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- [00:00]
Gabe Valdivia
What if I made a company that was focused only on that, on that face? And that phase isn't just a stepping stone to what eventually will become the company, but that is the company.
- [00:13]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
What are some of the key phrases that you would be looking to use in conversation to demonstrate what you bring to the table as a fractional designer versus what I might get elsewhere?
- [00:24]
Gabe Valdivia
A lot of people use design as a means to get to that artifact that is culturally relevant and it solves problems for people and builds a company. And design is just kind of the stepping stone to getting there. I don't find that as exciting. I find the actual process of design to be much more rewarding than having that final output that you get to point out and say, this is what I made and this is what I dedicated my life to. I'd rather dedicate my life to a practice like a craft.
- [00:52]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. I think we're entering a world where the market for fractional design is about to explode. So this week's episode is with one of my favorite people in the industry, Gabe Valdivia.
- [01:09]
Gabe Valdivia
We're going to do a deep dive.
- [01:10]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
Into his independent journey, how he made the jump, how he's evolved his practice in year two, and all of the.
- [01:16]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Lessons that he's learned along the way.
- [01:18]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
So let's start off by getting a little bit more context about Gabe's practice and the type of work that he takes on.
- [01:25]
Gabe Valdivia
The first time we talked about was about a year and a half ago and I have been doing this for six months. I've just crossed two years since I started working independently.
- [01:35]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Congrats.
- [01:36]
Gabe Valdivia
Thank you. In that time I've. I actually today I just closed our 20th client in two years and it's been awesome. It's been super fun. In that time I worked with mostly early stage startups like seed or pre seed companies, a couple later stage ones, but it's been great. Like an awesome way to be exposed to a wide variety of clients, a wide variety of verticals. I worked on like health care clients, I worked on an insurance company. I worked on stuff that's more my bread and butter, which is consumer products, but also like B2B products that I have usually stay away from. Like I've designed many dashboards now. Yeah, it's been two years of really stretching myself creatively and learning a lot.
- [02:24]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
You were still a little green at the six month mark, but now that.
- [02:27]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
You'Re at the two year mark, you.
- [02:28]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Know, you kind of figured some things out. So I want to drill into the model and get real specific for people who are interested in this potential career path. So maybe just starting simple in the beginning, 20 projects, two years. How are you juggling that? How much overlap is there? Can we just kind of drill into how your model works and go from there?
- [02:48]
Gabe Valdivia
It's evolved a lot. Year two has looked very different than year one. Year one, I basically was trying to prove to myself that I could do this. I was just taking in as much work as I could, and part of it was to prove it to myself. It was also because I was kind of creatively starved. I was. I had a really large appetite to get my hands dirty and do design work. After being in house for a long time, I just took an old tour of projects and took them all myself. And around the end of year one, I started bringing in apprentices, which was a model that kind of like evolved as, you know, bringing in people that can help me with the design work. I can also help them by kind of coaching them and giving them mentorship. So a little bit different than an intern, more like traditional apprentice model. And through that model, I have kind of exposed myself to other designers and a larger community. Over the last year, I've kind of honed this option two of how to engage with me where you know you can. Option one is engaging with me directly as a kind of design partner. But this other option is deploying what I call a designer in residence within these companies. I act as a design manager and coach for that designer and then those designers interact directly with the client.
- [04:07]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
Real quick message and then we can.
- [04:08]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Jump back into it.
- [04:09]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
By now you probably know Maubin is.
- [04:11]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
My absolute go to for product design inspiration.
- [04:14]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
But they just took their product to the next level by introducing Mobin sites. Now they're also the first place to look for inspiration when designing landing pages, agency portfolios, online storefronts, and a lot more. I already use Mobin almost every single day and I cannot recommend the product enough. Just head to Dive Club Slash Mobin.
- [04:37]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
To get started today.
- [04:39]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
That's M O B B Framer just had a banger of a release called On Page Editing. It allows anyone to update the site content directly on the live page. No need to dive into the canvas or go through the designer.
- [04:54]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Every time someone wants to make a.
- [04:56]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
Change, they just click the edit button and they can make changes to both CMS content and static layers like headlines and images. And it's going to seriously speed up workflows and it's just another reason why Framer is my go to for building websites. You can get started today at Dive Club Framer.
- [05:16]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Okay, now on to the episode. It probably feels pretty good to invest in people too. Like, that's not something that we get to do as often. And I've seen little things on LinkedIn like you're bringing in, like, guest speakers almost, for lack of a better word.
- [05:28]
Gabe Valdivia
Talk to me a little bit about.
- [05:29]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
How you are investing in that group of people. What does that look like?
- [05:32]
Gabe Valdivia
The idea is to provide people with what I found to be most valuable as I was growing up in design, which was, you know, being exposed to how more experienced designers worked and thought. You know, a lot of that happened to me when I kind of graduated and worked at a, like, legit company. I worked on a bunch of different smaller companies and I was kind of like, inventing my own process. But it wasn't really until I joined Facebook that I was like, whoa, this is how the professionals do it. I found that to be really revealing and helpful to me. I've been trying to impart that in folks who may not have access to those folks doing things like a speaker series where we have a private closed interaction, or Q and A with folks who've been doing this for a long time, and we get to ask all sorts of questions. If they're hiring managers, we ask them, what do you look for? How much money should I make for my level at this company? How do pay bands work? All these very tactical things that you may not hear in a talk on YouTube or in a conference you can have in this small space. And you get access to decades of experience. So the idea is, you know, you come in as an apprentice, I treat you kind of like a peer, and I'll give you feedback like I would have if we were both working at Facebook or, you know, you name the company and I'll do that in a no bullshit way. You know, it won't be a parental relationship. I will not sugarcoat the feedback. And that's part of the value, right? Like, you will be expected to meet this quality bar. I found that to be really valuable growing up, and I think they find it valuable as well. In exchange of that, then, you know, they can help with some design tasks that I need, like, kind of smaller that come in my plate. And over time, these apprentices kind of use that as a practice round to kind of grow their skills. Some of them show a lot of potential and they grow a lot within that time. And they kind of been Graduated to be part of my team, where I can deploy them as kind of designers in residence for other clients. So that's the idea. It's also selfishly a way for me to have somebody on slack to say good morning to every day. Right. Working independently can be very lonely. And, you know, I'm used to being part of a team. I'm used to, like, mentoring people. It's something that I missed after a year of working independently. So this is a way for me to create kind of environment where I can do that and provide some value.
- [07:49]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
That's very cool. I hope a lot of people follow in your footsteps. Honestly. Maybe we could keep going a little bit. So I want to just put year one and year two side by side. What are some of the other differences and ways that you've evolved the practice?
- [08:02]
Gabe Valdivia
The way that I've evolved my practice most meaningfully for me has been in how I define success. Coming into an independent work, the main anxiety you have is, can I afford this? You know, can I find clients? Can I charge enough? Can I maintain my lifestyle with this new way of working in a way that is, you know, unpredictable and unstable? I think that fuels a lot of the anxiety for jumping into independent work. So as a result, for the first year, a lot of the way that I defined success was based on money. And I was like, I need to make this much money because I need to survive. Once you hit that number, they're like, okay, I need to be successful, so I need to, like, make as much money as I can. What happened to me is that after year one, I looked at how much money I made, and I was, like, really proud of myself. I was like, wow, I made so much money. I feel like I've accomplished something. And literally, like, I'm not even exaggerating a second after thinking that, my next thought was, like, how do I make more money?
- [09:00]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Yeah, I bet it's real.
- [09:02]
Gabe Valdivia
And, like, I didn't even savor it or enjoy it or nothing. Like, I was. It was like, anxiety that was replaced with more anxiety. How do I take this to make more money? I think, luckily I caught myself. I spent a lot of time thinking, how do I create the right set of incentives or dynamics so that I can examine the success of my independent work in addition to making. Making money. Right? So that's not the only lever for success. So I focus a lot this year on kind of identifying other ways of getting some sort of fulfillment for my work that are not tied to money, which is, you know, an infinite race and it's been really rewarding. It's been a really kind of shift in how to approach a business. I think I've hit another milestone in terms of how I enjoy this path.
- [09:45]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
That resonates so deeply because I think I had a very similar experience where I detached myself from a salary.
- [09:50]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
I wouldn't even call myself like a money motivated person, but I do, like keep score. You know, I'm competitive and it's like the most quantifiably obvious thing to track. Like, I'm not going to like make.
- [10:02]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Excuses for people who are just shelling out their MRR screenshots on Twitter.
- [10:06]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
But also I'm kind of like, you know what, I get it. You know, like, you need something to.
- [10:10]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Strive for that's like, we're human, that's what motivates us. So I'm actually curious what you have replaced that with.
- [10:16]
Gabe Valdivia
It's such a alluring metric, especially because you don't have any notion of levels or exactly reward of like, I'm doing, I'm getting better. The easiest way to look at it is like, I made this much yesterday, tomorrow I make this much. I found that to be a little toxic of like, you know, you got to stay away from that. This year I've put a lot more focus on, for example, this apprenticeship model of how many opportunities am I creating for other designers, which, you know, I find to be really rewarding. It sounds very altruistic, but it's actually quite selfish. Like I do enjoy providing opportunities for others and there's been a handful of times where peers of mine are laid off, they're in between jobs or they need help. And one, I've been able to hire them on my team and kind of help bridge their situation. And two, I've been able to find homes for them, permanent homes, and different companies, which is, you know, again, very rewarding. Another one is like, how many clients am I working with that I actually am proud of, that they exist in the world, that I can align with their mission and can put my signature behind the work. That is not always the case with every client that you work with. So this year I've been able to be more selective and put in more of my stamp on the work that I'm doing. How many founders am I enabling that I want them to be powerful in the world. With a lot of success comes power. So a lot of that is like, what is the character of the people that I'm working with? Do I want to kind of propel them to be more and More powerful in the world, and does that align with the kind of world that I want it to exist? You know, how many of those are from underrepresented backgrounds or people of color or female founders? You know, am I creating opportunities for them as well? And I'm making them more successful? So there's sort of a few things that I've put on my radar of like, okay, as I look back on the last year, yes, I made this much money, but also, am I able to have these experiences, you know, along the way? Something else that happened last year is like, I had a second child, so am I able to spend time with that child? Am I able to disconnect from work and spend the first months of their life with them? Am I able to, like, enjoy the actual lifestyle of work?
- [12:26]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Even something like having a kid introduces a ton of logistical challenges that I'm sure you had to figure out. I want to get into all of those and go through a lot of the practical learnings and tactics. But maybe we could start a little bit earlier in the journey and speak.
- [12:40]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
To someone who maybe is on the.
- [12:42]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Fence or maybe early in this independent journey. And I'd love to just hear from you about your initial decision making process. Like, why did you decide to go independent?
- [12:51]
Gabe Valdivia
It happens, actually, when I had my first child, when that happens, a lot of us, I think it's specifically dads, but probably not only dads, but I've met a lot of dads. They're kind of supporting their partner as they're like, kind of like physically going through a transformation and delivering a child. Like, the magic that that is, the dad is just there, you know, hanging out and witnessing that. And in that process, for me and for folks that I've talked to, there's a lot of introspection spiraling a bit. Having a kid is kind of like a 20 year project of like, you got to be in this person's life for 20 years and make sure they're successful. You know, that made me think, like, what are the last 20 years? I mean, what have they looked like? Are they any indication about how the next 20 years will look like? So for me, I did a lot of, like, accounting of that time and how I felt about it. And I was lucky and privileged to go through some experiences that gave me some learnings and never really sat down to be like, here's my memoir of what I learned over the last 20 years. So that was a moment for me to, like, take stock on that. So I kind of like went a little Crazy. Like I wrote a notion document literally of a table of every single person I've ever worked with. Like goodness. Their name, the company and the time, like hundreds of cells. And this, by the way, this happened on our baby moon where we're supposed to be relaxing and I'm like, you know, my, my wife is asleep next to me and I'm on my phone like typing names of people I work with. It did all that and it gave me this renewed self awareness of like, what is it that I enjoy. The takeaway is that I, you know, I found myself oscillating between ice roles and leadership roles throughout my career. You know, as an ic, I felt constrained that the scope of work was limited and I wanted to have more, more influence. And within an in house environment, the only obvious way to achieve more influence is to scale yourself and become a part of the leadership team and grow a team and manage that team. So I went, you know, from my C to manager a few times and I found myself to be frustrated by those inevitably. So that was like, okay, so maybe I'm not a good fit for a company, I should start my own company. Like that's the other obvious path, right? Then you go in a spiral there. And what I learned is, you know, there's no problem that I feel so passionate about that I want to spend the next decade of my life working on. At least not yet I haven't found one. But what I have found that I do love is that early stage moment, you know, that beginning where like, it's a very vague definition of what you're working on and it takes a couple of people in a room and a whiteboard to figure out what it will, it will be. That to me is why I fell in love with this. And throughout my career, those moments are the ones that I've enjoyed the most. Not the offsides, not the, not even the shipping moments or, you know, growing the team or any of the accolades. The best moments have been like, okay, we have achieved some sort of breakthrough through just sheer design thinking, just getting into a room and pushing things forward. So I was like, what if I made a company that was focused only on that phase? And that phase isn't just a stepping stone to what eventually will become the company, but that is the company. And that kind of took shape into what I'm doing now, which is working specifically for other startups in that phase and helping them kind of get unstuck and unblocked to then go into further phases that, you know, they will find better partners to collaborate with in those phases. But I found that that is kind of my. My bread and butter. As a result, what's happened is that I'm starting to develop a very concrete expertise as a musician. You have one instrument that it's like your craft, and. And you join the band and you're like, I am a bassist, and I'm a very good bassist, and if you need a basis, look, for me, I am starting to fall into a similar thing here where I have a craft which is, you know, it's not the legacy that I will leave for any given product that I work on, but it is what I can contribute to that specific phase of a company. I feel like I'm getting more and more confident that I'm pretty good at that. So if you're in that phase and you need a designer to help you kind of get unblocked, I'm the guy for you. And I think it's like that amount of specificity that's helped me kind of like find a niche that I'm excited about.
- [17:21]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
It's one thing to have that niche in mind as the ideal way that you want to work, and it's a totally other one to be able to effectively position yourself in the market, frame the right conversations, find the right people, even. So talk to me about that bridge. Like, how did you go from, okay, I think this is the way that I want to work to now you've cemented yourself. Were you able to get there quickly? How did you find the first few people? How did the initial conversations.
- [17:46]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
Were you even figuring out, how do.
- [17:47]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
I explain what I bring to the table and why I'm the right person for it? What was that part of the journey like?
- [17:52]
Gabe Valdivia
So it started from the self awareness that I mentioned. And, you know, what I uncover on me is that I was a little discontent with my current state of things. I think if other people go through that same process and they are actually content, then there's nothing to fix. Right? Like, that's. You're. You're doing great. Keep going. But for me, it's like, okay, how do I scratch that itch that's not being scratched right now? Because I've been doing this for a long time and because I haven't been kind of a lone wolf that's just doing design work with my company. But I've actually, in those 17 years, I have been intentional of communicating what I'm working on with a broader audience. You know, I've been on Twitter for a long time. I've Been writing blog posts. I've been sharing my work throughout that time. And the result of that is that some people know either me or know my work, or they read something that I wrote or something like that, or they've watched this podcast and that has helped me. The way it started is like, you know, again, because I've been doing this for 17 years. There was one person that I interviewed with three years prior who I didn't end up working with them, but I was on their radar. I happened to be in this mindset of like, I want to go independently. And they out of nowhere reach out to me on Twitter and they're like, hey, do you know any designers that are available for contract work? And I was like, actually, I'm available. And that was like my first time negotiating a rate, you know, figuring out how I work with people, like writing a contract, figuring out, like, I'm delivering what they're asking and finding the right balance. At the time, I was working full time and I kind of did this on the side, so I had to like juggle those two things. That was the first kind of experiment. And from there I kind of reached out to other designer friends and they forwarded me some leads that they've gotten. So because they knew that I was interested in the contract world, so went from one lead to a couple leads, and I had two contracts or three contracts. My rule of thumb was once I have about three months worth of salary saved, then I can just quit my job and do this because it will take me about three months to find a job. I've had so many jobs over the years that I know that the process usually takes for me about three months of like, you know, flirting with different companies, going through the interview process, and then landing a job. I gave myself like a three month Runway gave notice, and then I was like a free agent. I kind of put in a call on, on Twitter and say, hey, I'm open to contract work. Here's kind of the types of companies that I work I want to work on. And what I'm open to is if that's you, or is that someone, you know, let me know.
- [20:22]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
How long did it take before you weren't semi regularly having the immense doubt associated with like, okay, am I actually able to pull this off? Like, where was the line for you where you're like, I think I got this initially.
- [20:33]
Gabe Valdivia
Like I said, it's financial. You know, do I have a healthy enough set of inbound leads and projects to then make a living? And I actually, I Vibe coded an app to keep track of this, and I've called it like a freelance os, where I made it just for myself. I never released it with anyone. And it's exactly what I need. And it helps me kind of project what the next few months of work will look like. Just kind of again, to appease that anxiety and scratch that itch. Then the second anxiety comes in. You give up the structure of a design org, which has built in within it a sense of competition and mentorship, and kind of you kind of understand where you rank with other designers, and that helps you understand, am I getting better? Am I getting worse at my job Co independently, you lose all that. At least I did. Then the anxiety was like, am I doing good work? Am I actually moving the baton of design forward? The clients that I work with, they all love the work. They're like, this is great, amazing, 10 out of 10. But they don't know anything about design. That's why they hire me. I need to be my own judge, independent of what the clients are saying and form a rubric of, like, how do I continue to get better? So that's a whole different set of anxieties and so on. Then it's like, you know, what kind of product am I putting out into the world are those products that I would like to see? So I feel like every few months there's a new set of existential dread that comes that I need to kind of adjust based on that. And I think that's part of the beauty of being independent, is that you have full control and agency of how you want to shape your business.
- [22:06]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Let's talk about the business piece then. I think anybody who's interested in going independent, one of the main burning questions is how the heck do I think about pricing? What has been your answer to that, and how has it evolved over the last couple of years?
- [22:19]
Gabe Valdivia
You've had on this show who I call the godfather of freelance design, Kevin Toohey.
- [22:24]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Mr. Kevin.
- [22:25]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah. He's very good at this, and I've learned a lot from him. My answers may sound familiar to him or people that know him. I know that one, you need to make twice as much independently as they do full time. I don't know if that's true, but that's what I heard. And number two, I know that, above all, you cannot charge for your time, which makes sense to me. You know, like, design is one is informed by. If I can do something in 10 minutes, it's because I've been doing it for 15 years. So that's the result of all that. But also you carry your work everywhere with you. Like when I'm showering, I'm thinking about my work. When I'm going in the bike ride, when I'm going to sleep, I have like a breakthrough of like the design that I want to make. So, you know, are those billable hours? You know, how do you really structure time for creative work? Well, I knew is like whatever your pricing is, it shouldn't be tied to time. I've heard that before and I hear people say that. And I've now worked with a lot of creatives over the last two years and they still charge for time. They have a high number for their time, but they still do it. I understand why, because, you know, the clients find that a very convenient way of structure roi. But I tried every time to shift the perception or the understanding of value to not be based on our transaction or like a time based transaction, but more outcome based. What we try to do is define what do we want to do as a partnership, you know, what does the company or the product need by when? So there is a time component to that and define, you know, monthly or weekly or quarterly milestones. And then I manage my time accordingly to deliver that. I think that's the key. You have to deliver on that. I try to deliver ahead of time where if we say this needs to be done in a month, I do it in three weeks. So that way the client feels like they're always getting more than what they initially thought was possible. Once they're in that moment, they completely forget about time as a measure of ROI for their engagement. Find a number that can feel arbitrary. Maybe what I've learned is that there is a client out there for every number, no matter how high or low it is. So in a way, the number that you have is kind of like an attraction to different types of clients. If your number is very high, you're going to attract clients that have a lot of funding, which happens to be clients that are further along in the company's life cycle. So you will be doing different kind of work than if you're more flexible and then welcome in early stage companies. And the other part is, you know, you got to know your worth. You know, you have a number. If somebody says yes too quickly to that number, then that number is too low. You increase that number until somebody starts saying no. And then you kind of find that sweet spot. But the key is like, you know, who is that somebody? Right? Are these people you want to work with or Are the people that are saying yes to the number or the projects that are saying yes to a number, projects that you're interested in working with. So it's finding where you find that balance. So yeah, that's, that's kind of what I've learned. Which again is nothing new but it's, but it requires a lot of discipline to enforce it every time. So that, because the moment you make one concession, you know, then you justify that for the rest of your career. I found that my approach is not for everyone. So some people may not be able to afford it or it doesn't match their expectations. So they don't know working with me. But a lot of the folks that I want to work with end up finding a way to work together regardless of that pricing model.
- [25:43]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
You talked about shifting perceptions away from hourly. Do you also have to shift perceptions away from part time in general? Because I know a lot of people are pretty dead set on no. I need a full time person. Is that something that you have to combat and what is the way that you are then selling yourself as fractional being the right strategic decision for that company?
- [26:01]
Gabe Valdivia
You can probably unpack what they mean by full time. You know, part of that is obviously how much time you spend, like how you're actually in the office or in slack available X number of hours. I think another part of it is more like culturally they want to build a team, they want to feel a community in their team. You know, I think there's a lot of ego tied into that where like as a founder you want to feel successful because you have this team that's growing and that's a reflection of the success of your company. You know, we, you talk to founders all the time, it's like how are you doing? And they're like Great, we hired 30 people. And that statement alone is like a statement of success. Doesn't matter what the third people are doing, if they're working, if they're being effective or not, it's just like they're butts in seats. So, so I think there's a kind of built in expectation that like bringing people in is a measure of success and bringing in a contractor is like half success. So you know, I, I think that's where the fractional framing comes in where it's much lower stakes. Right. You don't have all the surrounding benefits of being full time, all the logistics tied into it. You know, you can be a lot more agile coming in and out as you need and it becomes less about your cultural impact in A company which you know is valuable, but I would argue it shouldn't be the focus of the early stage and it becomes more about like what do we want to accomplish is much more outcomes oriented. So as a company you have certain challenges that you have ahead of you. There's a few options of solving those challenges. You can bring in people, find them, bring them in, train them and eventually have them solve those problems. Or you and I can work on this tomorrow and fix it in two days. So when you kind of phrase things like that, you kind of strip away any of the decoration really that makes a full time hire and be much more laser focused on what the company needs at any given time. And of course, you know, the companies that I work with, I ended up working with them for a long time. I just wrapped up a contract for two years that I was working with them. So you end up having a cultural impact anyway. But it's much more rooted on the actual output that you have as a team member than it is like this veil of just like a family.
- [28:13]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
I'm going to make you go way deeper here for a second. You might hate this question, but if I'm hypothetically a client right now, what are some of the key phrases that you would be looking to use in conversation to demonstrate what you bring to the table as a fractional designer versus what I might get elsewhere? With? You know, your average run of the mill full time designer, you have a couple options.
- [28:36]
Gabe Valdivia
One, you can hire a full time designer and if you're an early stage company, one, you probably have no brand equity to attract talent. You probably don't have a lot of capital to bring in talent. You know, these designers are making a million dollars a year, a meta. Why would they come work for you for a tenth of that money? You know, you don't actually know what they should be working on yet. Like the product doesn't have shape yet. You have a vague sense of the problem, but not of the solution. So you can hire a full time person, which is challenging in its own way. You can hire an agency which is very expensive and they have a very rigid process where like if you change the color of something, that adds to the scope. And now you have to like rejigger the contracts based on a single piece of feedback. So you have that stress of handling an agency or you find a freelancer that is much more contract or project based. They have work on a website where you work on this particular feature or this thing which requires you as a founder to scope what that thing is and define it for them. So those are your options, which are all challenging. The option that I provide is it doesn't matter that you don't know what you need. We figure it out together. So we partner strategically on what the end result should be. You can think of me as a design co founder as a service where I don't take co founder equity, but what I can contribute is at that altitude of like figuring out what we're working on and then using design as a way to articulate what we want to work on and to understand this direction or that direction. That's kind of what a design co founder would do.
- [30:10]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Do you use that phrase often? Design co founder as a service?
- [30:13]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah, Soleil. Actually, he.
- [30:16]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Everything always goes back to Soleil. What the heck.
- [30:19]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah, he used it to describe my work a long time ago. I've used it since. So the idea is that you have a much lower stakes way of interacting with someone at that altitude without giving up that much equity or that long term commitment. You're able to afford someone who's been doing this for a long time. The difference is that from my perspective, I can't quit my job and work for a startup and work for a tenth of my salary. So I've been able to do this long enough that I can spend a fraction of my time working for that client and another fraction working in a different client and so on. And through that I'm able to kind of meet the needs that I have that typically a single employer would fulfill. I can now kind of spread it across different clients and that scratches my itch creatively and I get to work on different things. And for any given client, it satisfies what they need.
- [31:09]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Right. So this entire model is predicated on your ability to operate at a high level across multiple different projects simultaneously. So let's talk about that piece of the puzzle right now. How do you fit these projects together? Are there any rules or safety rails that you put in place? How do you manage your time? How does that part of the practice work?
- [31:28]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah, I mean, in some ways it's no different than how a principal designer works at a large company. If you've worked in this long enough and you make it through the ranks and you become principal or director level ic, your role is to manage multiple projects and parachute into different projects to solve their needs. So it's not uncommon for those folks to have three or four different projects with different PMs and different strategies at once. So it's that same model, but applied to the startup sector. And the way that I've managed it is that clients have typically three phases they go through. The first phase is the most high intense phase where you're like really figuring out what is this product, what are the design system, what are the key screens, what is the brand look and feel. That's like that initial phase. The second phase is kind of that long tail where you're really executing on that. So that's where you figure out things like setting screens and login flows and optimizing different iterations based on feedback. That's kind of that second phase where you have a foundation but you're kind of like iterating on that. And the third phase is kind of where I hand off and I help the clients that I work with. I help them hire a design team, which, you know, most people don't have any understanding of. Like what is a design org? What are the different levels of a design org? How do I, you know, set up a culture so that it invites designers who are a very particular breed of knowledge workers and how do I kind of set them up to succeed? So that's kind of what the third phase is about, which I, you know, I've done a lot in my career and I helped set those companies up for success based on those three stages that usually demanding in different ways. So I try not to have two clients on phase one at the same time. So I try to stagger them a bit where like I may be kind of in the trenches with. With client one, with client two, I'm kind of more like off boarding and helping them set something up. And client three, I am, you know, kind of iterating on features and that helps me kind of like, you know, context switch and also have the right energy for the right client.
- [33:29]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Where does your own business operations fit into this? I'm sure that there's quite a bit involved in there. You mentioned building your own custom tool. How do you think about that?
- [33:38]
Gabe Valdivia
It can be very nimble, right? Like the operations of running a design business as one are very low, you know, Figma and cursor subscriptions. I think for me I've added things like the apprenticeship model and the designer residence model and that has a different pricing structure and obviously has more complexity in communication because now I have to handle a team of designers and clients and that relationship and I've been able to create a process for that. Part of that process has been in creating my own tools through vibe coding, servicing the business, but also scratching my itch of learning new tools and Understanding how to use AI to create new tools which quite excited about. So through that I've been able to create my own. I call them actually like software jigs. You know, like in woodworking, you create a jig to like solve a particular problem. I think vive coding, it's a similar idea where like you want to do something, but the options are there are either too expensive or too bloated with other features that make a product into a company. In this case, I can just make the product that I need right now. It doesn't matter what it looks like, it doesn't matter. It's monetization strategy. It just solves this problem that I need. That's what I've done. I built a budgeting kind of projection tool. I built my custom CRM that connects to my email. And these are all have a user base of one.
- [35:00]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Yeah, but that's like your whole software stack though, you know, like that's probably all you really need.
- [35:04]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah, and I save, you know, like 40 bucks a month of subscriptions that it would be to use the alternative.
- [35:09]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
And it probably works better because it's designed for you. I mean, I'm not a woodworker. I don't really. The jig metaphor doesn't land on me as well as maybe some people listening, but I bet it feels awesome to make and use a thing that is bespoke for the very specific set of use cases that you have.
- [35:23]
Gabe Valdivia
Oh, man, it feels so awesome. Like I said, I used to do music and a few years ago I made a record and I put it on Spotify and it has like yearly two listeners, me and my mom. But it's like. I think it's like the best music ever made is exactly what I like. And I made it. And it doesn't matter that nobody else listens to it because it's like, you know, scratching your own itch. So anyway, I've done that now with my business and it's been really helpful.
- [35:48]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
You were actually maybe the very first designer who came to me with a Vibe code project. It was 2 configs ago. I don't know if you remember this, but you were working on Daylight, and we were standing at the escalator and you're like, man, you were glowing. You were absolutely glowing because you had just made Almanac, like the very first version, it was on your phone, you were clicking through and showing me, and I was like, this is crazy. He's not an engineer and he made a mobile app.
- [36:17]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
And at the time it blew my.
- [36:18]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Mind now, you release one of these almost every other weekend. It's what it feels like, but I will give you the credit. You were very early on the Vibe coding train.
- [36:27]
Gabe Valdivia
I actually, I haven't yet used Vibe coding tools for my work, other than my own tools, but not for clients. I'm sure it's very great. And I have. I actually work with engineers who use Cursor and they're like 100x. Engineers are. They're incredible. But I haven't figured out a way to fit it into my, my professional workflow. So what I love about it is that I can make something that is totally devoid of a business model or a problem to be solved. And it's just an exploration of an idea. It's like the truest form of like, here's an idea, visualize or manifest it, react to that idea by either using it or saying it sucks or whatever. And it's like so pure and so fun. And it's like a brand new world where like, I know a little bit of code, but not enough to make an app. So I'm like, in this, this total wonderland of like, exploration and constant surprise and delight. It's really fun and it's evolving to be an essential tool in your tool set for a professional workflow. But I love that sliver of make some weird idea that you have and see it come to life. If it's good enough, share with other people and see what they think. Like, that's so fun.
- [37:35]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
I'm a big believer in the power of video to explain my thinking as a designer. So when it's time to get feedback, I'll drop a loom link in Slack and another link to a Figma prototype and feedback will be scattered everywhere. And I mean, it's a mess. So I'm building the product that I've always wanted to exist, and it's called Inflight. You can kind of think of it like an Async crit. It's an easy way to share a video walkthrough along with an interactive prototype or whatever you're designing, and then AI interviews the people on your team to get you the feedback that you need and organizes everything for you in a beautiful insights page. So right now I'm only giving access to Dive club listeners. So if you want to be one of the first to use Inflight, head to Dive Club Inflight to claim your spot.
- [38:21]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
You talked about earlier how you feel yourself settling into the role of the standout bassist in the jazz band. What are some of the ways that over the last six, 12, 18 months, you feel like I am growing in my craft at this specific set of skills that I bring to the table. What are those indicators or signals to you that you're still growing even though you're not surrounded by peers who are maybe directly pushing your craft forward?
- [38:51]
Gabe Valdivia
Well, the indicator that I'm growing is that I'm working on projects that I find to be increasingly exciting. The day to day work today is more fun than it was nine months ago or two years ago. So that to me, that's a good sign, right? I'm a pretty harsh critic, especially of myself. So I can look at my work and be disappointed by it very, very quickly. And I do 99% of the time if I find that I'm like being challenged, that that to me feels like a indication of growth, my specialty, or what I have to bring to the table. I think that was in your question as well. I mean, it's nothing unique. Like I don't have any, any secret sauce. I think I love design more than most people. There's a lot of designers that I work with who are kind of begrudgingly designers who see it as a means to an end or they just don't like designing. And I love it. Like I, I truly love it. And it's like the only thing that I've done other than music. Like I started doing design when I was 13 and I'm 38 is the only thing that I know how to do. But I do like it a lot. I think that what that allows me to do is I can do all the dirty work joyfully. Like, I love naming layers, I love organizing shit. Like all that stuff that people frown upon or scoff at. I find it to be enjoyable. That paired with something I think is more innate to my personality, which is I have like an extreme bias for action with like a very unhealthy degree of urgency. So, you know, you deploy that to a startup and I think it's a pretty good fit where I'm usually that accelerator in an environment where like, oh yeah, we need to do this. And I'm like, why don't we do this right now? In fact, I just did it and here it is. And that's the energy that you need in that environment. And I think a lot of people don't know that when they're in that environment. So when they encounter someone like me, they're like pleasantly surprised and they, they see the consequences of that and kind of propelling the team forward, you know, that combination is not a very good fit. In later stages of a company, you have to be a lot more patient, you have to be a little more thoughtful. And, you know, that has its own merit. And I think I can role play to somewhat be effective in that environment. But it does feel like a role play. Like, the thing that's more kind of innate to someone like me is, like, that combination of, like, I love the craft of design, and I have an unhealthy attachment to urgency. So combine those two, and I think that makes for a very useful contribution to that early stage environment urgency.
- [41:18]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Also, you also have this obsession with the total ambiguity. There's not even really a clear path forward, which I do think is a really special thing to hear you talk about. And it reminds me of the tweet that I just remembered right now where you talked about how early stage design is kind of like splunking a little bit.
- [41:37]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah. I mean, I think the philosophy behind that is that I believe truly to my core that the best way to get through a good idea is through bad ideas. There's a little bit of humility in that where, like, I don't think I have the skill set or the experience to be presented a problem and be like, here's what you need. See you in six months. Some people might be able to do that, but I can't. What I can do is, like, here's one idea, and then a day later, he's two more ideas, and then two hours later, he's another idea. And that exposure to ideas, I find it more exciting, more fun, because that makes the job about encountering new ideas and rationalizing whether they're good or bad and applying critical thinking. Right. And that job, to me, is much more exciting than setting up a plan for the next six months and just executing on the plan until you realize six months later there was a wrong plan. I find myself attracted to that stage because intellectually, I find it more stimulating. Right. Of being more creative, just like actually practicing creativity and using my hands or my fingers to have dexterity in how I use a tool to create an artifact, but also how that artifact interacts with people's worldview or even a view of their product and challenging that view and that challenge. If you talk to anyone that knows me, they will say, the first thing about me is that I love challenging people. I love improving things. Taking that and applying it in a professional context becomes really fun where, like, your job is just to make things better. Like, question everything and do so by painting a new reality that can feel tangible. And you could say that reality is not for me, but at least you get to experience it a little bit, and you get to kind of, like, put on those shoes for a little bit. You're like, oh, I'm living in a new world. Even for half a second. You're like, that's not for me. Okay, well, then it's now my job to present a new world and go from there.
- [43:33]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
And I love that because the stakeholder in that situation might not have been able to articulate that that wasn't for them until they saw it and had something to react to. And so you're helping clarify their thinking, even if it's just getting a better idea of what they don't like.
- [43:46]
Gabe Valdivia
To me, that is quintessentially what design is. Right now we're at a point in the industry where we're questioning roles and design, like, what is even design. And you can go from idea to product so quickly. Do you even need designers? Right. And my. My passion is not in, like, creating a product and nurturing that product to be a culturally relevant, successful thing that ultimately leads to me cashing out and retiring. I think a lot of people are motivated by that. They want, like, a flag to plant or like, some sort of legacy of, like, this is what I did, and it's important. I created an iPhone. I created ChatGPT. I whatever, you know, like, they want their iPhone or their chatgpt. I'm not motivated by that. I think the thing that motivates me is those breakthroughs of applying a craft that is bigger than me. Design existed before I came around. It will exist after I die. So I'm just tapping into a craft and a way of seeing the world. And I'm using that to operate in a creative, critical thinking way to help people come up with different breakthroughs. And those breakthroughs is what kind of fuels me. It's not the one successful product.
- [44:57]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
I like that it's like a celebration of the process rather than the output, which is mostly rare.
- [45:02]
Gabe Valdivia
That's what's at stake. Right. Like, a lot of people, I think, use design as a means to get to that artifact that is culturally relevant, and it solves problems for people and builds a company and the legacy for them. And design is just kind of the stepping stone to get in there. I don't find that as exciting. I find the actual process of design to be much more rewarding than having that final output that you get to point out and say, this is what I made, and this is What I dedicated my life to. I'd rather dedicate my life to a practice like a craft of design.
- [45:37]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Well, you're the perfect person to have apprentices, then. That's exactly the type of mentality that you need to learn from. We've covered a lot of ground. I kind of want to just zoom out and make sure that we've covered our bases here. So are there any other learnings or insights that you've gathered over the last couple years that you think people listening who maybe are on the fence or earlier in their journey could benefit from?
- [46:00]
Gabe Valdivia
One thing that was evident to me very quickly is what comes with the stability of having a job from an employer, you know, that takes care of your needs. Especially working at Big Tech, it's like, such a parental relationship. They do your laundry for you, they give you lunch and breakfast, and you don't have to think about buying hardware because you can expense it. And there's all these, like, components of living life that are taken care of for you. So I found myself kind of floating through the human condition. You know, a lot of people experience challenges that because you have a cushy job in Big Tech, you don't need to worry about that. And I think that creates a disconnect between you and the world around you. Unless your world is San Francisco and everybody's experiencing that. But even then, you have the rest of the world to interact with. And I think that dissonance was a little bit numbing for me where I felt it hard to belong or find a place within the rest of the world. Society, really, something becomes very obvious or evident to you the moment you can step away from that shelter. And then you're bound to find your own insurance, you know, and interact with that challenge. Or, you know, I have a child, a second child coming in. How do I take parental leave? What does that mean for my business? What does that mean for the livelihood of our family? I think a lot of that can sound like stress, you know, like, you don't want to deal with that. Have somebody else take care of that for you. I find it really valuable to, like, be really confronted with that and coming up with a point of view of, like, how do I participate in all these systems? All the way from, like, how do you do your taxes? How do you set up vacations? Like, you know, how do you send emails? What is your voice as a business? How do you write contracts? All these questions are really meaningful, I think, for me to, like, encounter and come up with a point of view. I never I never really thought about taxes. You know, I was like, yeah, you got to do taxes. I just, you know, talk to an accountant and they do it and keep going with my life. And maybe that's unique to me, but I felt really sheltered when working for an employer, whoever it was, to kind of give me a place in life. And, you know, there are other components to that of like you kind of outsource your ego to these brands. You work at Meta and Meta has a brand, so if you work for them, you're automatically associated with that. There's good and bad to that. Like, I got invited to a lot of conferences to speak just because I worked at Meta, which is, you know, felt great for my ego, but like, it really a representation of myself. And, you know, it was really rewarding for me to speak at Config this year where I wasn't representing any company and it was just the work that I was doing. You could argue that's still, you know, external validation, which is inherently unhealthy, but it was more meaningful, right, to work on something on your own and have that be recognized than to be attached to something else that takes care of you. And you have like this weird transaction with them or like you work for them, you provide some value to their company, they provide value to your life, and then that's it. And then you retire and then you die. I found that to be numbing. You know, it's like a way of living that can lead to comfort, but for someone like me, it actually led to a lot of discomfort, a lot of uneasiness. What do I do like, what I do from here?
- [49:26]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
One last question, and I think I kind of just want to take a macro perspective to this because there's so much uncertainty in the world, specifically around our industry, the profession of being a designer. And I'm curious how you think about all of the shifting tectonic plates and how they impact the future of fractional design and the market for it. And again, maybe speaking to that person who's kind of listening, but they're also trying to pick a path career wise that gives them the best chance of thriving in a world where it's not as easy in many ways. So how do you think about where this is all headed and the role that fractional design plays in that future?
- [50:10]
Gabe Valdivia
One of the best people I work with is this guy named Charlie Sutton. He now leads design for Atlassian. Anyone that's worked with him loves that guy. I do too. We worked together on the VR team at Facebook in 2015, very early on, and we were like, really drinking the Kool Aid of VR and having truly transformative experiences that I was literally crying. I was like, wow, I've never been touched by this. There was one called Notes and Blindness that puts you in the shoes of a blind person and you experience the world as a blind person from the VR perspective. It's really, really powerful stuff. That was all fueling our love for that field and our desire to leave our mark in that field. And there was a lot of pontification at that time. 2015, I think VR is pretty hot. And we're like, in the future, we're all going to be plugged into a computer and it's going to be ready player one, and we're going to socialize in digital environments and the Metaverse and all this shit. What Charlie said, which I still remember, he would say that when we're encountering these moments, you always think of, like, it's going to change everything or it's not going to change anything at all. And both things end up being true. For some people, it changes everything. For some people, life continues as it is. So I think that's the framework that I've carried through when I'm encountering emerging technology. So AI, it's of the moment and it's going to change everything. It already is. Right. I have a question about my child's health. I go to ChatGPT and that has a very meaningful impact.
- [51:41]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Thank God, life.
- [51:42]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah. So it changes everything for a lot of people. At the same time. We're all people that have the same needs, have the same dynamics, and things are not changing as much. You can argue that this is a moment like no other than we've experienced before, and this time it will actually do change everything for sure. But I think that more wise path is to accept both options as a reality. In fact, I read a book called Team Human and it talks about AI and what makes you human. And one of the points in that book is that the one characteristic that makes you human is the ability to have two opposing views and believe them at the same time. There is no God and I have a purpose. Right. People believe those two things to their core, and that is what makes you human. That is what is really hard for a machine to. Because machines are more binary, no pun intended. So I think when it comes to AI and what it does into how it influences our industry is that I think it will do both. Yahoo is still the sixth most visited website in the whole entire Internet. And also, you have crypto and AI and the whole world of information that has soared past that. So I think both truths exist. You know, I think there are designers who design a certain way today that in 30 years will be doing it the exact same way and they will have a job doing so. And there are people who will have an entirely different job in 30 years specifically for fractional design. I think there is a very likelihood that AI will create an explosion in new ideas, kind of zero to one projects, and provide a very viable solution to maintain projects. I also think that we shifted from an environment where design was like this discipline that will be tapped into for different phases of a project. You know, there were agencies that you call in to redesign this thing or to provide some design thinking and then they will go back to the design world and the rest of the company will do their thing. And over the last 20 years, we brought those people in house and then we created a role for them. I think those roles are now becoming a little bit more replaceable and not as like necessary. So you have people with expertise like design who don't have a need to deploy all that expertise all the time in a single company. So the company only needs a portion of your expertise. And as an expert, you now have all this extra expertise that you can like surplus. You need to figure out what to do with it. And I think that opens an opportunity to deploy to different companies, which is what I found over the last two years that has been really successful. Like we talked about, what my version of that is and how I'm able to be useful in different environments. I think other people have different expertises and will be able to deploy it across many different companies. And I actually think that the end result of that is more designers designing more and more companies, more companies that benefit from design, more products that are better designed, rather than having all this talent accumulated in a single company that may or may not be using that talent to its fullest extent. So for those who are experts in the field, who enjoy that field, I think it's a bright future because they're able to be freed up from the constraint of a single suitor for their expertise and instead like apply it across different locations. I think that's generally positive. Again, it comes to trade offs. It probably means that the way that a designer fits into an organization today will change in the future for some organizations, right? Not for all. It is forcing us as, let's say creatives, not even professional, but creatives. It's forcing us to figure out like what is it that we love? Do we love the idea of building a company or building a product? Do we love some other thing that we can define as design, or do we love something else that we become woodworkers or whatever? There's this opportunity where you can take stock and decide what you like and see how that fits into the environment. So I foresee that happening. And also nothing will change for some people and they will just do what they're doing today.
- [55:46]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
Yeah, it's easy, especially when you hang out on Twitter, to underestimate the rest of the world when you just hang out in the little bubble. That being said, I do agree with the thesis at its core where it feels like we're about to have this explosion of surface area that requires design simply because the time to see an idea to something has just been compressed into this little sliver of what it was before. So, yeah, it feels like time to.
- [56:13]
Gabe Valdivia
Be a fractional designer and I think that feels like design, but I don't know if that's design. It's like a very efficient way to go from point A to point B, which is useful and valuable, but I don't know if that is the same usefulness and value that the design process brings into a company.
- [56:32]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
You might argue that not only is it not quote unquote design, but it necessitates design.
- [56:37]
Gabe Valdivia
Yeah, yeah. A version of it for sure.
- [56:40]
Host (possibly a co-host or interviewer)
I'm going to draw a line here before we get way too nuanced, but Gabe, this was amazing. As always. It's so fun to hear your journey. I'm already anticipating the future check in. You have a permanent place on the show because it's just great to learn from all the things that are going on on and the different projects that you're putting out into the world and everything that you're working on. So appreciate your time today.
- [57:01]
Gabe Valdivia
Thank you, man. I love you and I love this show.
- [57:04]
Rid (Host of Dive Club)
Before I let you go, I want to take just one minute to run you through my favorite products because I'm constantly asked what's in my stack. Framer is how I build websites. Genway is how I do research. Granola is how I take notes during crit. Jitter is how I animate my designs. Lovable is how I I build my ideas in code. Marvin is how I find design inspiration. Paper is how I design like a creative. And Raycast is my shortcut every step of the way. Now I've hand selected these companies so that I can do these episodes full time. So by far the number one way to support the show is to check them out. You can find the full list at Dive Club slash Partners.