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Broke the $1.5M ARR mark as an agency of one. ๐Ÿพ

Hey guys, Brett from Designjoy here.

I sort of feel like a broken record at this point, but my service keeps breaking records...so yea. It's sort of nuts.

My solo shop just surpassed the $1.5M milestone. I don't really know what to say at this point.

Since joining Twitter a month and a half ago, things have really taken off.

I've taken the "build in public" mentality over to the network and it seems very well perceived. I've basically been sharing a behind the scenes look at how I run this monster alone, and it seems to have generated a lot of interest to say the least.

It's quickly become the biggest lead generating source to date, no question.

In fact, I launched a waitlist due to the influx of interest since joining the network, and quickly added over 100 companies to it in 3 weeks. I then decided to double my prices because there was no way I could manage a waitlist of that size, and things have hardly slowed down.

This is a wild ride that seems to bare no end, and I'm doing the best I can. But if I'm being honest, it's hard and I'm exhausted. But I'm proud of what I've accomplished alone, and who the heck knows where things go from here.

Hope this serves as some level of inspiration for those of you out grinding. Never would have dreamed in a million years I'd be running a $1M company, let alone by myself. But here I am. Thanks for everything, ya'll.

  1. 11

    This is by far the coolest thing Iโ€™ve ever seen on IndieHackers! Super impressive that you have a 7 figure agency with a very high profit margin. As you know most agencies only run at a 15% margin.

    Im curious if you ever get burnt out? And how do you handle vacations?

    I also love that you have decided to charge more! I think this should be an inspiration to all IndieHackers. You donโ€™t need 1,000s of customers, and a bunch of funding to hit the big 1M!

    Congrats man!

    1. 5

      Wow, quite an honor!

      Burn out? What's that? Haha, kidding. Yes, experiencing an unhealthy amount of it right now but making headway to change things and make it more manageable.

      Answered the vacay question below in another response.

      And totally agree. Designjoy goes to show what's possible for a one man show, and it seems as though it's lighting a bit of a fire which is exciting to see.

      Thanks a bunch!

  2. 5

    Great job, Brett! I really enjoyed your interview on IH. Howโ€™s the search for a second designer going? Still searching?

    I actually think about you often. Youโ€™re absolutely crushing it, but could you take a week long vacation right now? Or even a 3 day vacation? If not, have any game plan for it? Iโ€™m super curious!

    Regardless it looks like youโ€™re starting a movement - twitter is blowing up with one person agencies now.

    Keep on keeping on!

    1. 2

      @mrbenny Glad you enjoyed the podcast!

      And good question. I suppose I "could" technically take a vacation, but it wouldn't be without causing a fair bit of disruption to client's workflow. It would also cost me a pretty penny as I believe the only way to handle such a thing would be to refund clients for lost time. This would equate to roughly $4,500 a day right now.

      So yes I could take a vacation, but that would be a tough pill to swallow.. Working towards that though with the steep price hikes and slowly dwindling clients down to a more manageable size.

      Super pumped others are catching on and doing something similar. I think productized offerings are the way of the future to a large degree. Thanks for following along!

  3. 2

    This is mind blowing! Congrats on the milestone!

    We have dozens of designers at ManyPixels, I would imagine how we would be doing it with 10, let alone 1 aha.

  4. 2

    You're a legend, keep grinding!

  5. 2

    It was great hearing you on IH podcast the other day.

  6. 2

    So inspired by this and the podcast with Courtland that I just finished listening to, thank you for sharing! I'm currently in an engineering consulting agency of two (making a decent bit less I might add haha) which is stressful enough so I can only imagine how exhausted you must be going at it solo with that kind of ARR ๐Ÿ˜… It's actually the reason I've been building out a SaaS product on the side to fully transition into, so I've got nothing but the utmost admiration for you!

    I'm hoping you can find that sweet spot between work / life balance and give yourself a breather, you certainly deserve it!

  7. 2

    Loved your recent podcasts Brett. Inspriring, to say the least.

    Something many people might not know about are the thousands of Tumblr quote images you deigned to hone your craft.

    It reminds me of that Kanye line from Through the Wire... 'Lock yourself in a room doing 5 beats a day for 3 summers'

    1. 1

      Haha yeah been grinding hard since 2009! There's no shortcut to where I'm at now.

  8. 2

    Awesome congrats! This is really cool. Just listened to your IH podcast yesterday and I love the story. Keep it on.

    I hope you find some equal designer to hire to scale your business out and have more time again ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. 1

      Haha I appreciate that!

  9. 2

    Well done Brett! Found your recent IH podcast episode really inspiring. Keep up the commando work!

    1. 2

      Thanks for listening!

  10. 1

    Congratulations Brett! ๐Ÿ‘

    Coming from the agency side of things myself I know how client expectations quickly change and you always end up doing more for less money. This is a really good example of productizing a services business while ensuring you do great work and get your worth.

    Best of luck! ๐Ÿ˜Š๐Ÿš€

  11. 1

    This is the best success story I ever heard ๐Ÿš€ Congrats Brett!

  12. 1

    I really like the design on the landing page!!! Very impressive!

    The random noise in the background was cool. Would it be okay for me to use the same noise asset as you for my website? (this file: https://assets.website-files.com/5837424ae11409586f837994/61195e21f792d7065d2f56ad_noise.png)

  13. 1

    Amazing success story! What made you choose a subscription price model over a flat rate? Was there any pivot within your journey?

  14. 1

    Hey Brett, I've been following you for a few years now and even tried out your service at one point for a client of mine.

    As a solo designer myself, I respect your hustle but am very concerned about burnout and the long-term sustainability of your design practice. Let's be real - this isn't a business. It's just you freelancing for many clients at once and portraying it as a company.

    The way I've structured my own practice, I can take vacations when I want. I'm able to take a week off every 2-3 months and there are never any issues.

    How many hours/day and days/week do you work?

    And I find it interesting that you portray your service as a company but when you read the fine print, you reveal that it's just you. Do most of your customers realize it's just you? And I'm curious why you didn't choose to brand the business as just you instead? I don't see any bio about you, your resume, or any work before DesignJoy.

    No doubt it's working for now, but I'm hoping you can have an actual team in place so it's an actual business. As a freelancer, I still outsource work when I can so I'm not overloaded.

    Sorry if I'm coming off as negative. I think the business is great for a certain type of client, but I'm also worried about the long-term viability and your own sanity!

  15. 1

    Thatโ€™s incredible, congrats! And wow those prices, compared to other same similar unlimited design services out there, must be some high caliber stuff being delivered. If you donโ€™t know about it you might want to look into the founder of designpickle, I know he released a SaaS some years back which is the backend for how he manages all his clients, tasks, designers, etc. might help you scale and take some headaches away if it still exists. Good luck!

  16. 1

    Hi Brett,

    How did you market your business Designjoy? Was it word of mouth? Google Ads?

  17. 1

    Really interesting what youโ€™re doing Brett. It really sounds like your secret sauce is your process and the gym membership style psychology weโ€™ve managed to tap into. Keep it going!

  18. 1

    Wow!! Congrats! The first time I saw you, you were at like 20 or 30k I think! Crazy growth for sure! Congrats again!

    But make sure to take care of your health dude! If you get sick, the whole jenga tower could fall because you are a one man show, but you already know this.

  19. 1

    Bottom line: You have around 25 customers.

    Acquiring 25 customers paying $5k per month is the hard part, but it's only 25 customers.

  20. 1

    I think this is dope! I donโ€™t know how Iโ€™m just learning about your story. Keep it up! Itโ€™s inspiring

  21. 1

    I followed you on Twitter when you first joined. Congrats on the success!

    You also forgot to mention that you first opened shop on June 2017

    Here is the twitter post: https://twitter.com/BrettFromDJ/status/1503978437349761025

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    Amazing, loved the podcast interview. Your take on building on agency to fit the way you want to work inspired me to finally create my own (in content, not design). Cheers!

  23. 1

    Congratulations! Great to know your story.

  24. 1

    @brettwill1025 Just listened to you on the pod! My favorite episode so far. I'm at $2k/MRR and my goal is to be at $10k/MRR by the end of 2022!

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    Hi brett,
    how do you assign how much time each task will take, say a client sees unlimited and assign you to build 100 UIs, how much time do you take to make it and how do you manage that with multiple clients?

    1. 1

      Eh I don't really measure time. I deliver a reasonable size of work every 2 days and keep moving at that pace until the project is done. So in theory clients get different amounts of my time based on scope of work.

  26. 1

    So proud of you man. I follow your story closely on Twitter. Good stuff.

    1. 1

      hey thanks. :)

  27. 1

    To be able to produce amazing designs at an extreme and constant pace is an ability that 1 in a million people are blessed with. I am really glad that you didn't let your talents go to waste being a typical designer at another agency.

    One question. If a new site building platform comes out and give you better production; either with design flexibility, dev speed, or whatever features. Do you think you are willing to leave Webflow?

    1. 1

      Good question. It's obviously a hypothetical so certainly not something I ever think about, but certainly. I made the switch from Sketch to Figma amidst running Designjoy, and I would do the same with any other platform including Webflow. Thankfully, I don't think I'll have to worry about that for quite some time.

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    I'm still absolutely blown away at the fact that you can efficiently handle all the design work on your own. I was blown away when you were making $20k MRR, this is just another level.

    1. 1

      Appreciate it a ton, thanks!

  29. 1

    Have you ever thought about simply taking a strict month off in the summer? As your clients are probably aware that you are not serving just them, i'm sure they would agree.

    Now comes the interesting part though, a month of vacation for you costs $100k if you pause all the machines. Just for having time off. This is opportunity cost at it's finest and a psychological horror :D

    1. 2

      Haha yeahhhhhh I don't think I'll be a taking a month off if it's my choice. :)

  30. 1

    Congrats on all of the success Brett! Iโ€™m a big fan of what you are doing. Iโ€™m hoping to replicate even a fraction of your success by offering a subscription to my development services.

    One thing Iโ€™m worried about is all of the context switching. Iโ€™d ideally work on ~10 longer term projects where Iโ€™m familiar with the code base.

    Do you have this problem?

    1. 1

      Dev is so drastically different than design. IMO it has far more complexities, but it isn't impossible to figure out.

  31. 1

    Congratulations! That's an impressive achievement.

  32. 1

    Congratulations Brett! Why donโ€™t you keep doubling your prices until demand drops significantly?

    1. 1

      The value I provide needs to equal the price clients pay. I don't believe I currently provide $10k/m worth of value on a consistent basis right now. With a smaller number of clients this would certainly be possible. Good question though.

  33. 1

    Great job. Keep it up!

  34. 1

    Way to go Brett!

    I'm trying to launch something similar doing Motion Design services with motion.pro

    Do you have tips to reach offer-market-fit like you? :)

    Cheers! ๐Ÿš€

    P.S.
    We can talk about offloading some of the work you have if you're interested btw ๐Ÿ˜‡

  35. 1

    What a lunatic ๐Ÿ˜… For me, your story is absolutely mind-blowing. I hope you will soon find a way to make it more sustainable and to enjoy your hard-earned freedom with your family. Thanks for building in public.

    1. 2

      Thanks bro, I hope the same. Really your words!

  36. 1

    This is amazing! Just a few doubts
    1-What do you think are the pros and cons of your business model?

    2-How do you manage time consuming tasks !? Like few tasks would definitely take more time?

    3-How did you find users when you started like you said ph and referral but were there any other ways ?

    1. 2

      I could list a ton of cons as far as running this solo, but as for the model itself I can't think of too many tbh. Pros are pretty self-evidence: recurring revenue, standardized processes, zero calls/meetings, zero onboarding, etc.

      Naturally larger tasks take more time to complete. Not everything falls into a two day window. Clients have to use common sense here.

      I found clients first from PH, yes. And likewise, referrals have been huge. Outside of that, the very platform we're on right now likely accounts for most of my referrals by in large.

      1. 1

        Sorry guys, what is PH? Ah okay- Product Hunt, correct?

  37. 1

    I have been following this story for a few months and cannot say enough kudos to Brett. Obviously, this is the dream any of us would love to have and I say congratulations 1.5 million times over. (insert clever retort) I read the expenses Brett has to run his agency and they are super low. This is crazy motivational and I hope for your continued success.

    Keep it going and be proud of what you created. We all are.

    1. 1

      Thanks! I know I paint the picture as if everything is good, but it sure feels like a nightmare more than a dream somedays, but I know you're right. Should definitely be more appreciative of what I have here. Thanks!

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    This comment was deleted 15 days ago.

    1. 4

      Yo!

      Take a look at Design Pickle. They're a great example of targeting lower tier clients and being very good at it. You don't have to be the greatest designer on planet earth to do something like this as long as you're targeting the right clients. It's okay if you aren't working with Fortune 500 companies right away, if ever.

      I struggled with design insecurity my whole career. Every designer does to some degree. But I have gotten a lot of confidence in the last 5 years running this thing. My best advice is to design it, ship it, and don't look at it again until you need to. The longer you sit there mauling it over and over again in your head, the more you allow those insecurities to seep in. Confidence will come with experience. There is no shortcut.

  39. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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