Nick's first freelance invoice was for six hundred euros, quoted with a straight face, even though he half expected the client to talk him down.In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick dedicate the full conversation to the business side of freelancing, the part that never makes it into a portfolio case study. Nick walks through how he landed his first clients without ever doing cold outreach, why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down, and the pricing structures he actually uses: fifty-fifty splits, milestone billing, and prepaid hour packages.They also get into the financial mechanics most new freelancers never think about, like paying yourself a fixed monthly salary regardless of what comes in, setting aside fifty percent for taxes, and building a six-to-eight-month buffer before you can call yourself safe. Nick closes out with the exact tech stack he runs his business on, and why he's kept it deliberately boring.In this episode you will learn:🔸 How Nick landed his first freelance clients without ever doing cold outreach🔸 Why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down to SMBs and early-stage startups🔸 The pricing structures that actually work: fifty-fifty splits, milestones, and prepaid hour packages🔸 How to quote your first project when you have zero pricing reference point🔸 Why Nick pays himself a fixed monthly salary and sets aside fifty percent for taxes🔸 How big your buffer should really be before you can call yourself a safe freelancer🔸 The exact, deliberately boring tech stack Nick runs his freelance business onSubscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribeResources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-auditDownload the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprintJoin our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-communityIn need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learnMore about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
Nick's biggest newsletter open rate was fifty percent when his list was small. Now that it's grown, he's happy with thirty, and neither of them can fully explain why.In this quick-fire episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick answer a stack of rapid questions on product design and careers, each in under five minutes. They cover why email and newsletter design remains such an underrated skill, why designers keep leaving the field entirely to open restaurants and ninja warrior gyms, and how AI has shifted the job from pushing pixels to writing planning documents and doing discovery work.They also debate the statement "AI has made me faster but less proud of what I create," argue over whether job titles actually matter, and swap their favorite misconceptions people have about product design, before Tyler explains why he's stopped justifying his design decisions to stakeholders altogether.In this episode you will learn:🔸 Why email design is underrated, and how newsletter design differs for personal brands versus enterprise brands🔸 What it means when your open rate drops as your list grows, and why click-through rate might matter more🔸 Why some designers are leaving tech entirely to open restaurants and gyms, and what carries over with them🔸 How AI has shifted design work from pushing pixels to planning and discovery🔸 Whether "AI made me faster but less proud of what I create" is a fair trade🔸 Why job titles matter more for a freelancer's SEO than for an in-house designer's ego🔸 Why Tyler doesn't explain his design decisions unless he's pushed on it, and why that worksSubscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribeResources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-auditDownload the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprintJoin our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-communityIn need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learnMore about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
Nick's first freelance client paid him fifty dollars an hour. He said 'yes' before he knew what the market rate was, and it turned out to be exactly the right way to find out.In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick spend the whole episode on money, salaries, hourly rates, and how you should ask for more. Tyler walks through the salary research tool that showed him his entire possible career path and the forty thousand dollar salary he thought he would happily live on forever. Nick breaks down the raise that took him from 2500 EUR/month to 4000 EUR/month, and the freelance pricing strategy that pushed his average hourly rate from 50 USD up past 95 USD just by raising the number with every new client until the rejections started piling up.They also get into the LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither of them will turn it on, the case for and against salary transparency laws, and the three times revenue framework Tyler uses to justify asking for a raise with actual numbers instead of a feeling.In this episode you will learn:🔸 The salary research tool that mapped out an entire career path before Tyler ever got a job🔸 Why having a job already makes salary negotiation dramatically easier🔸 The real reason job hoppers usually out earn people who stay in one role🔸 Why neither host will turn on the LinkedIn open to work banner🔸 The three times revenue framework for justifying a raise with numbers, not feelings🔸 How Nick raised his freelance hourly rate from fifty dollars to ninety five using rejection rate as a signal 🔸 What actually happens once salary transparency becomes required by lawChapters:0:00 Deciding to make an entire episode about money1:18 What this episode will cover, salary and hourly rate negotiation1:40 Tylers early mindset, just wanting to make forty thousand a year doing art2:48 The salary tool that mapped out an entire career path4:04 Whether the tool actually matched reality4:44 The three times revenue framework for what an employee should be worth5:15 Why it depends factors make salary numbers online unreliable6:30 Why job hoppers usually out earn people who stay put7:24 Why having a job already makes negotiating easier8:00 The LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither host uses it9:26 Saying you have other interviews lined up, even when you do not 10:21 Nicks raise from a hundred euros a month to eight hundred11:43 Going from twenty five hundred to four thousand euros a month 12:58 Using Glassdoor to benchmark a salary band before applying 13:26 The new salary transparency law and whether it helps employees 14:46 Why recruiters get more cautious once salaries are public16:14 A friend who threatened to quit over a pay gap and won17:16 The three times revenue framework for asking for a raise18:33 The one caveat before you push for more money19:06 How Nick started freelancing at fifty dollars an hour20:27 Raising the rate with every new client until rejections start21:41 Using rejection rate as the signal that you found your ceiling22:08 Saying yes to everything at first, then learning to say no23:59 Final thoughts on treating money like part of the craftSubscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribeResources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-auditDownload the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprintJoin our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-communityIn need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learnMore about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
In 2015, Nick drove to an interview in his moms car. Three minutes in, the hiring manager told him he would never make it as a designer. 10 Years later, he loses his product design job over Christmas. And that's just the start...In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick share the worst moments of their careers so far. Nick gets torn apart in his first ever interview, prints a batch of flyers that come back the wrong color (because nobody told him about RGB and CMYK), and takes on a small favor for a client that turns into a project so big it costs him two clients.In the meantime, Tyler gets thrown into a print job with zero training, discovers his own company was quietly interviewing outside UX agencies behind his back, and gets let go about a month later. Nick turns down a request to fly to Asia for work, gets let go over the Christmas break, and finds out because nobody bothered to tell him.They weren't bad at their job (is what they're telling each other). Sometimes it is just not the right fit, for either side, and the only way to find that out is to live through it.In this episode you will learn:🔸 Why RGB and CMYK color spaces catch almost every designer off guard the first time they print something🔸 The scope creep mistake that can cost a freelancer a client, or two🔸 How to notice the warning signs that a company is quietly replacing you🔸 Why a job can end without anyone telling you directly🔸 The real lesson buried in every one of these stories, that not being a fit is not the same as not being goodChapters:0:00 Setting up the horror stories episode0:39 Nicks first ever interview goes wrong in three minutes3:01 The shock of an early career rejection4:01 Tyler gets thrown into a print job with zero training5:52 Tyler admits he still cant do print design today6:46 Why the founders had no budget for a second designer7:00 The flyers that printed orange instead of pink9:28 The lesson that stuck for over ten years9:51 Tylers packaging design job with no test prints allowed11:20 Judging a print run from a blurry iPhone photo12:06 Why print has no undo button13:16 A small client favor that turns into a scope creep disaster15:09 Losing two clients over one miscommunication16:02 The lesson on asking more questions before agreeing to scope 17:01 Why the client relationship has to go both ways18:37 Tyler discovers his company is secretly interviewing outside UX agencies19:35 Finding out through a leaked calendar21:44 Confronting his manager about it directly22:55 Being let go about a month later23:21 Layoffs lining up with review and budget season24:39 Nicks story, turning down a work trip to Asia26:26 Coming back from Christmas break to total silence26:52 Finding out he was let go through a different manager entirely 28:18 The real takeaway, horror stories are what build great designers 29:29 Final takeaway, not being a fit goes both waysSubscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribeResources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-auditDownload the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprintJoin our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-communityIn need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learnMore about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
You can master every product design AI tool that exists and still get overruled in the meeting that matters most. That's because tools matter way less than what you read online. There are way more important things to learn if you want to make it as a modern-day product designer.In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick lay out the four skills they think actually separate strong product designers from everyone else. It's inspired partly by Josh Puckett's Interface Craft course, and partly by more than a decade of getting these wrong themselves. Conceptual range. Conceptual depth. Tool mastery. And selling your ideas to people who did not ask for them.They dig into why going wide before going narrow is the step most designers skip, how competitive research outside your own niche unlocks better ideas, and why Nick refuses to send client work the same day he finishes it. They also get into knowing when to kill a direction instead of pushing it further, a $300K AI experiment that should have been an $11K hire, and why does this solve the problem beats what do you think every time you present. Then they each rank the four skills, and they land on different answers.In this episode you'll learn:🔸 The four skills Tyler and Nick think will still matter in ten years🔸 How to go wide before you go narrow, and why most designers skip it 🔸 The competitive research trick for finding inspiration outside your industry🔸 Why sleeping on your work is a real strategy, not procrastination🔸 How to know when to reset a direction instead of pushing it further 🔸 The real ROI test for deciding when AI is actually worth the spend🔸 Why does this solve the problem beats what do you think in every review🔸 How to avoid getting turned into a design by committee circus act🔸 Which of the four skills Tyler and Nick each rank as most important, and why they disagreeChapters:0:00 Naming the four skills every strong product designer needs1:10 Skill 1, conceptual range, why going wide comes first2:51 The trap of jumping straight to the obvious solution4:51 Using competitive research to break out of the happy path6:10 Going wide across industries, not just design patterns7:36 The monthly brainstorm exercise that surfaces better ideas9:35 Why Nick never sends client work the same day he finishes it11:23 Skill 2, conceptual depth, narrowing 20 ideas into one14:45 Loom recordings as a feedback safety net16:25 The mobile use case Nick almost designed his way around16:57 Knowing when to reset a direction instead of pushing through 18:00 The baby analogy, staying detached until it ships19:35 Are your deadlines actually real?22:46 The $300K AI experiment that should have been an $11K hire 26:30 Skill 3, tool mastery, why principles matter more than the tool 29:35 Skill 4, selling your ideas to stakeholders30:26 The worst question you can ask in a feedback meeting33:49 Avoiding design by committee34:11 Which skill Tyler and Nick each rank as most importantSubscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribeResources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-auditDownload the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprintJoin our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-communityIn need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learnMore about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld