Episode 83
· 44:40
Hey, Welcome to the first episode of 02/2017. As is my tradition, I like to release an episode right before MicroConf, the conference for self funded startups. I'm going there. I'm leaving tomorrow, actually, and going to be speaking at the starter edition and attending the growth edition. It's like two conferences back to back.
Speaker 1:And wanted you folks to have something to listen to as you get on airplanes and travel to the, Las Vegas International Airport. Today, I have a great interview with Laura Elizabeth. I was introduced to Laura through Brendan Dunn, and Laura is an incredible designer. And she also has a number of products. The one we talk about today is client portal.
Speaker 1:You can check that out. Lauraelizabeth.co/client-portal. But we get into all sorts of stuff about building products, about having the confidence to release things, about being vulnerable. It's a really great interview. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Let's get right into it. Could you give me a little bit of background on Like, how did you get into design? How did you get into UI? What's kind of your story up to this point?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So basically, I studied design throughout college and university. I actually bizarrely started in I started in computer programming and then I went to animation and then I tried to do all this stuff with like special effects for films and that was what I wanted to do. And then I kind of fell into design because I really enjoyed it and I seemed to be half decent at it. I did that through college and university.
Speaker 2:I left there.
Speaker 1:Can we let's just stop there for a sec. I want I wanna I wanna ask you a few questions about that. Sorry. I'm gonna interrupt you a little bit.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:So you start what? Did you start in computer programming, and why didn't you stick with it?
Speaker 2:Well, the I so when I finished school, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was always kinda creative, but I didn't really wanna make a living out of being creative because it just didn't seem very appealing. And in all honesty, the reason I got into computer programming is because I thought this will probably make me good money And it'll be an easy job and I can just go to work, make good money, and then I can do my creative stuff on the side.
Speaker 1:What wasn't appealing about working having creative work as a job? Like you said, don't know if I wanted to go into creative work because it wasn't appealing. What what wasn't appealing about it?
Speaker 2:Well, I actually thought I wasn't I wasn't good enough. I wasn't extremely talented. I just enjoyed it. I didn't really think I had much of a I kind of thought you could either do a normal job or be an artist like Picasso or something you know, which I was never gonna be. Was like you know, I'm not that good.
Speaker 2:I'm not extremely talented at this. So I I just I never really thought twice about I was kind of naive, but I was you know school age. I didn't really realize that there were all these other jobs out there that you could do that are kind of creative, but also logical at the same time because I wasn't ever completely creative. I've never been an artist. Know, I've never been too good at abstract things, you know.
Speaker 2:So design's a really nice balance between that because I I really enjoyed the logic of computer programming. Mhmm. But I just missed that creative aspect. So design just it seemed just like a natural fit, and it just worked.
Speaker 1:So was it kind of like you went to computer programming and that which is very logical, and then you went over to animation, which was much more creative, and then design work was kind of in the middle? It it had elements of both. Is that what you liked?
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Okay. So so you went to college. You figured this stuff out. You programming, animation, and then ended with design.
Speaker 1:And and what kind of design? Like, studied just design principles in in school or you were actually doing software design?
Speaker 2:It was mainly design principles. So there was a big focus on design thinking, so solving problems with design. And a lot of it was things like changing the world with design, always makes me cringe a little bit. But it was good in a way because it got me thinking they didn't really teach much in terms principles. It was more about how to think and how to like solve a problem where you get a brief and there was a lot of advertising involved.
Speaker 2:Know how you have this really dull thing that you have to sell like how can you it's maybe useful for people maybe not. How are you gonna creatively sell this? And I always struggled with it because I thought that I wanted to do design because I wanted to do the visuals and there was just no focus on the visuals at all. Yeah. Looking back, I really appreciate that because that kind of thinking helps me a lot now and the principles you can always learn.
Speaker 2:But at the time I remember thinking, you know, I wanna make something look good. Everything I make looks terrible.
Speaker 1:And so okay. So you you you got out of school. How how long have you been out of school now? Out of college?
Speaker 2:I don't know. So out of a long time, I really don't know. It must have been about seven or eight years.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Maybe longer.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you've been out of college for eight years. And what was your first design job? Did you get working right away into in design?
Speaker 2:Well, I so I went, I went back to my hometown. I got a job as a waitress part time
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:While I was doing internships. So I had a I had an internship in a city near me in England. Okay. Then I had another one.
Speaker 1:Where's your hometown?
Speaker 2:My hometown is called Hinkley. It's basically two hours north of London Okay. In the center of England. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I I did that and oh, sorry.
Speaker 1:I I was just gonna say, and there was, like, there was places to intern around there?
Speaker 2:Well, in the my town, no, but there's cities quite close by. I mean, England's pretty small, especially compared to, like, The States or something. So it's the cities Birmingham and Leicester were the two I did internships in Birmingham was a forty minute train ride Leicester was twenty minutes so it was pretty easy so I did an internship and one in Birmingham then one in Leicester the one in Leicester turned into a full time job Okay. So I could quit the waitressing, which was great. And I worked there for about a year or so.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now because now you're doing like, if I go to your website, you've got products, you've got designacademy.io, you've got make it so, and then you're also what I wanted to talk to you about today was this client portal project that you're working on.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, do you still wanna talk about all that, by the way?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and you're also speaking. You've got a speaking section, and you were just telling me you you're speaking at Smashing Conf in in San Francisco. And I think what a lot of people kinda struggle with is, you know, maybe they're right out of school. Right? And Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They're want they want to get into products or something like that. Or maybe they're an old guy like me, and they've had a few careers, and they're like, man, I wanna do I wanna get into products. You know? But the struggle is going how do you go from, you know, being someone who's just out of school or just getting started to someone who's building something? So how did that work for you?
Speaker 1:Like, how how did, I'm not sure if this is if this is, in order. Like, does it was Design Academy first or Make It So? Like, how what's the story behind those those projects?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, it's it's actually been a bit of a it's been a little bit all over the place. So I started as a freelancer. Was doing design work and I always kind of wanted to get into products, but I wasn't quite sure what exactly I wanted to do. And a lot of it was just experimenting with lots of different things.
Speaker 2:So Design Academy came about because I was actually working at the time with a lot of developers. And their struggle was they have a really good appreciation for design. And because they're developers, they really like experimenting. They really like playing around. They like creating little side projects for themselves because it's just, it's what they love to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And they really wanted just some basic design skills so they could create these side projects, but they didn't have to look terrible, you know? And I could really relate to that. So back to what I was saying at university when I just wanted to make something look good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I could really relate to just being like, just want some really basic principles that I can follow. So it looks like it's been designed. It doesn't look like it's just been thrown together. And because I had a need for that before and then I was seeing my clients were having a need for that now. I thought let's start sign Academy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And what I'm, and it's sort of been on the back burner for a while. It's only recently I've really started ramping it up. But alongside that I was still working on my client work. I did a conference in Stockholm and I mentioned this client portal thing and it was just kind of an offhand thing in my presentation saying, Oh yeah, I found that there was no decent project management tools.
Speaker 2:They were all too complicated. So I made this really simple page to organize them And everyone was like, I want that. And I was like, okay. So people convinced me to release that as a product. It wasn't connected to Design Academy, which is what I wanted to focus on, but I'd made it.
Speaker 2:People seem to want it. There seem to be validation for it. And I thought what a great way to dip my toe in the water in terms of products. You know, it just seemed to fit. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So are you shifting your focus to client portal? Is that like the the major focus right now?
Speaker 2:It's not gonna be. I've basically I've been working with a developer to get it to a stage where it's now you can integrate it into WordPress. It's a lot better based on feedback that I've had from people. Initially, was just something for me that I made really quickly. And I've sort of now got it to the stage where I think actually this is pretty good.
Speaker 2:And the whole idea of client portal that was that it's really meant to be simple. I don't want it to be complicated because that goes away from the whole point of me creating it. What I'm kind of doing is client portals, it's a fun experiment and I'm going to absolutely keep it going, but it's going to be more of a side project, I think. People still find it useful, but it's not I'm not gonna go full time on it or anything.
Speaker 1:Okay. And for people who are listening or watching, if I release this as a video, you can see this at lauraelizabeth.co/clientportal. And what I love about this, and I can see why it resonated, is as soon as you see your screenshot, you instantly understand who it's for, why it would be useful, and that alone makes you kinda I want this. You know? You you can see you have these sections, like, there's a one section called discovery, and you have the brief inspiration about your business, questionnaire, twenty second gut test, content, content sheet, and it's all laid out in this really it's almost like it feels like almost every product, what people are looking for is a template.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And this is a a template that that people can use, and it gives them a place to to, to start. Or another way I've been thinking about this is that really almost every product is like you know how there's Ruby on Rails? The idea that there's like you're on the rails, like, you don't have to go off the rails. You can just stay on these rails, and it will guide you along to making software. Well, client portal to me is like, here's some rails for your client project.
Speaker 1:This will just guide you along for your client project and take you along. And, that's what kind of resonated with it resonated why it resonated for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, really solves like there's two things that I really like about it. And the first is that it it's a place where you can keep all your client deliverables. So it's not in any complex project management system and it's somewhere that the client can go and be like, Hey, where am I at? Where are we at at this project?
Speaker 2:You know? And they can quite easily at a glance see where they are. And that's actually one of the new features that I'm bringing in where you can actually, it says right at the top exactly where you are in the project, which is pretty cool. Yeah. But the other thing is that it really helps, freelancers sometimes struggle because they feel like they're not as professional as agencies.
Speaker 2:They feel like they don't have the kind of the swag to go with it. Know, they don't really have the bells and whistles. And it's just kind of a really simple way to make you as a freelancer seem more professional. So you say, Hey, you've got this part of my website. It's my domain forward slash, you know, your name, password protected.
Speaker 2:And here's everything we're gonna be working on. And it's like, from that moment, the client is like, oh, wow, this is a real project I'm working with a professional who's done this before. You know, they're not just new to this. And so there's kind of two bent there's the two main benefits I had from it and kind of why I still started it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that, I think, is really key, especially for aspiring product people. There's actually a lot of your story that I think people could learn from. One, with Design Academy sorry. Is it Design Academy?
Speaker 1:No. Yeah. Design Academy, which is designacademy.io, for anyone listening. And, Anne's client portal, these were both you interacting with real people, so interacting with developers and then interacting with freelancers. And then watching their with Design Academy, watching what they struggled with and then creating something that was a response to that struggle.
Speaker 1:And with Client Portal, it was a little bit more serendipitous, but this idea of speaking something on a stage and having people react. And those are the moments you have to watch for when you're a product person. You have to be kind of observing real human beings. And this is why I say that folks that are doing freelancing are actually in a great spot because you're interacting with real people with real struggles. And when you can do that, then you can react.
Speaker 1:You can say, well, if this is what they're struggling with, I can try offering this and see, you know, if it resonates with them. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think where a lot of people struggle is they they wanna become product people, and they think that they have to sit down and brainstorm what products can I do?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I think that's always gonna be really hard. I mean, might kind of, might stumble across something that's gonna be really good, but I think it's so much easier. You say, if you're a freelancer, you're already doing something anyway, just to kind of, you know, keep your ears open and just try to like notice things that people seem to be consistently struggling with and seeing if you have something or you can do something that can help them with that struggle. I think that's probably the best way to go about it if you wanna, you know, get started in products Mhmm. Is to have, you know, as you say, have something that you're doing anyway and just keep listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And to me, it's mostly like a mindset thing. Like, it's it's just almost flipping a switch in your brain that is saying, I'm always listening and observing now. So instead of just, like, going and here's the the the the checklist of things the client wants done, and then you offer you do those things. I mean, that's what you get paid for when you're a freelancer.
Speaker 1:But there's this other, level of just, like, almost a a higher level of saying, okay. But what's the real job to be done underneath all of this? Or Yeah. In the process of this, are there other jobs that come up? And so in your case, you might have been working with a developer to do a project for a client, but in the process, you noticed struggles that the developers were having.
Speaker 1:Right? And sometimes people are thinking, well, if if I work with banking clients, I can only focus on banking clients. But, no, you've got this whole other circle of people. You've got developers you're working with. You've got managers you're working with.
Speaker 1:You've got all these things, you know, you're working with. Yeah. Sorry. All these people you're working with, and they're they have struggles too. And you as a designer or a developer or whoever you are might be able to solve those struggles.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. I think it really helps when you, if you're working with clients or even just talking to people in general is is, trying to build a a real sort of relationship with them. So I always got on really well with my clients. I try to, you know, get to know them a little bit and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And that kind of really helped it become more of them. They're more willing to tell you what they're struggling with if they feel like they know you and actually some of my clients. So of my real clients I'm actually in a mastermind with now and I've been friends with him since you know you first got in touch wanting a project doing. Yeah. And so it's stuff like that has been really helpful.
Speaker 2:So I think you just building relationships and just talking to people, not necessarily looking for anything from them, but just trying to listen to what they're struggling with and, know, come across something that you could help with is really key.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I want to kind of touch on is I'm gonna try to reiterate what you said. You said that freelancers often want to feel more professional. Sometimes they don't feel like they're professional enough.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they feel like they're just, you know, a solo person and they can't compare to, you know, the big agencies or or things like that. Is that kind of what you were getting
Speaker 2:at? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the it's interesting because, again, we don't always think in these terms. Often, think that a product is purely functional. Like, it's just the utility that people want. But you're absolutely right. Like, when I look at your your screenshot here, everything about this screenshot for me is aspirational.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? So I look at this and I go, that looks amazing. That looks professional. That makes me feel like if I could have that standard of, you know, client portal, that would make me feel like a pro. All of a sudden, I would feel like I'm, not just a pro, but I would also feel good about myself.
Speaker 1:Like, if I sent that to a client, I would feel like, yeah. I'm I'm on it. You know? I'm I'm professional. And that's, I think, what people resonate with is that it it's it's not just the like, this list of features.
Speaker 1:Like, the features people I don't I think what people really want is they want to feel differently. And Yeah. That sometimes gets missed where especially in the software world, everyone thinks everyone's so logical and rational. And I disagree. I think people are emotional.
Speaker 1:I think they they often buy products, for emotional reasons. Yeah. Does any of that resonate with you? Do you think that's true or not?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do. And it's it's the issue that I had is that I was worried that I wasn't coming across as professional. Know, I was worried I started freelancing and I I can't remember how old I was, but eight years ago, it was like early twenties or something. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I was like, I feel like just a kid, you know, why is anyone gonna take me seriously? Yeah. And I still kind of feel like that now. So it's definitely a struggle that people have. And I think the good thing about it is that it's something that's so easy to implement.
Speaker 2:It's like, it's a page. I mean, it's a page on your website that you just set up at the start and you add links to it.
Speaker 1:You
Speaker 2:know, it's so easy, but just doing that, it makes you feel more confident in your own process and it feels it helps your clients feel more confident in you that you know, they know where they stand and all this kind of thing. And it's just been really helpful. There's another kind of added sort of side benefit to it as well in that it makes you really have a think about your process. So I started to realize that I was doing a lot of different kinds of projects and I started to realize there's a bunch of commonalities in this. And I started to put together things like standard operating procedures in terms of onboarding and in terms of stuff like that and you know, have it all documented.
Speaker 2:And that's been really helpful as well. And that kind of came from me wanting to customize this client portal for my project. So there's kind of like a small benefit, but it's definitely come from that. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Definitely. There's something else you just mentioned, that I think I've been thinking about this a lot lately because my my best writing, and you do some writing as well. You have a great email course. How can people get on that email course? Is it just laura elizabeth dot co?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Forward slash newsletter. That URL is gonna be changing soon though because it's gonna be part of the Design Academy
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Website. So I can send you the link to that when I've got it all figured out or Yeah.
Speaker 1:If if folks can go and just find it, it's it's worth, it's it's yeah. It's worth it just to sign up just to see your writing.
Speaker 2:Oh, actually, I've actually just remembered. I bought a domain name today. So it's actually going to be, learndesigncourse.com.
Speaker 1:Perfect.
Speaker 2:And that will be by the end of the day. I think it'll be up, like, by that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah. So go to learndesigncourse.com and check out, Laura's writing. For my writing, some of my best writing is when I've been willing to be vulnerable. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And my, and I see this in especially with the software developers I talk to, but everyone. Everybody wants to we want to appear like we're put together, like we've got it all figured out, like we're professionals, Like, we're successful. You know, that everything's going our way. And, but my the writing that I've written that's been the most successful is often when I'm vulnerable. When I'm saying, you know, here's something I did where I failed, or here's a time where, you know, like, leading up to a launch, I felt anxiety or I felt, you know, fear or whatever.
Speaker 1:And those moments, like you mentioned, you know, you felt, you felt, not what's the word I'm looking for? You weren't confident as a young designer. You felt like, yeah, I'm just a kid. Like, no one's gonna take me seriously. And those moments, like, those moments that we don't want to reveal to everybody are the seeds for great product ideas because the truth is there's lots of people that feel that way.
Speaker 1:So Mhmm. Like, one of my favorite as a product manager, one of my favorite kind of easy wins would be to implement, PDF reports in any software product. And the reason Yeah. Is because a manager could print those out and bring them to a meeting and would feel like a pro. They would feel like Yeah.
Speaker 1:Here here's here you know, hand it out to the boss in front of everybody, and people would look at them and go, wow. Like, how'd you do that? And the vulnerability they feel is, well, I'm not a pro. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm scared I'm gonna lose my job.
Speaker 1:They print this thing out. It makes them feel like they have a superpower. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. So what Yeah. And you're not necessarily making them better at what they do, but you're giving them the confidence to make them feel like they are better at what they do. And to be honest, I mean, it I wouldn't underestimate the the value of actually giving people that confidence.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's huge.
Speaker 1:It's
Speaker 2:it makes it makes such a difference how how confident you feel, and how you come across. It's it's, yeah, I think it's really important.
Speaker 1:So how have you been able to, like, for you, was was part of creating this client portal I guess you created it for yourself first because you had that feeling. Like, you were just like, I I want to feel more professional. Did you immediately connect that, you know, when that other people were feeling that way as well, or did it take speaking in front of the group to see their reaction to kinda get like, oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It definitely took speaking. I mean, took the attendees and the other speakers were amazing at that conference because it took them a long time to persuade me to release this as a product. Mean, really had to go for it and persuading me because I was like, yeah, I mean, I find it useful. No one else has these problems really.
Speaker 2:Are you just saying that you'd buy it because know me and you don't wanna offend me or anything? And they really kind of fought the corner of, you know, this is actually something that a lot of people struggle with as well. And I was like, oh, I thought it was just me. I mean, looking back now, I'm kind of like, well, yeah, I guess other people struggle with it. I mean, I'm not a special snowflake in that respect.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it makes sense now, but it really took a lot of encouragement from other people to get me to see that other people might find it useful and be willing to spend money on it, which is completely bizarre to me, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And and maybe you know, I've I've been hard on this idea of scratch your own itch in the past, partly because I think sometimes scratch your own itch is you you literally are the only person who wants that thing. But maybe the secret is if if you're if this isn't just like scratching your own itch, if you are serving or trying to overcome a deep insecurity in your own life Yeah.
Speaker 1:That might be, you know then scratch your own itch makes a lot more sense. If scratch your own itch is just like, what are the, like, typical scratch your own itch things? It's like, I want, you know, I want this utility because I think it would be cool. That those kinds of things are just I think it would be cool. Those kind of products almost never work out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But if I look inside myself and it's like, oh my gosh. Like, I feel when I do a client project, I don't feel like a pro. I want to feel like a pro. I'm petrified that people are gonna this is the one we we always hear from people when they're honest.
Speaker 1:I'm petrified that people are gonna discover that I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I think, it took me a while to figure out that that was my insecurity as well. You know?
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I'm just creating this because, it's a place for deliverables and it is. And it's good for that. It serves that purpose. But I mean, yeah, don't think I'd have been so proactive in creating it if I didn't have that, as you say, emotional connection. Think that is really key.
Speaker 2:If you can tap into what people are really worried about, and it's often different from what they necessarily say. I I don't go around day to day saying, I'm scared that people are gonna think I'm unprofessional. I don't really think about it much, but it's definitely somewhere in the back of my mind, just like it is with other people. If there's a really quick easy way that I can start to feel more confident about that, then I'll take it, you know, like most people would say. Yeah, I think the emotional thing that you say is really important, but sometimes hard to uncover because people like to hide that side a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Just a side a side question. You mentioned earlier that you don't think client project client portal will become like a main product for you.
Speaker 1:Why is that? Why do you think it won't be kind of a main thing for you?
Speaker 2:It's difficult really. Think because I mean, I've got my heart set on doing the Design Academy things, what I'm really passionate about doing.
Speaker 1:I
Speaker 2:think I'm sort of a bit more invested in that, but I do really think client portal is a really good product, which is why I've launched it and why I've revamped it in a way. But I just, I can't see myself making it full time, but I've been proved wrong a lot. So you never know. I mean, you never know. It could be and I wouldn't be opposed to it at all.
Speaker 2:It would be actually be quite fun to just focus on it. I think there's a lot. What I'd worry about is that I just worry about making it too feature rich, which as you said, a lot of product people, myself included, are always thinking about the next big feature and I'm almost worried about ruining it. Mhmm. I mean, it's so simple at the minute, but it as you say, it's just solving a very core need.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I almost don't trust myself not to just wreck it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. And a lot of times too, like, what we there's there's this, like, intersection of things that needs to happen for us to stay excited about a project. And, you know, one thing with client portal is it might continue to do really well.
Speaker 1:Like, people might continue to buy it, and that often can become the fuel for, you know, wanting to keep doing it. The other thing, though, that's great about being a product person is, you know, client portal could be a portion of your revenue, and then freelancing could be a portion of your revenue, and then Design Academy could be a portion of your revenue, and you could have a really great life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. I mean, that's the kind of the plan in a way, really, is it's, you know, I'm hoping to just take on a couple of freelance projects per year and then the rest of it be product revenue is the ideal. But you know, it's good to have a few different streams, both in terms of I guess, stability in case anything goes wrong. I don't know particularly what was, but also in terms of just changing it up a bit.
Speaker 2:I find that if I'm doing the same thing over and over, I struggle to stay motivated and inspired. It's kinda nice to be able to switch between things and take a different, you know, write about something a bit different for a change. It's kinda nice having these multiple things. That said, it's a lot of work managing multiple stuff because sometimes your brain can get a little bit overwhelmed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's working so far, hopefully.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I get asked about that a lot. And I mean, who knows? I there's there's it's it's very difficult to say there's one way to do it, and there's one way that's gonna work for everybody. And so far, I found that having multiple things I've had too many things.
Speaker 1:I've pared down. But having multiple things can sometimes be amazing. Like Mhmm. You know, I had a I had a month where I just wasn't feeling great and, you know, I was feeling down and wasn't able to get a lot of things out. But because I had some things kind of rolling, I had great revenue month a great revenue month there because it was just there's other stuff out there.
Speaker 1:And so
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:You know, it it's I I think the the lesson is that you've you have to discover what you what you really like doing. And so, you know, if you're doing one thing, you're like, this is awesome. I wanna keep doing this, then keep doing it. But if you wanna start something else and try something else, that's okay too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's it's really simple if you think about it, you know, just, you know, doing, you know, as you say, just I'm enjoying this. I'm gonna keep doing it. I'm not necessarily gonna commit to doing this for the rest of my life. You know, I'm not marrying it or anything.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna do for now while I enjoy it. If at one point I stop enjoying it, maybe I'll move on to something else or maybe I'll take this, which is why I'm always really cautious to when I sort of give advice or recommendations to kind of say, A, this is what worked for me. It might not work for you. And also sometimes it's just good to go with your gut, know, and just try things and maybe it'll fail, but you'll definitely learn stuff from it. And you know, it's sometimes you feel guilty.
Speaker 2:You know, I sometimes feel guilty because I've got a bunch of different things, you know, going on and I am trying to streamline that a bit because it is a little bit crazy. Yeah. But it's also, I wouldn't change any of it because a lot of these different things that I've been doing has kind of led me to where I am now. And if I took one of them out, I might not be here, you know? So yeah, it's always tricky to say whether what I did was right or wrong or whether what I'm doing is right or wrong cause I have no idea.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Well, maybe to finish off, let's actually get into some things that have worked for you. Because folks like some of those, like, concrete examples. So for let's go through three things. Let's go through what's worked for getting newsletter subscribers.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Do you have people enrolled in design Design Academy right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've got just over a thousand, I think.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. So that's awesome. And then client portal. So what's worked for your newsletter?
Speaker 1:Like, in terms of getting new newsletter subscribers, where do those folks come from?
Speaker 2:So they pretty much 100% just come from I do a lot of guest posting. I do a lot of public speaking and stuff like that. Know, things like this podcasting and stuff. It it kinda comes from that. So what I do is when I do a guest post, just put in my signature, know, that I run Design Academy and it's just a link to it.
Speaker 2:And that's been really successful, especially if you can get on some of the bigger blogs. So I did a guest post for a smashing magazine, which is a pretty big blog. And that's given me so much, so many subscribers just from that. There's a bunch of other things that I can and should be doing to up that, like having an actual specific call to action at the end of these blog posts or in the middle of them to give a free course. And that's something that I'm aware would probably help me.
Speaker 2:Just haven't necessarily done that yet. Yeah. So for me, it's all been that so far, which is amazing and actually gives me so much validation that what I'm doing is something that people want because I'm not doing an awful lot aside from having little links in my profile to get people to sign up, you know? And if that's getting people to sign up, then that's a good sign. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's been working so far in terms of subscribers. But yeah.
Speaker 1:And and is the idea right now, like, with Design Academy, people can it says enroll now, and it takes you to a drip for form. The idea is that when you launch, those people will get notified. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what's gonna happen is I'm actually I think in the next few days, I'm launching a completely new website for Design Academy. So that's basically a landing page that I put up in about one hour, which I'm impressed that for a one hour thing, it's generated over a thousand subscribers, which is why I always say to people, don't necessarily need to polish, you know? Polish later. Get the validation first and then polish.
Speaker 1:Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's been really good, but I'm gonna launch a new one soon. And what I'm gonna be doing is for a while, because I've been kind of bad at emailing my list regularly, is I'm really starting to get into a habit of writing new content. So for a while, all I'm gonna be doing is pushing out new content. I'm just gonna be providing value.
Speaker 2:I'm not asking for anything in return just yet. I've got a bunch of stuff that I'm gonna be doing. Like I'll be, I wanna do design tear downs, but I want them to be from subscribers. So I want subscribers to send in their stuff and an article will be me going through their website and pointing out bits that they could change to make better at it. I think that's something that'd be really useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And eventually, and while I'm doing that, I'll be working on the course. And eventually, the course will launch and that will be a paid thing. But that's sort of still in the future. I'm, you know, just gonna be providing content for now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And do you have an idea of when you're gonna, like, do you have a launch date already in in mind for the actual course, or are you just right now focused on building, you know, this email course and building the content?
Speaker 2:For now, it's just the email course and the content. I really do need to get a launch date. I wanna get a launch date firmed up something that's realistic, but not too that still keeps the pressure on a little bit because I definitely work well to pressure unfortunately. Yeah. But I need to figure that out and eventually what I'll do is I'll have a specific launch date, which I'll publish and that will hopefully keep me accountable to actually launch this thing.
Speaker 2:That's been around for a while, but I haven't finished it yet. It's quite working stuff.
Speaker 1:I know. I know all about that stuff. And do you have customers for Client Portal yet?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I've had I actually had a really good launch for Client Portal. The good thing that I did there was, so the conference I spoke at was Double Your Freelancing Conference, which Brendan Dunne organized.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And because all of the attendees, what happened was he went around the room after, I did two conferences, he went around the room after and said, what's the one thing that you wanna implement from this conference? And I think, I can't remember the percentage, but it was well over 50%, all said Laura's client portal. Laura's client portal, Laura's client portal. And he was like, wow, okay. So we did sort of like a partnership where he promoted it to his list.
Speaker 2:We did like a revenue share. Yeah. And that was phenomenal. That was a fantastic launch. So I've a fair amount of customers.
Speaker 2:I don't know the exact number, but I think it was about 10,000 in revenue. Which was pretty good for a first. I wasn't expecting it. Yeah. So I would recommend that, you know, I know it's not always possible.
Speaker 2:I was in a fortunate situation in terms of the conference, but I would say if you're starting out, if you can, you know, use other people's audiences that would find it helpful. Obviously Brennan didn't mind because he already had the validation that his audience would find this really useful. They wouldn't necessarily mind being sold to. Yeah. So I think that's a good thing that you can sort of look look at doing is just talking to people and
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, that that is key. Like, I think the the challenge that people often have is they'll they'll build something. Sometimes they'll build it in a cave hidden and away from everybody. And when they launch it, they they're not and sometimes this is hard to tell, but generally, I found whatever people's first reaction is, it's a pretty good indicator of how well this idea will do, at least in the initial stages.
Speaker 1:And Yeah. You know, if someone shares an idea with me that I personally get excited about, I will be their biggest cheerleader. Like, I I will tell everybody about it because if I'm personally excited about it first of all, human beings are just wired psychologically to wanting to want to share cool, interesting, useful things with other people. We want that validation of what's a good example? Like TextExpander.
Speaker 1:When I share TextExpander, which is a, you know, a utility that basically helps you puts in short codes and you can expand out big text snippets. It feels like I'm giving other people superpowers. You know? So it's almost like the I get the same feeling that the product owner would get. I'm like, I'm helping these people out.
Speaker 1:And Exactly. If you can give other people that feeling, if your idea or your product elicits that feeling, then that's probably something you wanna focus on because then you do get folks that will want to partner with you. Like, everyone always asks, like, how do you get that? Like, how did Laura get that? That's what people will wanna know.
Speaker 1:And there can sometimes be some bitterness and resentment around that. Like, how how did she do that? That's not fair. But Yeah. But the the the truth is is that you've gotta hit on something that strikes such a nerve that gets people so excited that they're they're willing not just willing.
Speaker 1:No. Not willing at all. They are excited. They're enthusiastically wanting to share this thing with the world. And those are the kinds of ideas that you should be focusing on.
Speaker 1:Don't try to polish some product idea that is just, you know, people are kinda like, that's that's cool or, that's interesting, you know. You want something like, oh my god, like, that's really really cool. Like, I would, man, like Yeah. I'd love to share that.
Speaker 2:The best bit of feedback you can get is someone saying, I wish I thought of that. How has nobody done this yet? It's just the holy grail of validation, I think.
Speaker 1:That is a great way to put it. Let let's end this here, Laura. This has been awesome having you on. Great to meet you. Great to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Me too.
Speaker 1:Where so people can find you at lauraelizabeth.co. Where else would you what else would you like people to check out? Learndesigncourse.com?
Speaker 2:Yep. That's it. Yep. And then you can follow me on Twitter if you like. It's at Lauriam, which is l a u r I u m.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, the laurelizabeth.co is kind of the hub of everything that I'm all the crazy things that I'm doing right now. So it's probably the best place to go.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, great to great to meet with you, and thanks for, thanks for doing this. This was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No problem. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So there you go. Just a great conversation with Laura. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm glad you're still subscribed to the product people feed. I am going to be releasing more episodes in 02/2017, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:If you want more regular episodes, please check out megamaker.co. That is my weekly podcast about basically, for people who are trying to earn an independent income from digital products, from software as a service, from online courses, from membership sites, things like that. And, yeah, the last episode is really good. It's about building things without code. If you wanna follow me on Twitter, I'm the letter m, the letter I, Justin.
Speaker 1:And this show can always still use some iTunes reviews. Just go to iTunes, search for product people, and click that five star icon. Really helps other people find the show. Alright. I will see you next time I do an episode, or I'll see you in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1:Please come up and say hi if, you see me there. K. Goodbye.
Listen to Product People using one of many popular podcasting apps or directories.
