My guest today is Joe Formica who is the founder of Bitesize UX. In this episode, we discuss how Joe drew ads and mailed them to Nike at age 7, benefits of a design internship, leveraging your twenties, finding your first client via Craiglist, lessons learned from teaching at General Assembly, starting Bitesize UX, impacting 6000+ students, partnering with Springboard, dealing with imposter syndrome as a company of one, making $7000/mo from running live workshops, scaling the business without sacrificing quality and much more! For show notes, guest bio, blog, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show Level Up Your Design Career (Free Email Course): https://levelup.designmba.show/
Joe Formica is the Founder of Bitesize UX, where he works every day to solve "need experience, to get experience" problem that prevents people from exploring new skills, roles, and careers in technology. He believes that learning as an adult should be exciting, fun, and rewarding - not daunting. Joe has taught UX Design at General Assembly in New York for six years as a Distinguished Faculty Member, and has created and taught MBA Entrepreneurship courses at Fordham University Business School. Through these roles, he has worked with thousands of designers-in-training to help them take the next steps in their career.
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Namaste and welcome. This is Jayneil Dalal and you are listening to The design MBA. This podcast is a real-life MBA program for designers where we interview design hustlers and learn the skills, mindset necessary for a designer to launch a business venture. You can learn more. Find past episodes and stay updated at designMBA.show.
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Jayneil Dalal: So, for everybody listening, who is Joe Formica? Let me tell you. Joe is the founder of Bitesize UX where he works every day to solve “need experience to get experience” problem that prevents people from exploring new skills, roles, and careers in technology. Joe has taught UX design and general assembly in New York for six years as a distinguished faculty member and has created and taught MBA entrepreneurship courses at Fordham University Business School. In addition to teaching Joe has been a self-employed senior product designer for the past eight years. He's worked with dozens of clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to new startups where he has played an integral role in their growth and success.
Joe lives in New York City with his wife Chelsea and his loyal but needy business partner Jasper, the seven-pound chihuahua terrier. If design and startups don't work out, Joe has a long list of backup careers to explore including being a Chinatown tour guide, master pasta and pesto maker and hip-hop portrait photographer. Now, if you're listening, all my designer friends, we've all had this problem. You know the one I’m talking about – “Oh my God, I don't have real life experience. I don't have the design experience. So, what do I put on my portfolio? But hey, if I don't have a portfolio, how am I going to get a design job? You know what, if I’m not going to get a design job, then how on earth am I going to update my portfolio.” We all know about this chicken and egg problem but today, Joe has come to your rescue. Head on over to BitesizeUX.com and you will find a self-paced course, two to three hours, that you can take and Joe will equip you to create a real-life project. Bitesize UX courses are geared so that you can literally in a couple of hours master the skills needed to have a real-life portfolio project. For example, what if you could go in and create a real-life project based on runner buddy and boom! And share that with hiring managers and show your UX skills. So, that's why, check out BitesizeUX.com.
Without further ado, Joe, welcome to the show, man. Super excited to be chatting with you.
Joe Formica: I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Jayneil.
Jayneil: Oh my God! This is just amazing, man. I feel like I already love your vibe like “Oh, you're already also wearing the Bitesize UX like hat!”
Joe: Oh yeah, even though there's no video, I still got to represent.
Jayneil: Oh my God! Man, love the hustle. So, take me back through the ages which is when you were in high school, were you into design or did you discover design later on in life?
Joe: I have always been into design. So, when I was a kid, I’ve always been into making stuff. I would say that's kind of the better way to think about it but definitely design too. When I was a kid, I was really obsessed with, this is a weird thing to say, but brands and stuff and I loved Nike, I liked clothes, I liked the NBA and athletes like what they were wearing and I used to draw Nike ads and I would have my mom mail them to Nike. This was when I was like seven or eight. So, I used to do stuff. I wish I could dig some of those up. I do have some of them but I was always into design in one way or another. I was always drawing. I painted a lot when I was younger. I like building stuff. So, I was always kind of into making stuff and tinkering and doing that from a really, really young age. I don't know if I knew that it was called design back then but just making stuff, yeah.
Jayneil: It seems like you had that in your blood or was it because of influence like one of your family members was an artist and he or she introduced you to it.
Joe: I’ve never really thought about that. Definitely, creative people in my family, for sure. My brother's an amazing chef. So, there's definitely some creativity, not specifically artists or designers or anything like that but definitely a kind of a vibe in our household of being able to try things, explore stuff that you're interested in. So, less about design specifically and more about getting into stuff and being really supported even at a young age to try stuff I was into and get the stuff I needed to do that.
Jayneil: Wow! And that's your older brother who's a chef?
Joe: He's a year younger than me.
Jayneil: Oh wow! So, you almost set the example of falling an unconventional path for him.
Joe: Yeah. I’ll send you a picture of him after and you'll get a kick out of it to see us two together but, yeah, we went two different paths but the more we talk about what we do, a lot of the same principles that goes into the design of a restaurant and food and some of the stuff that we're more familiar with.
Jayneil: Yeah and now he's got a brother who's going to design his website for free.
Joe: Yeah, I’ve done that about five million times already. So, now he's got to cut the check.
Jayneil: Oh my God! So, after you went to college, what was your major in college?
Joe: So, in college, I basically studied business. I studied Marketing, Advertising, that kind of stuff but while I was in college, I interned at basically a tech startup that was kind of a development shop, they had a couple products but a really small tech company. So, I wasn't studying computer science or design or anything like that but I was working there almost for the entire time I was in college. And since it was really small, I was doing a lot of intern type tasks but I was also sitting in on client meetings, designer reviews, working with super smart senior developers and designers. So, I was kind of absorbing a lot of that stuff. I had a lot of flexibility to play around with things on my own and learn on my own while I was there. And so, I definitely attribute that experience to that push into where I really got a lot of those ideas about what you could be as a designer and specifically working on technology stuff.
Jayneil: And where was this based, this internship?
Joe: In New York.
Jayneil: Oh wow! Sweet! Nice. So, you were always kind of there in New York, live long New Yorker.
Joe: Yeah.
Jayneil: Oh my God! And then after you finished the internship, what was your first full-time job at?
Joe: So, I started working there after I graduated and basically continued the work I was doing there. And I did that for a little while. Some of the things we did were, this is going on 10 years ago, building mobile websites for companies, doing everything from small businesses to big real estate companies. We worked a lot with bigger brands but I really learned how to do a lot of that stuff not to the full degree but I learned how to build websites, I learned how to design stuff, I learned a lot of skills that are pretty transferable to really anything. So, I worked there for a little bit after I graduated and then I kind of went off on my own and I really started freelancing and I started a little company up and I started building websites for people, mobile websites, taking all the stuff that I learned there and seeing if I could go out and do it on my own.
Jayneil: Was there like a fear? Did you have a safety net or savings saved up that “Hey, if I’m going to go out on my own, I probably need to save up” because you were leaving the stability of that full-time job?
Joe: Yeah, I had some savings. I was just lucky to have supportive people around me who were not saying to me “Don’t you dare quit that job.” It was a lot of factors, I think, that made me feel supported. I definitely had, I wouldn’t say a lot of fear, but there was definitely a little bit of that but 21-22 years old, I was ready to rock and I was thinking “You know, I can do this. I've learned some of these skills. There's a lot of things I can learn on the way.” So, it was a little bit of a leap but I was also, maybe because I was young and dumb, I don’t want to say overconfident, but I felt that I at least had some skills that could make some money and provide some value to people and things that I could do well enough to get paid for.
Jayneil: Joe, I totally agree with you. When I recall my20s, the early part of it, the risk tolerance was so high like there's no attachment, “we’re single, we’re not married,” and then you can go “All right, I’m just going to take a swing at it. And if it doesn’t work out, so what” but I think as one gets older in life, maybe it’s just the nature where the risk tolerance goes down and down, suddenly there's more responsibilities. I think there's definitely something to that. I think one of the things that I thought at that point and I still think to this day that makes it feel less risky to do things on your own is that I’m always learning a ton. Especially when I’m working solo or starting my own thing, I’m learning stuff so fast, I’m absorbing it. If I need to build something for a client, I’m figuring out how to do it. And so, the way that I kind of thought about it back then and, like I said, I still think about it now, is that it's less stable to do things on your own and kind of hustle and there are a lot of ups and downs that come with that but I always felt like I was building up my personal skill set to the fact that if I needed to get a full-time job, if things didn't work out and I wanted to go in a different direction, then I wasn't starting from scratch. I actually felt like I was growing a lot and learning things on the job and kind of building up that personal capital or skill set and confidence. So, I think that kind of tempered it a little bit where it didn't feel like I was taking a huge risk because I was learning things that are going to be valuable for the future.
Joe: Hell yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think there's something about being self-sufficient and learning and the learning I think is the highest when you're doing a solo gig but the way I view it now is if you set up a base like you have done in your early 20s or in the 20s just figuring out what that roadmap is going to look like. Then, going to your 30s, it makes it a little bit easier but if somebody was in their 30s trying to figure out how to do this from scratch, there's just more at stake like a house or a family what have you. So, that's what I tell myself like “Do it now, so later on you have a platform to run on.” Yeah, definitely. I just turned 30. I’m in that in-between zone. For sure, I mean, there's life factors and things that make it a little bit harder to do that. I think if it's something that you really want to work on or want to pursue in one way or another, you got to look at having a head start earlier on when it's easier to do that 100% but I never want to say you know later in life, forget 30s, 40s, 50s, anytime, if it's something you want to do and you really kind of take a look at what you're spending time on, there are ways, again, maybe not as easy or as easily fit into your life but there are ways to try that stuff and it doesn't have to be a big leap from quit your job and uproot your life completely. It can be a side project. I mean, that's how great companies start as something that's an idea and a side project that gets some traction. So, it doesn't need to be this big quit your job and ditch everything for your startup, right?
Jayneil: Man, the burning question I have to ask is I am not in my 30s yet but I’m going to go soon. Is it true, the culture of zeitgeist, like “Oh my God, I’m 30,” you wake up and the whole life is different? Did you feel that or you're just like “Ah, whatever.”
Joe: No, I didn't feel that at all. I think taking the pressure off especially for startup stuff, if you look at startup founders and the people who go through Y Combinator startups that are 23 and crushing it, that's amazing and that is awesome but it can also kind of get in your head. It's like if you didn't do it by that time, did you miss the boat? And I think I’ve definitely kind of put myself up against those standards before in the past.
Jayneil: Me too.
Joe: And it's a waste, honestly, because you have time and it's a long process no matter where you start. So, I didn't feel that at all. I feel the same as 29. I didn't have that moment. Maybe 31 will be different but I didn't have that moment.
Jayneil: Oh, my God. Something I’ve noticed is that I used to dread getting older but now as I get older, I give less shits about certain things in life which I’ve come to appreciate like when I was 22 like I’d be so worried about certain small things that now I look at and I’m like “I can't believe I wasted that whole one day on this trivial issue.” So, I feel like as I get older, somehow, I think one gets more grounded and that's something I’ve come to appreciate.
Joe: Yeah, I think I’m still working on that in a lot of ways. I think kind of consciously I have to think about the things that I was super stressed out about work-wise when I was 22-23 and kind of take a step back and say “Okay, those things that you realize how trivial they were now, the things you're worried about right now, a lot of those you're going to look back in the same amount of time and say the same thing.” For me, it's hard. I mean, I think about it and I think it comes a little bit more naturally but I definitely have to consciously kind of remind myself to keep going with it.
Jayneil: And the only reason I mentioned this is because one weird habit that I started doing, I think it was 2013 or something, is I started capturing journals every day. So, I have this my journey app in which I’ve been journaling I think for the past six plus years. So, I can literally go back to 2013 or 2014 and then tell you on this specific date, if I made an entry about a topic, what I was thinking about it. So, I found a lot of value in capturing my state of mind at a certain point in time and then looking at it now like “Okay, this is what I was thinking back then and this is what I think now.” So, I found that to be really helpful. And then going back to your journey about going solo as a freelancer, how did you get your first few clients or did you already have them set up before you ventured out?
Joe: I didn't have them set up already. I hate to say it. I hustled really. I used personal connections. I didn't really use Upwork, that wasn't even around, but things like that. I used personal connections. I remember being on one of my first clients who I’m still good friends with today, I remember he had something up on Craigslist that he's like “I need some help with this” and I found it and I met him. He's still a good friend of mine today. He's worked on startups together but I think it started with me figuring out “What skills do I need to actually make one?” So, for me, before UX Design, it's websites. Everyone needs a website. And if you have a local yoga instructor or someone like that, UX Design Services, that's going to be hard to sell because that's not a product for them. That's something that you have to explain as part of the process, part of building a website for sure but I think I kind of figured out what's the thing that I can reach a lot of people with, that a lot of people need, that I’m able to do and can learn how to do and can also build on those UX Design skills and where I want to take it. And so, I think it started with that. And then as far as getting clients, referrals. No magic, really, not a lot of marketing. Just kind of referring people and having a good idea of what I could offer, I think, led me to those first couple clients that put their trust in me to do some work for them.
Jayneil: Sweet. And then, along the way, what made you start teaching at General Assembly?
Joe: Basically, after a little while of working on my own, I dabbled in a lot of different things. I learned how to code and build websites and I think I kind of figured out early on that coding or being a developer wasn't really what I wanted but I really loved the aspect of making things that work. That's what was really attractive about it, to me, but actually sitting down and writing code and learning that stuff was not really what I wanted to do. And so, that kind of pointed me into UX Design and prototyping and I kind of figured out that there's another lane for this. And I went to a short workshop actually at General Assembly early on, this is probably 2013 or so, and it was taught by, I’ll give my buddy a shout out, Ron Wilde, a good friend of mine. He was teaching a workshop. And after I finished, I was super excited. I was like “This is what I’ve been doing for a while. I didn't really know it was called UX Design.” I was like “Okay, I’ve been doing all these things to some degree and kind of piecing it together on my own.” I ended up hitting Ron up and I knew he was doing freelance work. He's a little older than me. So, he was a little more established. And I really said to him “Hey, look, I have these skills. I can build websites. I’m good at design. I know how to use Photoshop. If you have any projects that you want help on, I’ll come work with you” and he did. And I started working with Ron on a bunch of projects. He taught me a ton about design, I think, more so about running a business as a freelancer and kind of all the other stuff that comes along with that. And really over the next few years, we worked together a lot, became good friends and I learned a ton. And he was teaching at General Assembly and I said “Do you need someone to teach this class with you?” and that's kind of how it all got started. That was about six years ago. So, I started my first one or two classes as a co-teacher with him and then I started being the lead instructor ever since then.
Jayneil: That is amazing. You're reaching out to a workshop instructor and then becoming almost brothers with him and doing all these projects and now he also became a teacher there.
Joe: Yeah, I think, going back to what I said about building, me never really feeling like it was that big of a risk because I was building up a pretty strong skill set. That's a good example of it. I was able to talk to Ron after that workshop and not just say “Hey, man, I want to learn this. Can you teach me?” and just ask, ask, ask for stuff but I was able to come to him and say “Hey, I probably have some skills that are helpful for some of the projects that you're working on,” which it turned out was the case and I had built that up from learning stuff on my own for a while. And so, that was, I think, a good example of how that can lead to better opportunities or being ready when that comes around to at least have some value to add into something, whether it's a new job or a project you want to work on. So, yeah, it was a funny coincidence but Ron taught me a ton and we worked on some cool stuff together and I owe him a lot for how I got started in design, for sure.
Jayneil: Ron, if you're hearing this, your buddy Joe just gave you a huge shoutout.
Joe: He's going to hear this, yeah.
Jayneil: So, now you're at General Assembly. You've been teaching there for a couple of years. I’m trying to find a theme between you starting Bitesize UX and your observations teaching students at General Assembly.
Joe: It's a pretty linear story. I mean, I’ve always taught part-time courses there. I’ve never taught any of the immersive programs or anything like that.
Jayneil: Why is that?
Joe: Well, a lot of reasons but I think really just for time because I’ve always been working on either freelance projects or Bitesize or something else during the day. There's a lot of things I like about the part-time courses but it's always really worked with my schedule and it's a very different time commitment and vibe than the immersive, which is awesome too. I haven't taught that yet. So, I taught the part-time courses and really early on, I was getting the same questions from my students that I still get to this day, which is “Hey, Joe, we built one project in this class. I want to start getting freelance work. I want to break into a job in UX design. How do I get more work to put in my portfolio?” With the introduction you gave, the “need experience to get experience”, that is common, I think, for so many different jobs outside of tech, outside of design. It's like you see these job descriptions that are “Junior, whatever, four years of experience necessary,” it's crazy. So, that problem where you need to get the experience was just coming up a lot. Students were just asking me “What can I do for building on these skills, build up a body of work?” and I had kind of okay answers for them, stuff like “Come up with your own project. Go to hackathons,” I’d say, kind of lukewarm answers but then I was looking at all the stuff that I was doing day to day in my freelance work and I’m thinking “I’m solving a lot of similar challenges” and there's a lot of stuff that I’m doing here that is not necessarily part of a curriculum, not necessarily General Assembly’s or any particular one but skills that you're doing over and over again, things you need to know how to do as a professional UX designer that are a little bit harder to learn in the classroom, I would say. And, basically what I did, I took some of these design challenges based on some of the things that I was working on, real-life stuff, and I made these little mini challenges and it was an extra credit project for my students. So, on Tuesday nights, I would give them the brief and the prompt and kind of set it up and then on Thursday nights they bring their work in, we do a little pin-up session in the classroom before or after class. And basically, what happened after a couple weeks was a few things. So, first is that more students are doing it. So, it went from three or four students who were kind of the go-getters in the class to almost everyone in the class working on these mini design challenges. And the second thing was that they were starting to produce much better work, they were getting better very quickly and the work that they were producing was things that are really applicable skills as a professional designer, things that, if you're a hiring manager or you're a lead designer looking to hire someone from your team, these are the kind of skills you're going to look for, things that you can really put into action quickly and a little lighter on theory and concepts and more about actually doing this. And the last thing I noticed was that it was just fun. Students were enjoying this. It wasn't like a big overwhelming project that you spent six months on. They all kind of put their own twists on the project. And so, from there I started, without going through the whole history of it, putting these challenges online. I started Slack groups. I started the first version of the website. I started a meetup group. And I think I realized pretty early on that this needs a lot of work but the core of what I have here is useful for students and it's working. They were getting hired. And I still get the same emails to this day, which are “Hey, Joe, I got a job. I had three Bitesize projects in my portfolio.” All the credit to them. They do the work. So, this is not saying I did it for them in any way but seeing that it's actually working and helping people get to their goals, I kind of branched it out from there. And now, we have people all over the world doing these challenges. So, that's the origin story, very closely tied with the stuff that I was observing from my students at GA.
Jayneil: That is insane. So, if I had to ask you just ballpark stats, how many students have taken the Bitesize UX courses?
Joe: I’d say 5000 to 6000 students have taken at least some iteration of a Bitesize UX course. That could be in person, that could be an online workshop, a self-paced course but I would say, probably upwards of that.
Jayneil: Oh my God, 5000 to 6000 plus students. Oh my God.
Joe: But what I’m more proud of than that is that's a start. Bitesize is still super new and growing and experimenting. People come back to Bitesize stuff. Every time I do a workshop or an event, I ask if it's anyone's first time joining and I also see a lot of familiar faces. And especially recently, I see people who join, who have been in a workshop two nights before and then come back for another one to learn a new skill. And so, that, to me, is really kind of the compass that's saying even though I have a lot to learn, a long way to go with this company that we're doing something right where people are coming back and finding a way to continue to improve, continue to get better and ultimately really break into the career that they're looking for.
Jayneil: So, the starting pricing point for Bitesize UX which are self-paced courses where you just watch your videos and you do the examples and you come up with these real-life portfolio projects, it's 25 dollars, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Jayneil: Wow! And then, I believe, you've got partnerships with Springboard and a few other colleges?
Joe: Yeah, we have partnerships with Springboard. So, all their students in their UX curriculum get to pick a Bitesize UX project to work on as a design sprint which is amazing. And a shoutout to Springboard because their students produce extremely good work from that. I’m always super happy to get those emails with the final portfolio piece link and just see how much good work students have put in. We have some partnerships with schools, high schools, departments especially in high schools where Computer Science or STEM programs want to help students learn a little bit about design and kind of get familiar with that in addition to their Computer Science education. And as far as the pricing goes for Bitesize workshops, I mean, there's different pricing for different instances of courses and challenges and workshops but overall, really the point of it is that you're going to come back and keep doing this stuff. It's being a designer is a constant work in progress and it takes practice and it takes consistency. And so, one of those points to incentivize people to really break down some of the barriers to traditional ways of learning this stuff and have people come back and keep learning new skills and feeling like they haven't learned it all because they haven't, I haven't. I learned so much from putting these workshops together. We did an augmented reality one last week and I’ve had a little experience with that but I learned a lot in just creating that workshop and the project that students were making. So, the pricing is definitely to lower the barrier and to make it more accessible but really the main thing is that people feel excited and able to come back and keep working on these and keep working on projects not just for their portfolio but for them to get better as a designer.
Jayneil: And how did those partnerships come about? Did you reach out to somebody at Springboard or those colleges or they reached out to you?
Joe: A little bit of both. Springboard reached out to me. I changed their website and I got a bunch of messages basically any way that you could contact me that was like “Hey, what happened? We wanted to use this for one of our classes.” So, Springboard found me, which was funny because I’ve known about them for a while and I think their courses are awesome. And so, it was kind of funny for me to see someone say like “Hey, what's up with Bitesize UX?” like “How did you find me on the internet?” And it's been a mix of both but I’ve definitely seen recently more inbound stuff of people interested in what Bitesize is doing, interested in partnering, interested in co-teaching with me on some of these workshops or building some of these curriculums. So, it's been a mix but it's still always really funny to me when I get an email and someone's like “Hey, we found Bitesize UX somewhere” because I’m still “How do you find?” but, yeah, a mix of both, for sure.
Jayneil: That is amazing. I can relate to that feeling. It's like when somebody mentions “Oh my God, I loved your podcast,” I’m like “Where did you find me?” because the internet is so vast and it's a feeling of, I think, curiosity and I think a feeling of, how do we call that, like feeling good that yes, somebody found it.
Joe: It's a great feeling. And those are things, to me, that are important. I'm the solo founder of this company. So, I work alone a lot.
Jayneil: So, the one-man show.
Joe: One-man show. I have a part-time employee who hopefully soon will be full-time but for the vast majority of this, it's been a one-man show. And, I think, obviously a lot of ups and downs in starting a company, working on your own project, putting yourself out there. I have definitely tried to appreciate, I think it's actually necessary to appreciate small wins like that, an email that says “Hey, the workshop was great last night,” someone finding you and I’m going to shout another one of my students out, Ahmed from Egypt joins all of our workshops and it's 3 o'clock in the morning for him to join those and he creates unbelievable work. For me, when I see something like that, you have to take just a second to appreciate that and be like “That's really cool.” It doesn't need to be big numbers or metrics or sales. I think that's so important to keep you, honestly, sane when working on your own thing. So, if there's one person who says “I found your podcast and I liked it,” that's a big deal like that's for real.
Jayneil: No, I totally hear you, man. Sometimes I don't know how to describe it to you but it feels like this alien type feeling when people write to you that “Oh my God, I found it and it's so awesome” and somehow, you can't accept it yet. I don't know, it just feels weird like I should be really jumping from the rooftop but I don't know, I’m like “Okay, good to know.”
Joe: It's like that impostor syndrome because we know what's behind the scenes like I know that someone might be writing an email to Bitesize UX and like your courses but I know it's me in my office with my chihuahua sitting next to me. So, of course, it's going to be hard to think about it. You're like “I’m not a real company. What are you partnering with me?” At least, that's how I feel but it is. If people are finding it useful, it doesn't have to be big. That is a hard thing to get over and it's a little surreal but it's important to get psyched about that stuff.
Jayneil: You're so right, man. I’m kind of wondering if you're a solo person with a part-time employee trying to do all these workshops, some of them are self-paced, some of them you're hosting it yourself on Eventbrite, then you're teaching at General Assembly and you're doing freelance, how does Joe manage all this where his wife doesn't go insanely crazy like “Joe, oh my God! You got to be here too.” How do you manage that?
Joe: My wife is extremely supportive and she's known me since college. That's where we met. And so, I was into this stuff when she met me. So, I think part of it is knowing that this is kind of what I like to do and that's a huge, huge part of, I think, being successful, for me, it is, because she gets it and she's supportive and helps me with business decisions. I mean, she's my partner. In terms of time, I’m not good at managing time. So, I don't do any more client projects except a couple things here and there. I think it took a little bit longer for me to say “I really need to focus on Bitesize” or whatever your thing is and kind of pick a direction. And so, why did it take me a long time to come to the realization that I need to fully focus on Bitesize UX is because I built up some traction, I built up a product and while it's not big, you get those kind of nagging cues that say “Okay, you need to do something with this or it's just going to be half-assed forever.” And I think the reason that I waited longer and kind of held on to some of the other stuff that I was doing like freelance work is because there's comfort in that in a way. When you're working for a client and you get up and you have 10 emails that are like “Hey, is this thing going to be done by noon?”, that sucks for a lot of reasons because it's stressful and it's all the things that probably so many people here listening will know about have their own stories about client work. It's also comforting in a way because when you're working on your own, you can have those moments, at least I have, where I’ve been like “What am I doing?” So, when you get an email that's like “Is this going to be done by noon?” and you're getting paid for it, it gives you a little sense of purpose like “Okay, I’m getting up. I need to get up. I need to do this because they said I need to do it” and there's a sense of comfort in that. I think, for me, with Bitesize, it's going out on a limb even more or your own product. You don't have the same type of external pressure to do things. I think I hung around a little too long on keeping some of those other things there when I saw the signs that “Hey, I got to give this a fair shot because I think I have something that's valuable here.”
Jayneil: No, I totally feel you. If you don't mind me asking, if somebody's wondering that you've got the Bitesize UX workshops and these classes that students take to build their real-life portfolio, how much money, I guess, does it bring in, roughly a ballpark it would generate, maybe a monthly ballpark something like that so somebody has an idea if they want to go down this road, what to expect?
Joe: So, monthly it's about 6000 to 7000 dollars a month annualized, I would say, and that's with running a relatively small amount of workshops but we're looking to expand that a lot in a couple ways really, running more live classes for sure and making creating more of these self-paced courses. So, that's something we have coming up is taking all of these design challenges that I’ve created and getting them in a format where you don't need to be on Zoom at Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. to do this course and that's basically how much we're making now and that's been through different models of partnerships and subscription. It's messy and I’m not an organized guy when it comes to giving you the breakdown of each one but that's about what it is right now.
Jayneil: That is phenomenal, man. That is insane. Huge, huge congrats from me and everybody listening. It seems to me that you are focusing on the basics. You're doing things that don't scale. I don't see, as I’m talking to you, some kind of grandeur ambition like “Let me just scale this like to the moon.” So, why is that? What makes you focus on the basics and not just obsess about scaling this to the next level and hiring 10 other mentors with you to teach the courses and stuff like that?
Joe: I think it's because I’ve tried that. I don't want to say I tried it but kind of gone down that road and thought immediately, as soon as I did something that was a good product, like let's say when I posted tons of in-person workshops and meetups. And for the most part, I get really good feedback on them and they're successful. And early on, the first thought I would have from there is “How do I scale this? How do I get these online? How do I get this available to a thousand people instead of a hundred people?” and that's definitely important. I want to scale Bitesize as a company, for sure, and I have ways to do that but I think I kind of took a step back and this might not be the best advice but, for me, I thought “The quality is going to you. I’ll get there.” And there are a lot of different ways to scale a business but if I give up the quality to try to scale quicker or get a billion more users or students, then it is going to hurt that quality and there's a lot of places online where you can learn UX design. There's a lot of places where you can learn UX design. If I’m bringing something to the content that I’m refining and the way that these challenges work and the hands-on work that students are doing that I’m constantly trying to make better and improved, if that's going to stand out, why do I want to take away the one thing that people like to come to Bitesize courses rather than others just to blow it up. And I’m saying that like I could just hit a button and scale it overnight. That's hard to do too but I think I’ve said “Let me take it slow and make sure this product and these courses and the value and listen to the students and the customers and just go little by little and keep building valuable stuff, keep putting stuff out there.” I know there will be ways, there are ways to scale that that we're already working on but just taking a beat before thinking about trying to really focus on all those bigger metrics and stuff like that.
Jayneil: I hear you, Joe. The problem I feel is that we are surrounded in an age where the media loves to glorify people that are blitz scaling like Ubers and Airbnbs like “Oh my God, raise funding” or get 10,000 users. I’m seeing videos on YouTube where it's okay or the video is like “How I sleep at 3 a.m.” and I’m like “Why on earth are we celebrating something like that?” And it's like there is a place for everybody, I think, in this marketplace. And I always think about like you've got Starbucks which is a global chain, and, for the record ,I just hate the taste of that coffee, I don't even go there, but you take me to a mom and pop coffee shop which really figures out how to get the beans and the quality and then talking with the barista and stuff like “Oh my God.” I love that attention to the detail that you've done at Bitesize UX.
Joe: Yeah, that's important to me. And I think, at the end of the day, there are companies and founders and people out there who are built to scale a company like that. And this is not my advice for everyone. And people have skill sets that are way better than me at doing stuff like that but I think it's a self-awareness thing. It's coming back to “What makes Bitesize good? How do I keep building that? How do I keep improving that?” and kind of having a little bit of faith that if you keep putting out a good product and keep improving it really and listening to people, there are ways to scale that. And if you try to force that too early, you can lose that personal touch and that's a real thing. Just because it's a tech company or an online business doesn't mean that there's not a personal component or a certain familiar quality that people come back for. So, you can't lose what makes you and I come back to that a lot.
Jayneil: Wow! So, we're going to do an impromptu, I want to say, exercise, maybe it's not even exercise but if a designer who has that chicken and egg problem that we talked about like “Oh my God, I don't have examples in my portfolio. So, I can't get a design job. And if I don't have a design, how do I work on my portfolio?”, so if he or she or they are listening to this, can you just like a brief example to get them thinking, probably the way you do it in your Bitesize workshop? Just give an example and walk them through what constitutes a good portfolio.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. So, for a good portfolio really what you want to show off, you have to think about who's looking at it. the UX portfolio is a whole another animal that people are super stressed about and overthink for good reason but basically, with the UX portfolio piece, you want to show off your skills, show off your process in a way that's easy for people to understand and digest and learn “Okay, this person is able to implement these skills. They're articulating some of the design decisions and the why behind it and showing off some of those more,” I don't want to say, “like technical skills but some of the hard skills that you would have as a designer.” And I think the portfolio, there's so much to go into it but at the end of the day, it's a little bit of your personality. It's showing off projects that you think reflect your ability and it's showing it off in a way that is just easy for people to kind of look at, grasp. I always say to students “My mom should be able to look at my UX portfolio and understand, if I did a redesign project in there, why the redesign that I did is better or more usable than the first one.” It has to be quick and snappy. And so, how that relates to Bitesize UX? Basically, in our workshops, the main thing is that every workshop you're doing hands-on work 100%. And also, in every workshop, I give out tons of templates and resources but especially with everyone, I create a portfolio template for that specific project. So, as you're working on the workshop and you're adding, basically dragging and dropping your work into a portfolio piece, a template that I’ve created for you that's really specific. So, part of it is what you do during the workshop with Bitesize is you get a lot of crash courses on skills you might not have learned, you get to put stuff into practice immediately, you build one of these mini portfolio pieces, you get a great output that you can share at places but then what I also like to make sure of is that people have next steps and ways to continue learning some of the things that we've built on in the workshop. One of the things that I’ll say in any Bitesize course is if this is all you do on this topic, you're not going to be a master of it unless you already were coming in but you're going to have a major head start and a ton of next steps that you can continue to work on and build this out into something as far as you want to go. And so, for the student who's saying “How do I do this?”, let's take one of our workshops for example. I hosted one last week that is about redesigning a dog adoption app and we learned about onboarding and user testing, we watched a live usability test, we did all the stuff and we redesigned kind of the onboarding aspect of that app. Now, if you want to take that further, you can take that workshop, learn a lot about onboarding, put some of that stuff into practice, get a great portfolio template to start out with but then the next steps for that, keep designing that app, test other aspects of the onboarding process, test it with five other people, do three more user interviews, identify two more areas that you could improve that you didn't get to work on in the couple hours tonight. So, I try to give that really strong head start but to that student that you're talking about, it's get something like that, I think Bitesize is a great way to do it but anything that you're interested in working on, get that head start and then stay consistent with continuing to build and learn some of those skills as you go.
Jayneil: Wow! So, it's like if I’m using an app day to day, it could be a bank website, some of these bankrupts are so terrible, and if I see that there's a way to improve like a small portion of it, I basically apply design thinking and UX to it and try to make that into a case studies is what I’m getting from you.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. I encourage students to work on things outside of Bitesize. This isn't the only way to do it. I think students gravitate towards it because it's very structured and it gives them these really very realistic projects to work on and hopefully learn a lot while they're doing it but you can do this stuff on your own. You don't have to ask anyone permission to redesign something and make a case study about it. And so, it's about taking those skills and even having some initiative or, I don't even know if ‘initiative’ is the right word, but just understanding that you don't need a big client name, you don't need to get paid a lot of money for a project, I mean, get paid what you deserve but you don't need to have big name clients in your portfolio. If you're showing off the skills whether it's the banking app that you use every day and redesigning it and testing it out, do that. I think so many students focus, especially students post boot camps and stuff like that, focus on … I keep saying students but I mean really new designers, designers in training, as I call them … focus on “Am I doing the right thing? Am I learning the right thing?” Pick a project that you want to work on and figure out what that end goal is and just go. You'll learn a lot of those things just by figuring out what you're trying to get to at the end there. So, you don't need to ask anyone's permission. If you do a great project for redesign of your bank app, no hiring manager is going to ask you how much you got paid or what agency yeah you worked for to do that if you're showing those skills off.
Jayneil: So, to everybody listening, especially my designer friends who are wondering “Oh my God, I don't have the portfolio,” there are three affirmations I want you to chant with me as I go. Affirmation number one – “Just because I don't have an amazing portfolio does not mean that I will not get that dreams design job.” Affirmation number two – “Just because I don't have that dream job yet or a design job yet, doesn't mean I cannot have a portfolio.” And finally, affirmation number three – “If I get stuck in this portfolio design process and I want help, I will hit up Joe at Bitesize UX.” Those are your simple three affirmations you need to take.
Joe: And I want to say, Joe, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. I had a blast. Thank you so much.
Joe: Thank you, Jayneil. I appreciate it. I had a great time.
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