Fractional
Fractional
Julia Chesbrough: Subscription business model for fractionals
This week we're joined on the podcast by Julia Chesbrough, a subscription product designer.
This topic was especially interesting to Joshua, a product designer as well, and we were able to dig into Julia's history to learn about the growth of her business, the design industry as a whole, and where she sees her business going in the future.
We also talked about the pros and cons of a subscription based service business, and the mental health journey Julia has taken along the way.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliachesbrough/
https://www.juliachesbrough.com/
Edited by Caleb http://www.embrin.com/
Hi, hello, and welcome to episode 58 of the Factional Podcast. I'm Lance Robbins. I'm here with my co-host, Joshua Wold. And today we have another really exciting guest, Julia Chesbrough, a subscription product designer. And I'm excited to learn what this is. Julia, thanks so much for being here. Super glad that you would choose us for your first podcast appearance, Flattered. Tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, and what does it mean to be a subscription product designer?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. And I really appreciate you reaching out about having me on the podcast. This is super exciting. Yeah, a little bit about me. I, as you said, am a subscription product designer, which means that I am technically a freelancer and somewhere in the fractional world. But I offer my services as a flat monthly fee. And in return, my clients get unlimited design requests and revisions and No extra fees, no hidden fees and things like that. So it's, yeah, it's kind of somewhere in the middle of freelance and fractional.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. We had a chance to chat a little bit ahead of time and I want to kind of share with the audience. What is your journey as a designer that kind of led up to this point? Because there's some parallels with myself in the past and I'd love to know kind of how you got here and then I'll have a bunch more questions.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So I'm definitely one of those designers that never planned on being a designer. I got my degree in psychology and And after that, after graduating, I realized pretty quickly that it's very different to study psychology in a textbook compared to sitting across from somebody with real problems. And that's a real responsibility. And it just wasn't going to be the career for me. I love psychology and theory, but I needed something that was going to be a little bit more creative because I've always been an artist and a musician. And so that was really important to me when it came to a career that would span decades for me. That was when I discovered product design. And I ended up going to a boot camp. It was called Shillington. It was in New York City and graduated from there with a portfolio. And quickly after that, I got a job doing some signage for a trade show and I was there for about six months. And during that time, I was putting a lot of my work online and it ended up getting noticed by Hinge, the dating app. At that time, no one had really heard of it. It was a very small startup and I ended up going in for an interview. And long story short, I got the job and I was there for about four years and I was there from when we were a tiny little startup all to when we got acquired by Match Group. And then I left a little bit after that. But that was an incredible experience. And I learned pretty much everything I know about product design from that. And After about four years at Hinge, I got to a point where I was just kind of ready for a new challenge. I'd been thinking about love and relationships for four years, and that was really all I knew how to design for. So I wanted to just expand my topics and think about other things for a bit. So I went to Spotify, and I joined Spotify during the pandemic. So it was completely remote. I never got to see the office. I still haven't seen the office, which I'm hoping One day I'll get to see it. But I was there for about a year. And at the end of that year at Spotify, I got hit with just a crazy amount of burnout. I was really, really extremely burnt out. And I had been having chronic neck pain for about five years at that point. I was having stomach aches every day. I was having mood swings. My cortisol levels were just so high. It was wreaking havoc on my body. And I decided that I was going to save up some money and take the summer off. And I ended up quitting Spotify with pretty much no backup plan, which as someone that had always been a straight A student and I went to University of Michigan, which is, you know, it's a tough school. I had spent so many years pushing myself and this perfectionism that, yeah, it just kind of all, it all came to a head and taking that leap of faith was a real character change for me because I had always planned everything so far ahead for myself, but I knew I needed to do it. And so that's what I ended up doing. And it didn't last very long because I'm kind of restless at the same time. And as you can tell, very creative. So shortly after I quit, I had a friend that I'd worked at Hinge with who she was starting her own business and she needed some design help. She asked if I would freelance. I thought, OK, yeah, why not? I've got the free time. really inspired by design again and fell back in love with it. And I just knew I had tapped into something that was really going to work for me. So I decided at that point, you know, a few months in that I was going to go all in on freelancing. So I filed for an LLC and have not looked back. And I've been doing it for three years now.
SPEAKER_00:There's so many things there about your journey that I just really appreciate and I can resonate with quite deeply. Lance has heard me vent to him for the last Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I had just been a perfectionist my entire life. Once I was at Spotify and the pandemic hit and everybody was isolated, I was in New York City at the time, which it seems like was a very different version of the pandemic and isolation because I live in California now and everybody has a car. I can't imagine having a car during the pandemic. That sounds like such a luxury. I was literally trapped in an apartment for months and months and months. So I really had to face myself during my time at Spotify. And it was... It was also a really weird experience to go from my time at Hinge, where I was one of three designers at any given point in time. It was a very small design team. And then I went to Spotify where I was one of hundreds of designers. So not only did I kind of lose all the work relationships I'd had by making that switch, I also lost all the impact that I had too. So that was part of it and plus the isolation and it just all reached a point where I was like, I think I'm really burnt out. I don't want to get out of bed. This isn't good. I was never like this before. I love designing. Why do I hate it right now? So I just needed to I needed to acknowledge it too, which was a big part of healing.
SPEAKER_00:So on your path to recovery, if you don't mind sharing, what were some of the elements to recover? Obviously you talked about the freelance thing that feels like a big part of it, but was that solely it? Was there more to that? And this isn't really where I was planning to go, but this is such an important thing. I've had so many colleagues who are facing or have faced burnout. I have in the past, and I just think it resonates with a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02:It definitely does. It's a huge topic right now for sure, because so many people are experiencing it whether they're in corporate jobs or they're unemployed because UX design, the job market right now is pretty tough. So there's tons of burnout. I'm happy to talk about it. The things that helped me were definitely taking a break, although that is a luxury. I was able to afford that because I had a great job and I was able to save up the money. But aside from that, I ended up going to yoga every day for about two months And that had a crazy experience on my neck pain. And I think a lot of it was I had spent so much time as designers and people that work in tech were hunched over all day, right?
SPEAKER_00:I've had chronic neck pain for five years, so I'm
SPEAKER_02:resonating very much with what you're saying. strengthened all of these muscles that had just never really been strengthened before. And I also learned how to meditate and just sit still for a second. It's not something I do all the time. It's more now integrated into just my being and having some calmness to myself. But that really helped for sure. And then I think also a big part was recognizing that I was unhappy with the culture that I was working in. No shade to Spotify. It was actually a wonderful company to work for. I just really don't like meetings. And it was all meetings. And I think a lot of corporate designers can resonate with that, that it feels like you're in meetings to plan other meetings. And then when are you supposed to design? And yeah, it was just getting out of that environment was also very helpful and therapy. and therapy. I got to mention that because I did end up going to therapy and that had a huge impact too.
SPEAKER_00:All those elements are so important. It's physically taking care of yourself, finding out what type of work is actually impactful, taking a break, therapy. Yeah, I resonate so deeply with all of those. Thank you for sharing that. You touched earlier on A lot of people are dealing with burnout because of a shift in the market. Lance and I have talked about this over the last couple of years and on the podcast over the last year. What have you seen with UX designers and product designers in the tech marketplace since you've been doing freelance? Yeah, I'm sure you've been watching this very closely.
SPEAKER_02:I definitely have. It's been a huge shift. When I was working at Hinge and Spotify, I was really lucky because that was a time when product designers, there weren't as many of us and companies didn't really have the upper hand. It was more the product designers that had the upper hand. So I got recruited to both of those jobs and I didn't have to do a lot of outreach or applications and interviews and things like that. And things have totally shifted to the complete other side. So now the companies have all of the leverage and the UX designers are the ones that are kind of struggling to find the jobs. And I think there's a handful of reasons for that. I would say, One of them is that there's all of these bootcamps now for UX design, which I think is great. I went to a bootcamp, so no shade to bootcamps, but it means that there's just a lot more talent now. Whereas when I was entering the field, I didn't even know product design existed until after I graduated college. There weren't any classes at Michigan at the time in UX. So I got in very early. So now we're seeing a lot of bootcamps coming up, a lot of new talent, and that's a beautiful thing. But at the same time, we're seeing also a lot of layoffs from these big tech companies, which means there's not only a lot of new talent, there's also a lot of experienced talent and they're all looking for jobs. So now companies have the upper hand and it's made for A really tough job market for a lot of designers out there. And it's a big reason why I've been talking a lot more lately about freelance design, because when big tech companies or any company goes through a layoff, they still have design needs. They still need to get things done and improve their product, especially if they have investors, because they're going to want to continue to see a return on that investment. So who are they going to go to? They're going to go to contract designers. They're going to go to people that are a fraction of the price that they don't have to pay benefits for. and they can still get the work done. So I think that now that there is such a shift with the job market, it's a better time than ever to get into freelance.
SPEAKER_00:You've been talking about yourself as a freelance designer and you mentioned fractional. How do you see that as different or do you see it as different? Kind of where does that fit in?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I feel like it's somewhere in the middle. I say freelancer because it's good marketing. It's what people understand. It's easy to just get when someone says they're a freelancer. There's not a ton of explanation there. In terms of fractional, that is basically what I do. I do offer my services. People buy a fraction of my time to work with them. So it's somewhere in between. But similar to saying subscription designer, the word subscription, people just get it. They're like, oh, I pay once a month and I get whatever I need from that. So I don't have to explain too much. And that to me was a big change when I switched to subscription because it made it a lot easier to sell to people in my discovery calls because I didn't have to explain too much. It was just, hey, I'm a subscription designer, flat monthly fee. And they're like, oh, okay, cool. They kind of just got it right away.
SPEAKER_01:I'm really curious as a freelancer, as an independent, I heard you say the word unlimited earlier, but I also hear you talking about burnout and I'm thinking about how do you strike a balance there, right? You're giving a tremendous value to your customer and saying, I'll do whatever. But then you have to protect yourself because you want to continue to have a life. How do you balance the concept of unlimited design with taking care of yourself?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. This is the number one question that I get asked by other designers who are interested in the subscription model. And it's so valid. It is obviously top of mind. As somebody who's gone through burnout, why would you offer unlimited designs? So I think for me, through the experience of burnout and therapy and working on myself, I realized that I have a And so it's been a big shift for me to learn how to communicate better and establish boundaries and to set expectations. And so when it comes to a subscription model, that is the perfect place to practice. So I've learned so much about how to be a great communicator and how to set those expectations from the get-go. So the first thing I do is I make sure that all my contracts are clearly state that I offer two to three day turnaround times for small requests and five to seven for larger requests. And I tell my potential clients that in our discovery calls, I reiterate that in the proposal that I send and then in the contract too. So they're signing to that. They know that. And so that just kind of sets the ground. That's the framework that we're working with. And then There are some weeks where a client will have a ton of requests, you know, way more than usual, and it can feel overwhelming at first. But what I've found to work really well is I'll say to them, great, seems like we've got a lot this week. Can you please list out the order of priorities so that I know what to work on first and then second and then third? And then that not only helps me know what I need to get done right away, but it also calms them because they're As many of us know, when we make lists, that calms our mind, right? Just writing down what we need to get done is helpful. So it's a good exercise for them too. And it's just helpful overall because it sets that expectation that I am a human at the end of the day. I can only do what's humanly possible, which means I can only physically work on one thing at a time. So let's help each other. You can feel a little bit calmer by making this list and I can feel a little bit calmer by knowing what's top priority, second priority, and so on.
SPEAKER_00:I'm curious with this model of doing subscription, how do you answer the inevitable pushback about hourly rates? I'm sure that's come up many times. How do you kind of walk through that? Or if someone says, two part, if someone says like, how many hours a week are you spending on my work? Like, how do you walk through that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So the hourly rates doesn't really come up for me that much anymore, just because I'm so focused. I've just leaned in so much to the subscription design concept that when people do ask if I'll do a small project on the side for just a couple hours, at this point, the answer is no from me. I am not really interested in those types of projects. I want to dedicate all of my time to the subscription clients that I have. So there was a point where I was kind of doing both, but then I just reached a point where I just wasn't enjoying the hourly stuff. And I decided to just fully focus on my subscription clients. So the answer for me when that comes up is, sorry, I'm probably not the right designer for you, but here's some others that are great. And then the other question, it definitely comes up. And my answer to them is, it sounds like what you're wanting to know is if I will have enough time to dedicate to your project. And the answer is certainly yes. I cap myself at a certain amount of clients that I'm willing to take on per month because I Delivering really high quality design work for me is the most important thing. So I'm not the kind of designer that's going to take on as many clients as possible to make as much monthly income as I can. That's not my strategy. My strategy is to create and deliver designs that you're really proud of. So I can assure you your designs will be awesome and you'll feel really excited about it and they'll be done in a timely manner.
SPEAKER_00:Something that we talked about in our our chat ahead of time that really resonated with me is at larger corporations so i'm going to make a statement then you can respond however you want at larger corporations oftentimes designers lose a lot of time because of all the meetings and all the uncertainty and really they're not spending 40 hours a week actually making impactful design so in your head you're How do you, do you ever walk clients through the difference with what you're doing? And if so, what does that difference look like when you're working with a client in the subscription model versus if you were full-time at a big company again?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a great question. So I think my answer to that is that I only allow one meeting per week with my clients, 60 minutes each. video call. And if they do want to book more meetings with me, it's$200 an hour. So it's not really like an extra fee. It's an optional fee if they want to do that. But no one's really ever needed to take that. And that's because of all of these meetings and these bigger companies and how slow everything ends up being. Because why would you wait three days for your next meeting when you could just be talking on Slack and you could just be sharing screenshots and moving everything along. And I also use Loom. So I'll record a prototype or something and talk through it using Loom. And I'll share that video with my clients. So that's how I really get them to understand, you know, look, if I was working full time and this was a giant corporation, we would be spending, Probably half of our time just talking about the designs rather than me actually getting to design. So this speeds everything up. This is way more efficient. And they're usually totally on board with that. And you know, one meeting a week is more than enough. I also do offer one brainstorm a month. So, you know, they'll take on that as well. And yeah, it ends up being very, very sufficient to getting things done.
SPEAKER_00:I want to just harp on the meeting thing for a minute because as a creator, a person doing something, I've often seen folks like me, if you have even a couple of meetings in a day, sometimes even one meeting in a day, it's like your day is just completely cut in half. And your time does not truly feel like your own because maybe you want to go on a little run in the middle of the day. Like maybe that's how your brain works. And if you are beholden to a schedule, eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours along, it's really hard to be a great designer. And what you've given yourself is an avenue theoretically out of that. And that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. And also something that I do, because to your point, Being a designer or being anybody in a creative field, or even if you're somebody that you spend most of your day in spreadsheets and you need to think of equations. I mean, anything that takes deep focus requires big chunks of time. And I think that's what gets lost in a bigger company is respect for that talent and that creativity and the time it takes to do great work and create high quality designs. So something that I do is I block off my Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't take meetings. I've taken this meeting because it's very exciting for me, but usually I'm spending all Tuesday and all Thursday designing heads down. And very rarely something will come up with a client and they might need to reschedule. And if that's the case, I'll try to push it to Wednesday or Friday. Sometimes it has to be Tuesday or Thursday, and I'm not trying to be inflexible here, but I preserve those times and I really cherish them. And I find them incredibly important because I don't think I could be a freelancer with unlimited designs if I offered unlimited meetings and I didn't schedule that time for myself.
SPEAKER_01:And this is why we have people working 70, 80 hours a week, because it does take, I mean, so for me, I don't, I mean, I'm a creative person. The role I fill isn't necessarily a traditionally creative role, but it is. I manage a lot of sensitive situations, a lot of relationship dynamics in an organization, a lot of cultural elements. And those also require a lot of focused brainwork time. But my calendar can be so quickly overrun with meetings that I see why it takes... Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_02:And I also think with the remote world where there are people that think more meetings is better because it means more FaceTime with people. And I think in that case, you've just got to get your social fix elsewhere because that's not going to be helpful for the company. More meetings is not helpful in my experience. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm so resonating with that. I've had colleagues that I could tell they wanted deeply for their work team to be their social team and to be their friends. And that is a wonderful thing. It is not a bad thing at all. And that's that human desire for connection. But for me, I'm at a point in my life where I have that outside of work. I've got my family, my friends, my social group, and work is the thing that I'm doing now. Because I do enjoy it because that is my like area of expertise, but I don't, I'm happy when social stuff comes out of work, but it's not the requirement for me. I don't seek it specifically. And I think that's the switch that you've realized for yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure. And I'm not going to lie. Being a freelancer can be very isolating. You know, I work remote and I work from home, but it's what you make of it. I am a very social person. So I go to a coworking spot and I go to cafes and I work with my other So I really try to lean into the fact that I can work from anywhere and I try not to stay in my apartment as much as I can on a gray, rainy day. Yeah, that's really nice, but not day after day. I think I would go crazy.
SPEAKER_01:I'm guessing you don't get a lot of those in San Diego.
SPEAKER_02:Actually, we have something called May Gray and June Gloom. So it has been nonstop gray for a month. Oh,
SPEAKER_01:I guess we're not the only ones. Idaho
SPEAKER_00:has been a little brutal, but I just talked to someone in Austin, so I'm glad I'm not there right now because that's not horrible. I'm curious, who would you say that what you're... The type of work you're doing is, I'm guessing, is not for everybody. Who would you say it's good for? I'll kind of blend this into what are the pros and cons of what you do, because that'll probably give some thoughts. If someone's considering this type of work, yeah, take it away wherever you want to go with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So in terms of the client side, it's great for tech startups, early stage tech startups. Those are my main clients. They're usually first time founders, sometimes second. But it's really good for somebody like that because creating a product, especially a product from scratch, is such a fluid process and it requires a lot of pivoting. And I think the sign of a really successful entrepreneur is somebody that's willing to pivot. And so that's why a subscription works amazing. Because imagine that you were creating a product and you got two months in, you've been tracking hours with the designer, you'd already paid for, let's say, I don't know, 100 hours or something like that. And you get some user feedback that makes you have to change everything. So now all those hours that you've spent It means nothing. And you'll have to then budget for more hours. Whereas with a subscription designer, you've been paying for unlimited designs all along. It doesn't feel as much of like a wasted cost. And you know that in that month, let's say you find out the beginning of the month that you need to change everything. You've already paid for unlimited amounts of design going forward. So you can just make that switch. You don't have to then calculate, oh, how much budget do I have for this? You know exactly what you're going to be paying to make it. make that switch. So I think it's really, really great to pivot and to be fluid in the process because inevitably you will be. You're gonna get user feedback back that says, hmm, this feature you thought would be great, no one's using.
SPEAKER_00:Or- It happens 100% of the time. Yep,
SPEAKER_02:exactly.
SPEAKER_01:How much of this do you think is a mindset shift or training of the customer to not assign value to hours? Because like you just said, right? Like I just burned a hundred hours on something that doesn't work. And now I've got to think about how many hours I have in the future, like how valuable is an hour to a founder?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. I think it is definitely some education and a mindset shift for sure for them because we really place a lot of emphasis on this hourly rate because it's kind of all we know. The subscription model is pretty recent. I didn't find out about it until I saw Brett Williams doing it with Design Joy. That was the first time I came across it. And he's kind of, I don't know if he's the person that's started it, but he's certainly popularized it. And he's been doing amazing and he's been really upfront about how successful it's been for him. So, you know, that's only been in the last year or two. I think it's going to take some educating and some mindset shifting for clients to realize that this is this is the way, you know, if you're if you're a tech founder, this is probably what you want to be doing. The hourly rates just don't work, especially for they don't work for anybody involved, really, because as a designer, the better you The better you get at doing something, the quicker you do it. So you're not incentivized to work quickly with an hourly rate. And that's not really great for a client either because they want the most for their money. But if you're hiring an hourly designer, you're not really incentivizing them to work quickly. So it just doesn't really work for anybody.
SPEAKER_01:If I take longer to do this, should I charge you more? Is the question, right? That comes up. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've had situations where for$1,000, I helped someone get an entire idea off the ground. And afterward, I was like, I'm glad I did that. But if I hadn't charged hourly, that was probably a$10,000 project there. And you have this moment where... You kind of struggle with that. And this subscription model kind of dances through that in a way that can work for everybody. I'm curious, are there types of designers you've met where you would advise them maybe to not do a subscription model? Who do you think this works well for or maybe who it doesn't?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think for anything that's just only brand design, because there's a final deliverable, it doesn't really work that well. I think that designs that are a little bit more open ended and ongoing and never really reach a stopping point. You know, when you create a product, you're always going to be improving that and you're always going to be involved evolving that. That's a really great. way to use the subscription model. But brand design, I think that's a lot better as maybe a packaged price. That's what I've seen a lot of brand designers do. So I don't know if subscription would work so well for that, just because there is a final point there.
SPEAKER_00:That's a great point with UI, UX design, or product design. The goal is to be tinkering and improving based on feedback from users or data, right? Which means there are diminishing returns where you'll stop and go work on something else. But in general, If the company is going to continue to survive, there's work to do to keep tweaking and iterating indefinitely.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. And that's really the heart and soul of a good product is if you are continuing to improve. And so that alone creates a really nice feeling for my financial stability. So if I lose one client, I still have others. I'm okay there.
SPEAKER_00:That's not 100% of your income.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. And I think we're seeing now in the job market with all these layoffs that having a stable career is subjective nowadays. Maybe a stable career is not what we once thought it was. Maybe it is freelancing. Maybe freelancing is more stable than full-time employment. It certainly is for me. So I feel good about that. The other pro is that I do get to work from anywhere, everywhere, all the time. And I love that because I've always been a little bit introverted and I've also always been a little bit rebellious. So I didn't really love going into an office all day, every day of the week, because I would finish work early and I might want to go and like you said go work out or you know just take some time for myself go on a walk or things like that and there's so many eyes on you when you're when you're in an office and you're in kind of that company setting and it just didn't really work for me I didn't love that and also I I've never loved authority. So it's really good to be a freelancer because I run my own business. I decide my rates. I decide the projects I want to take on. And you're always going to have a boss. My clients are my boss, and I respect that. That's authority that I respect because it's a mutual agreement there. So that just works really, really well for my personality type. I would say the con... There's very few cons that I've come across so far, but the biggest con I think for me is I haven't quite mastered vacations yet. And it's one of those things where I now live in San Diego. It's mostly sunny. There's palm trees. I get to work from anywhere. So I don't feel the need to take vacations as much as I used to. So kind of a double-edged sword or Yeah, it's not as much of a need, although I do think it's something I need to figure out for sure. And I haven't quite mastered that yet.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. If you value autonomy and have a rebellious streak, this is far better than maybe having a manager that doesn't get that and doesn't appreciate that. That can be a challenge. And to be candid, I have in normal W-2 jobs, there have been times where I've had managers who understood that about me because I very much resonate and we worked fantastically well together. I've had some managers that did not get that and one of us parted ways with the other shortly thereafter. It just doesn't work very well. And also- I used to be quieter when I was in my 20s. I'm not in my 20s anymore. I have I have stronger opinions or at least opinions that I'm willing to share more readily.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Climbing the corporate ladder was never, never interesting to me. I don't love the politics of doing that. And I just I never loved the idea that somebody else determined my worth. It's my talent. It's my creativity. And I should be able to decide what that's worth for myself and whether or not people pay for it. That's really the only two things that matter.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Find a higher bidder. Find someone who will pay you more. Yeah, exactly. Go for it. Love it. Those
SPEAKER_00:lovely salary bands.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, it's funny because towards the end of my time at Hinge, I really wanted to reach a certain salary band and just had some issues getting there. And when I moved to Spotify, just in making that switch alone, I made$35,000 more. So definitely worth making the switch.
SPEAKER_01:I'm curious... We talked about some of the pros and cons. You also talked a little bit about having to do some self-reflection and self-growth. Now being a freelancer, a lot of the practices that you have to employ as a business owner, as a peer with founders, because you're also running your own organization. What are some of the big growth moments, big takeaways for you as a person?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. There's honestly been such a trickle-down effect with that growth. I think the biggest is getting comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. Because even your favorite clients, even the best ones you could ever have, you will have to have an uncomfortable conversation with. It's inevitable. You'll have to say something like, hey, you've been slacking me at 7 p.m. a couple times a week pretty frequently, but I only work till 5. So... If you want me to respond right away, I work nine to five, feel free to message me then. And that can be uncomfortable for a lot of people. It certainly was for me when I first started. It's tough to put boundaries in place and it's really tough to uphold them. So being able to do that has had a really great impact on me, not just in my business, but also in my personal relationships. I don't shy away from having uncomfortable conversations anymore. And if somebody is doing something that I continue to feel like it's bugging me. Instead of letting it fester and ignoring the problem or ghosting the friendship or all these kind of immature strategies I used to take, I now just calmly say to them, hey, can I talk to you about something that's been on my mind? It's not making me feel very good. And usually people, they get curious. They're like, yeah, what did I do? What's up? Let me know. And you can just have that calm conversation. So Yeah, I think the quicker you can get comfortable with being uncomfortable, you're going to have a lot more success.
SPEAKER_00:And the growth with the autonomy where your worth is not determined by someone else who doesn't even really know you. You have your own determined self-worth. And I'm not talking money at this point. I'm talking your value as a person, right? You start to recognize that. So we're talking to you today about this. I'm curious, if we were talking again in two years... And you're telling us just how happy you are. What has maybe changed in your life where you would say like you're in a really great place or maybe nothing's changed? Like another way of asking, where are things going from here?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, things are going in, I think, two different directions that are under the same business. But I think on the one side, I would love to expand my service, maybe hire some other designers, be a little bit more of an agency. I think that could be really fun. I have had a little bit of experience working with contractors, like a social media manager, things like that. And I really love having somebody that helps out and I love taking on that leadership role. So I'd love to move more into that side because I've found that being a CEO is a creative act in itself. And thinking through business strategies and where I want to take the business and what creative ways can I think through my business, that to me is really fulfilling. So being able to move more into that leadership role would be really exciting. And then on the other side, I've gotten so, so many younger designers or just designers that were like me. They were working in corporate and wanted to go freelance. And they've been reaching out to me a ton. And I think that there's a lot of good I could do there by speaking directly to them as well and trying to offer help there. So maybe that's a book that I end up writing. I've got I've had one for a while that I think could be more just fun, but a young adult novel about my time working at Hinge, creating Hinge while also using Hinge in New York City, kind of set in a fun rom-com type of way. I think that would be more just for fun. But maybe I also write a book more on a biographical about how I got into freelance or some kind of course.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just curious, have you read any books from Laura Vanderkam?
SPEAKER_02:No, I got to write that down.
SPEAKER_00:So she has a book called Juliet's School of Possibilities, which is a novel about someone who's burnt out. And so she turned it into a story. Instead of it being nonfiction, she writes it fiction. And then there's, have you heard of The Unicorn Project?
SPEAKER_02:No, I haven't.
SPEAKER_00:It's another novel about a project manager in a startup or in a company that's It's going south, it's failing, and they're trying to turn it around. And both these books have been so fantastic for conveying these ideas that we really care about, but in a fiction way. So when you describe that, I'm like, I would love to read that book because there's something about when it's fiction that you just kind of, oh, you pause for a minute. It doesn't feel like some LinkedIn post. I make them myself, so I'm guilty. It feels like a story, right? That resonates. So that sounds like such a fun idea. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it would be really fun to write because I, as you can imagine, had a lot of crazy moments during my Hinge days. It was a wild time. It was very work hard, party hard in the best way.
SPEAKER_00:One of my closest designer friends that I have worked with used to work at another popular mobile dating app and just shared some interesting stories as well. So I imagine there's some similarities.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Definitely a lot of horror stories for sure in terms of dating, but great user feedback.
SPEAKER_00:As you're building this company, I guess kind of the final question for me, we touched on this idea of passive income. Where do you see that happening? Is it some of the things you just talked about? Is it something else? Is that important to you? Where does that all fit into right now you're doing client work, but you're trying to figure out where passive income fits in?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I very much am trying to figure out where passive income fits in. I think right now, the idea of creating some kind of digital download, whether that is a course for other freelancers and people that want to get into freelancing or an ebook or something like that, I do want to find that strategy. Because as much as I love service work and I love designing, I am getting older and I am really loving the CEO title, as I mentioned before. And so I kind of do want to move away from the service work and more into that role. So I think finding some more passive income would be a good strategy. So yeah, I see it probably as helping out other designers and then also having some designers that help me out on the client side.
SPEAKER_00:In the show notes, you had this comment. If you're giving advice to someone else, I'd love if you could share that about confidence and not being nervous. How would you talk to someone else who's interested in this? Because I think that mental wellness journey is so critical outside of all the tips and tricks, which are incredibly valuable as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I think when it comes to your sales calls and landing clients, it really all comes down to how you present yourself. If you come onto the call in a dimly lit room and your hair's a mess and you look like you kind of forgot that the call was happening, but you're here now, that's not going to land your client, most likely. When I have searched for designers in the past to help me out with things, I've had calls like that. And all I can think the whole time is I really want to get off this call because I know that this was not a great start. And that's really distracting. So you want to just baseline set yourself up in a great environment. It doesn't need to be this beautiful Instagram background or something like that, but at least have some good lighting and look presentable. So that's the baseline. And then on top of that, you want to be confident because the way that you enter that call really sets the tone for how they're going to imagine working with you feels. And that's what you're trying to sell. Because at that point, they've most likely seen your portfolio. They've seen your work. They know what you're capable of. They know what your work looks like. So it's really all about selling, okay, this is what it feels like to work with me. And so something that I try to lean into is my personality. I can really have a bubbly personality at times. And so I try to bring that to the table. I try not to hold that back. And that ends up being what people really enjoy about those calls is because they know, oh my gosh, if I worked with this girl, she's going to be fun. We're going to have a great time creating this awesome product. So I would say lean into that. And if you're coming on the call and you're really shy and you're really nervous, then they're going to be nervous about hiring you. So you just want to give what you want to get is what I would say. I
SPEAKER_00:love that. And I'm laughing because I came on this call all like crazy and everything. And when I have had to have interviews in the past or talk to clients, yeah, I line up my camera against the background. I make sure that I maybe have a color shirt on. I do like I bring up energy and projection that maybe isn't what I normally am comfortable with. But I know that confidence is really important for them to feel back to me so that they know that I've got them. And we touched on this earlier in the call that we had last week where that I just appreciated that you're letting these other CEOs and founders who are terrified, they're scared, they're struggling, you're letting them know, hey, this area of your business is I've got you. You're going to be okay. I'm going to hold your hand through this. And that's often what they're paying for.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's a big part of what I also try to bring to the table when I am in a discovery call with a potential client is I try to make them feel like, look, I've gone through this before. I've worked with so many CEOs and founders at this point. I know the patterns. I know that right before you hit launch, you're going to want to scrap the whole app and start from scratch. I've seen it all. I know what to expect. So come with me. I've got you under my wing. We're going to be okay. I'll be there. You know, it's going to work out.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Lance, any final questions before we wrap up here?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, what you're saying, I totally resonate with that as well. And some of my successful experiences conversions. It's exactly what you just described, right? People are really in a panic, like struggling. And when you say like, I'm going to take this off of your mind, it's just, you can see the relief and you know, you've got the sale. It's so great. It's such a great feeling. I just, I wanted to call out that this is such a seldom talked about part of the funnel on our show, at least. Like last week we had the great Heather Corallo talking about finding customers. And we talked a lot about at the top broadest part of that funnel, but as it comes down here more into the middle where you're starting to have those conversations, like this is such valuable advice to somebody. Cause it's terrifying when you're a contributor and you're a designer or you're anything that's been a contributor. And you say, I don't know how to do sales. Like I'm not a sales person, but when you realize like, A lot of this is just human relationships and how to give that value. So yeah, thanks for bringing that out, Julia. That was like really helpful, I think, for our audience.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think that's an interesting take that you just presented as well, because I do get a lot of those questions of how do you find new clients? And I think if you change the wording of how do you land new clients, then we start to get into the real problems here, right? Why aren't you landing clients? Let's say you reached out to 50 people and all 50 wanted to set up a call with you. What then? Are you prepared? Do you have the confidence? Do you feel like you're capable of landing them? That's really where it starts. That's the mindset shift that you have to have. You have to feel capable and you have to believe in yourself first. And it might sound cheesy or cliche, but it really is true. It really is. I
SPEAKER_00:love that. Where can people find out more about you? And we'll include any links in the show notes. But yeah, if someone wants to follow more of what you're sharing, where do they find you?
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. Yeah. So Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, all just my first and last name, Julia Chesbrough, J-U-L-I-A-C-H-E-S-B-R-O-U-G-H. And then my website, JuliaChesbrough.com.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect. We'll make sure to include that. And I saw, I think your first newsletter go out this week. So that was awesome. That probably felt really good. It
SPEAKER_02:felt really good. Yeah. It's very exciting. So I'm planning on doing those once a month and yeah, sharing all my tips and tricks.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for your time. And if anyone, yes, no, it's been so great. And I resonate with so much of this. Just wrapping up email at fractional.fm. If you have any feedback for us, reach out to Julia, if you want to connect with her and thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you guys. Thank you.
UNKNOWN:Thank you.
