Sunday Letters- April 7, 2025

Weekly updates on design work and behind the scenes of building my design studio

In the last edition, I talked about the future of a small design agency/studio and what are the paths of growth that lay ahead and my dilemma regarding working with local clients or taking a jump with content to attract clients from different niches.

The answer for me was actually very simple — What is the North Star? The North Star of all of my work is freedom — of creativity, from money, of location, from people, and of ideas. Thats the title of this edition as well.

And this would only be possible if I am able to grow my content, reach more people, create better work — not by being a marketing agency for local clients in my city. This would be great for business but would tie me down geographically, and that's why I have reduced my workload and have started declining work that does not align with it. (It's hard.)

Next step — I made the mistake of outsourcing early in content. I should not have done that. I should have mastered everything myself first, then outsourced if necessary, because it's my ideas and work, and I should be the one packing them into stories on video. This also reduced the burn rate, which made me more comfortable with any content not doing well, because now I am controlling and doing it end to end, and I can keep doing it because it does not cost me a thing. The time horizon of making it work and figuring it out is till death.

Networking — I am going to local events to meet people working on interesting things and also looking to host something myself in summer. I live in Ottawa, Canada, and most of the great events happen either in Toronto or in Montreal, which is not ideal. I want to build a community of like-minded people who can work and collaborate locally. I have something in plan, but they are in idea stage and not in reality as of now. This leads to thinking about a very interesting question about decision-making — What do you consider as a distraction, and what should you categorize as an opportunity?

If I get into the space of building a community, then am I diluting my focus from design work, or is this an opportunity where I can then collaborate with other people working on interesting works? Time will tell but the question is to do it or not to do ?

Lastly, I have realised that I started this blog to write about design, but this actually helps me write about growing the business of design, and writing these helps me make decisions better. And that's why I will be writing other ideas as well that could use some clarity provided by writing — on Branding, Ecom/DTC, business, tech, AI, etc. I will not send them on the email list, but they will be available to read on Substack. Email list and Sundays will be only for design case studies, studio updates, and growing design business.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.