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I'm leaving my role as a Design Lead to sell infoproducts... and I'm terrified

Quick notes about me:

  • Frontend Dev-turned-Designer for 12+ years
  • Sold a 3-founder company StreamPro for $1M in 2015 (netted ~$200k personally)
  • 4 kids and a mortgage
  • 8 months of total runway (and then pain)
  • Last day is Friday, March 11th
  • Dormant Tiktok account with 287k followers
  • Dormant Discord with 800 members
  • Dormant ConvertKit list with 600 subscribers

Today I'm not detailing my strategies or sharing valuable lessons learned - that will come soon. I'm just looking to intro myself and commiserate.

I'm not an active lurker of Indiehackers. I've read a few viral threads here and there, but I'm here because I assume you are my people. And my God do I need my people right now.

I'm about to make the scariest commitment of my life and I'm trying to find my courage in the void.

I'm deeply passionate about digital product design (user experience, user interfaces, and interaction design - to be specific). I've spent the last decade+ learning to build products, take them to market, and build design teams/operations at mid-market companies as "the first design hire" or "a UX design team of one" throughout San Francisco.

Aside from execution skills, I've learned a tremendous amount about design operations, framing complexity and collaborating with people who have limited experience working with product designers.

My goal is to share what I've learned in a way that allows me to make a sustainable income. That would allow me to start sharing what I've learned more accessibly (cheaper prices, low income programs, region based pricing) - that's the North Star. But validating whether I can make enough money doing this is the first step.

Starting next week, the clock starts ticking. I have 8 months of runway to make $10k/mo selling UX design infoproducts and assets.

SOS.

posted to Icon for group Building in Public
Building in Public
on March 8, 2022
  1. 2

    Hey @designertom! How are things going so far?

    1. 2

      I've just completed Week 4 of my full-time content journey (there was a small gap between leaving my role and starting this adventure due to getting married and moving).

      And so far it's been promising.

      Stats to date:
      TikTok audience: 307,600
      LinkedIn followers: 1,268
      Newsletter subscribers: 829

      I have 3 mini-books in the pipeline, aiming to launch them all within the next 90 days.

      Book 1 teaches designers how to talk about the business impact of their work in their portfolios to help them win clients and get hired.

      Book 2 is a detailed reference of all of my "Design Decisions" that I talk about on my TikTok (essentially a Designer's cheatsheet for making quick UI and UX decisions).

      Book 3 teaches LinkedIn professionals how to build an audience on TikTok to grow their newsletters, personal brand, and sell their digital products.

      I go live on TikTok 1-3 times per week and have seen an uptick in concurrent viewers. I now average about 80 viewers during livestreams and get great vocal interest in the first e-book. Hoping to launch the pre-sale in the next 10 days.

      1. 1

        Nice! Good good to hear. Best of luck.

  2. 1

    One obvious reminder is info-products doesn't generate regular revenue. They tend to have a spike at the beginning.

    You marked few important things with discord server, mail list and tiktok account. You are already ahead of the game but as Kim mentioned it could be better to aim on courses as well.

    Good luck

  3. 1

    You should first try selling courses on marketplaces such as skillshare and the like. But my best advice would be to build your own site, partner with companies, offer freemium courses and other strategies that will eventually lead you to a lot of paid subscriptions

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