How Alex Szczurek Built A 7-Figure Design Agency In Just 7 Months

Over the last decade, Alex Szczurek has mastered coding, designing, and customer experience. 

It all culminated in Baked Design, the product design agency for startups that she and her co-founder grew to $1M in ARR in just seven months.

I caught up with her to get the details: 👇

Always Learning 

I started in 2014 as a front-end developer. However, I realized I was more interested in building user experience and being involved in more business activities, so I transitioned into UX and CX. 

From 2015 to 2017, I mixed my coding and UX skills, and thanks to that, I had the opportunity to work on great projects, observing and experiencing things from both ends—design and development.

Over time, I focused more and more on UX to fit the market needs. UX and CX felt more natural for me. This led me to work with big companies like PWC and BMW and lots of startups. I couldn’t ask for a better experience.

I was always eager for more: more knowledge, more work, more experience, being a better team player, or shifting better OPS processes. (When I look for someone for my team, I call this the Student attitude).

That led to me becoming Head of UX and diving more into Design Ops.

A New Pricing Model

In 2020, one of the software houses I worked with wanted to somehow productize design services. Back then (COVID hit and the market was affected) they struggled a lot with selling design services. The biggest pain was spending a lot of time on workshops, shaping a roadmap and estimation, whereas the sales specialist wanted a fixed price that he could sell easily. 

But it’s not that easy. Each project requires a different approach, so I proposed a monthly fixed price and an estimation of how long it might take. It didn’t work out.

Then, I changed jobs and started as Head of Research and Strategy in an agency. I started to dive more into the subscription model and shape the company's processes to fit that way of working. 

However, the team’s expenses were too high to fit market pricing norms to shape a proper subscription offer (It would need to be at least $20-25k to cover team and make profit for the business). 

The key is that the subscription model shouldn’t be complicated. The goal is to save time and money on the onboarding. That’s the most important part.

The Early Struggle

I was slowly burning out at my 9-5, so I was exploring 𝕏 to expose UX to a wider audience (before it was only Instagram). Then, in February 2023, I found the build in public community thanks to Lilian and Ilze’s space.

I started to deep-dive more and more, and Nick (my co-founder) was doing public design roasts. We started talking over DMs about life, dogs, design, etc. At some point, I roasted his roast and really enjoyed the process. So, I started doing more and more roasts, trying to also attach what I know well—UX.  

When we first started getBaked, we targeted indie hackers. Our strategy was simple: We did a public roast, and after the roast, other people reached out to us, or the roasted person wanted the full roast of the Landing Page. This was great because we were providing value to the community while also showing our skills. Without the roasts we wouldn’t be where we are today, no doubt.

In just four months, we designed over 70 websites for the price of $50 -> $75 -> $100 -> $150.

It was hard, but going well. And by building in public and doing hundreds of design roasts, we were really starting to build a name for ourselves.

But, our big breakthrough moment came when someone came to us looking for an application design.

Through designing this application, we realized we could do more. So, I focused on building the website for Baked, spending a ton of time on it. I pushed it live, and then, after two weeks, on July 21st, we closed our first subscription.

A Unique Co-Founder Relationship

Me and Nick met on Twitter.

At some point, we realized that our skills really complement each other. I’m more of an expert in UX, and he’s a product designer (also a marketing magician—no doubts). And it works great.

I think our relationship is unique because we’ve never met in “real life”, live in different time zones, and don’t talk much. However, I still think we have a pretty close relationship. 

What we do have is trust that we’ll get our work done and focus on the same goal, and that’s the most important thing.

New Pricing, New Clients

When we started, most of our clients were indie hackers, solo entrepreneurs, and design agencies, so the work was pretty easy. It was landing pages, apps, $150 screen ups, and some marketing materials.

As we raised our prices, we started to attract clients who needed bigger websites, applications (smaller and bigger), branding, animations, and website implementations. So, it’s more detailed work now. 

And our pricing has changed a lot. From $150 per screen to $2137/m and $4317/m. But with already established reputation on 𝕏, it felt right. But of course we are still learning how to market and price ourselves.

But in one year, we transitioned from being just designers to being entrepreneurs who can market themselves well.  

So now we mainly sell a $6317 a month plan. I always like ending my pricing with seven or nine because people who see a seven or nine-based price feel like they’re getting a discount.

Managing Clients

You always want the best for yourself and your clients, but you’ll go crazy if you stress too much. 

Believe me, I have had a few sleepless nights because I tried to set boundaries, and it stressed me out so badly.

So, it takes a lot of effort to learn to manage your emotions, frustrations, hype, and sadness.

Some obvious learnings:

If you have a good client, do your best to keep them. Keep things within reason. This is a business, after all.

But, if you have a problematic client who treats you and your team without respect, it’s better to issue a refund.

I know it’s hard to give up money, but if a client is that difficult, making your life difficult is not worth it. It can redirect bad emotions to your personal life and the team. 

They don't deserve to be affected!

Just Do It

When you're building something, you’ll see a lot of advice on Twitter on how to schedule your day, be more productive, and do more work. 

Find your pace, find your way. Everyone needs to find their way to success. There is no recipe. You need to experiment. Lose and win. 

But honestly, the main key to success is to just do it. 

There is no substitute for hard work (but don’t forget about your mental well-being, burnout hits hard).