News & Thoughts #10

Hello again

How is it late September already? Time seems to fly by in the summer for me and I really should have sent this email last week, or the week before. In my mind it’s still mid-August as I've been head-down with an unusually heavy freelance workload, parenting and a home DIY project.

That doesn’t mean I have little to update you with, so let’s dive into what’s new and interesting in my world.

Honing my offer

I realised I’ve let this focus slip as I experimented a lot in the last few years, so I’m actively working on what I offer now – both in freelance work and as a creator.

I’m a born generalist and thrive on variety, but I know I need to get more specific to grow. Most likely I’ll focus my content and services around helping people launch experiments and products on the side. As a point of difference I’ll bring with me my 28 years of design experience, plus my own experiences launching experiments. You can expect this newsletter to slowly reflect this focus more and more.

Free resources

As part of honing my offer, I’m also starting to build a collection of free resources. These have a leaning towards ‘design for non-designers’, but not limited to that. There’s currently a wireframe template, a brand directory, and some work-in-progress ideas. Some of you new to this newsletter will have joined via the wireframe signup page – so, welcome 👋 

The paradox of choice as an indie

Do you ever feel frustrated that you’re not capitalising on everything you could? We live in an era of seemingly infinite opportunities and possibilities, which can make indie creators and founders feel this way. I’ve written a thought piece about this on my blog.

“Even though we’re ‘indie’, we’re all experiencing constraints of some kind (time, money, opportunity, skills)”

Mini milestone on my Carrd sites

I’ve been building these two resource sites for the Carrd community for some time now. In August, I reached a mini milestone – I filled all the sponsorship slots across both sites 🙌. I’m really pleased with this, and I’m going to use what I’ve learned to build bigger things next.

Forget small bets, go big!

An indie founder I know just surprised everyone with a big launch – a luxury airline! Crazy right? And it was born from a personal pain point she experienced too. Wishing you the best of luck Milly 🙌

That’s all for now.

Hoping to be more regular with these emails now that the summer is ending.

Mark

While you’re here, these are 3 different ways I can help you right now:

1. Free content & tools 

2. Freelance services

3. Coaching