should loosen the filters
I fully agree that your web site is probably the problem. In addition to the other comments, which are completely correct, you have no intro at the top of the site. When you load the page, you just get some logos - there is no explanation of why they are there. Did you design them? Do you just like them? The icon on the right that scrolls down to your content is non-standard to the point that I don't even know what it is. So the whole site just doesn't communicate very well.
And even if that didn't turn me off as a potential customer, I'd be seriously questioning whether I want to hire someone who claims to be a designer, when they didn't even put together a design for their own site that effectively tells me who they are.
Basically, I think you are too close to your own site design to see just how flawed it is. Sorry is that sounds harsh. But I'd re-do your entire approach. Don't put up a portfolio and then try to add commentary at the bottom - put up a easy-to-read, concise explanation of what problems you can solve for people. In this scenario, you are the product, and you need to market yourself just like any other product - tell people right off the bat why you will improve their life. If you don't do that, the portfolio is meaningless.
......you're clearly right. I've never had to sell myself before, always letting my projects bring in new work for me. Or I've limited my client services to just Logos, which is much more clear but always left too much unstated. Not really sure how to thread the needle but you're right that the current version isn't even trying. tyvm for the thoughts.
So now I can brand, design and deploy entire products on my own... which is incredibly cool and fun, and Valuable(??)
Everyone else can do this too now. I suspect that today, many companies are still wrestling with AI, how to use it, how to incorporate it, and many are thinking they don't need programmers anymore.
In time, some will realize they still need someone that speaks the language to talk to the AI.
My best advice, start your own company, launch your own products, while also looking for work, or accepting contract jobs. Then you'll have 2 revenue streams.
Two-pronged approach is almost certainly The Way, thankyou, while also perhaps rethinking my definitions of value. I'm great at launching companies and ideas, they just never go profitable, you're right that I should focus on solving for that.
For example your personal website has a concept with no purpose the upper right oval things which are PgUp/Dn on my phone display. If you learn basic conceptual design you can easily architect small sites like the things in your portfolio while sitting in front of someone, then have AI of choice immediately build the entire user interface and they can test it out themselves.
Translating concepts into typescript code is trivial and exampled here https://61040-fa23.github.io/pages/concept-implementations.h... and AI can do this for you. The idea is concepts are reusable and modular and self contained. Whatever the user sees or has functional access to is what you design for and AI generates the hidden backend. If you design this way you discover many things are identical and can reuse an existing concept for it. You also discover many things have no real purpose and should be removed such as the 'don't hire me' section.
Some of the problems with your personal biz advertising site others have mentioned would've been caught by conceptual design such as what is the purpose of this site? To display a portfolio of work and harvest leads. What is the operational principal or how would someone use this site? Then you'd immediately catch there's no about me description above the logos/names etc., no obvious contact page therefore no harvesting of leads. You'd see that the descriptions of each portfolio entry should be included when you click on them instead of having these at the bottom of the page under 'Notable'. What is the purpose of enlarging an entry? To get more information. That is 2 concepts with the same purpose and break the design. Why not just include the notable designs and leave out the rest?
Anyway that book changed the way I write software and it fits nicely with vibecoding up a prototype.
you seem to be suggesting that if I conceptualize/design/build my site correctly I would be in a position to use the same framework on both visitor-specific marketing and client prototyping. Extremely interesting, even if I didn't quite get it. Going to have to chew on this. thank you!
Hey, I work in software and design consulting and lead the commercial team at an agency.
I think it's a real challenge you are facing but there is always a way to make it work by evolving.
Some questions:
How did you get leads before and what was working for you until recently?
I haven't looked at your socials, I know you mentioned being in twitter/x. How are you using those channels, e.g. what are you posting that would catch the attention of a buyer? E.g. running a campaign based on something interesting in your space that will be useful to your target audience.
Do you have an ideal client profile and do you already have a sales funnel e.g. how to attract your ICP and take them through a process to closing them e.g. discovery call, proposal deck, pricing and contract etc?
Some comments:
I'm getting leads every week where a business owner has built and designed something with AI, but what they now need is security, hosting, hardening etc so it could be you may need to move up the value chain e.g. often these pieces of work are poorly designed, no accessibility considerations, not thought to good information hierarchy or UX/UI.
I think design led discovery is still valuable; user research, prototypes etc telling businesses the right thing to build in a world where people are just throwing together AI stuff.
I would recommend like others to make it clear on your website what you do, why to work with you, how to work with you, and make it easy to get in touch.
I think it's worth considering spending a lot of time on sales, e.g. marketing, outbound, referrals, campaigns, build a pipeline and so on.
The problem is not what you can do; it is often the cost of communication. In my own experience, it is far easier to explain my intention to an AI, let it understand what I want it to do, explain what it did, make changes, and submit satisfactory work that I understand and feel confident about, than to communicate the same idea to a junior developer, wait for them to complete the job (likely also using AI) and submit the work (which they often have a hard time explaining), and then review it.
Even if you are the one who can complete a project at incredible speed and quality, you might still become the barrier between the product manager and the AI when the specification changes.
The only way out? Find your own business opportunity and build your own products with AI. Your experience makes you a thousand times more efficient at this than a product manager. The sad news is that so many people are doing exactly this, and it is hard to stand out.
The existence of AI means anyone including any potential client can just have an LLM do what you do. Your education, resume and experience are obsolete, they have no market value.
Why would your rates go up, or work be easier to find, when no one wants to hire humans to do this work anymore? Even if you could demonstrate that you can do work better than an AI - and no one is going to bother to give you the opportunity to demonstrate that - the fact is cheaper and faster and "good enough" always win out over quality.
On the one hand, I'd try new lead-generation methods. Things like ChatGPT building lists for you, as well as more cold outreach. Maybe offer critique advice on social media for people and try to drum up some buzz/clients that way?
You could also try out tools like icpsignal.com for lead generation if that's more your speed.
Few things:
- Your website confused me and I had no idea who you are. You may want to add a menu or "About Me" page etc at the minimum.
- Design jobs are becoming more rare because of AI (in my opinion as a founder myself). I want to move fast and I can prototype with tools like v0 or claude etc. May be I am not the right fit for what you do but most founders may not be looking for a "designer" anymore. This is something you have to think about.
I think that no one is going to hire only "designers" or even "frontend" devs. Now you need to be fullstack and own the end to end AND move fast with AI tools. I say this as a founder who recently ended a frontend role for someone who wanted to only work async on "tasks" based on requirements and that is not needed anymore. I just talk to my AI tool now and get things done for the most part especially for prototyping/brainstorming ideas.
way-too-slowly coming into the realization that if my customer base has always been founders and hustlers then I am in deep shit since those are the exact type to DIY as soon as it becomes viable. Either I need to update my value to them so that it works in tandem with their new abilities, or I need to find a new customer base.
I think it might be D. Your website has a whole section on why not to hire you. One of the things is not to hire you if “I need approval,” and then there’s a pull quote roughly saying you tell it how it is. That’s all well and good as something to value about yourself, but it reads to me like you’re an asshole. I don’t know you- I don’t think YOU think you’re an asshole- but if you’re trying to get hired then I think I’d take a look at the “don’t hire me” section and figure out what you can compromise on. It sounds like you wanna stay near your kids- that seems very doable. Maybe you could work with an agency for a bit. Maybe you can find the space between yes man and firebrand. Just my two cents- good luck!
lol, thank you. I'm sure I needed to hear this.
I think I lead with that level of transparency because I find corporate interactions incredibly inefficient/difficult and I'm trying to filter out managers and speak directly to founders and engineers, or people that aren't put off or threatened by self-knowledge or honesty. But you're right.. like I shouldn't complain about not getting picked up when I'm literally turning people away.
Yeah, exactly. I really mean what I said- I respect this value. And usually I think filtering out people you don’t want to work with is wise. But the more you want work the more you should loosen the filters
I fully agree that your web site is probably the problem. In addition to the other comments, which are completely correct, you have no intro at the top of the site. When you load the page, you just get some logos - there is no explanation of why they are there. Did you design them? Do you just like them? The icon on the right that scrolls down to your content is non-standard to the point that I don't even know what it is. So the whole site just doesn't communicate very well.
And even if that didn't turn me off as a potential customer, I'd be seriously questioning whether I want to hire someone who claims to be a designer, when they didn't even put together a design for their own site that effectively tells me who they are.
Basically, I think you are too close to your own site design to see just how flawed it is. Sorry is that sounds harsh. But I'd re-do your entire approach. Don't put up a portfolio and then try to add commentary at the bottom - put up a easy-to-read, concise explanation of what problems you can solve for people. In this scenario, you are the product, and you need to market yourself just like any other product - tell people right off the bat why you will improve their life. If you don't do that, the portfolio is meaningless.
......you're clearly right. I've never had to sell myself before, always letting my projects bring in new work for me. Or I've limited my client services to just Logos, which is much more clear but always left too much unstated. Not really sure how to thread the needle but you're right that the current version isn't even trying. tyvm for the thoughts.
So now I can brand, design and deploy entire products on my own... which is incredibly cool and fun, and Valuable(??)
Everyone else can do this too now. I suspect that today, many companies are still wrestling with AI, how to use it, how to incorporate it, and many are thinking they don't need programmers anymore.
In time, some will realize they still need someone that speaks the language to talk to the AI.
My best advice, start your own company, launch your own products, while also looking for work, or accepting contract jobs. Then you'll have 2 revenue streams.
Only thing stopping you is you.
Two-pronged approach is almost certainly The Way, thankyou, while also perhaps rethinking my definitions of value. I'm great at launching companies and ideas, they just never go profitable, you're right that I should focus on solving for that.
Try this book https://essenceofsoftware.com/
For example your personal website has a concept with no purpose the upper right oval things which are PgUp/Dn on my phone display. If you learn basic conceptual design you can easily architect small sites like the things in your portfolio while sitting in front of someone, then have AI of choice immediately build the entire user interface and they can test it out themselves.
Translating concepts into typescript code is trivial and exampled here https://61040-fa23.github.io/pages/concept-implementations.h... and AI can do this for you. The idea is concepts are reusable and modular and self contained. Whatever the user sees or has functional access to is what you design for and AI generates the hidden backend. If you design this way you discover many things are identical and can reuse an existing concept for it. You also discover many things have no real purpose and should be removed such as the 'don't hire me' section.
Some of the problems with your personal biz advertising site others have mentioned would've been caught by conceptual design such as what is the purpose of this site? To display a portfolio of work and harvest leads. What is the operational principal or how would someone use this site? Then you'd immediately catch there's no about me description above the logos/names etc., no obvious contact page therefore no harvesting of leads. You'd see that the descriptions of each portfolio entry should be included when you click on them instead of having these at the bottom of the page under 'Notable'. What is the purpose of enlarging an entry? To get more information. That is 2 concepts with the same purpose and break the design. Why not just include the notable designs and leave out the rest?
Anyway that book changed the way I write software and it fits nicely with vibecoding up a prototype.
you seem to be suggesting that if I conceptualize/design/build my site correctly I would be in a position to use the same framework on both visitor-specific marketing and client prototyping. Extremely interesting, even if I didn't quite get it. Going to have to chew on this. thank you!
The author of that book has a course for it too https://61040.github.io/fa26/schedule/
It's sort of an analytical way to design a user interface and is pretty helpful I find
Hey, I work in software and design consulting and lead the commercial team at an agency.
I think it's a real challenge you are facing but there is always a way to make it work by evolving.
Some questions:
How did you get leads before and what was working for you until recently?
I haven't looked at your socials, I know you mentioned being in twitter/x. How are you using those channels, e.g. what are you posting that would catch the attention of a buyer? E.g. running a campaign based on something interesting in your space that will be useful to your target audience.
Do you have an ideal client profile and do you already have a sales funnel e.g. how to attract your ICP and take them through a process to closing them e.g. discovery call, proposal deck, pricing and contract etc?
Some comments:
I'm getting leads every week where a business owner has built and designed something with AI, but what they now need is security, hosting, hardening etc so it could be you may need to move up the value chain e.g. often these pieces of work are poorly designed, no accessibility considerations, not thought to good information hierarchy or UX/UI.
I think design led discovery is still valuable; user research, prototypes etc telling businesses the right thing to build in a world where people are just throwing together AI stuff.
I would recommend like others to make it clear on your website what you do, why to work with you, how to work with you, and make it easy to get in touch.
I think it's worth considering spending a lot of time on sales, e.g. marketing, outbound, referrals, campaigns, build a pipeline and so on.
Good luck!
The problem is not what you can do; it is often the cost of communication. In my own experience, it is far easier to explain my intention to an AI, let it understand what I want it to do, explain what it did, make changes, and submit satisfactory work that I understand and feel confident about, than to communicate the same idea to a junior developer, wait for them to complete the job (likely also using AI) and submit the work (which they often have a hard time explaining), and then review it.
Even if you are the one who can complete a project at incredible speed and quality, you might still become the barrier between the product manager and the AI when the specification changes.
The only way out? Find your own business opportunity and build your own products with AI. Your experience makes you a thousand times more efficient at this than a product manager. The sad news is that so many people are doing exactly this, and it is hard to stand out.
The existence of AI means anyone including any potential client can just have an LLM do what you do. Your education, resume and experience are obsolete, they have no market value.
Why would your rates go up, or work be easier to find, when no one wants to hire humans to do this work anymore? Even if you could demonstrate that you can do work better than an AI - and no one is going to bother to give you the opportunity to demonstrate that - the fact is cheaper and faster and "good enough" always win out over quality.
Sad but true.
On the one hand, I'd try new lead-generation methods. Things like ChatGPT building lists for you, as well as more cold outreach. Maybe offer critique advice on social media for people and try to drum up some buzz/clients that way?
You could also try out tools like icpsignal.com for lead generation if that's more your speed.
If you can brand, design and deploy entire products on your own, try doing that all with AI.
See where the gaps are and from that you'll learn which areas you should focus on.
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