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This Guy Makes $2M Per Year And Keeps All the Money
And use this exact playbook to scale businesses as a solopreneur
Hello! Welcome back to BotBox.
Have you heard of DesignJoy, a design agency with a twist for everyone?
Meet its genius founder, Brett Williams, who founded DesignJoy as a side project.
Today this project of his gets:
Achieved $145K MRR
Done monthly visits of over 130K+
Used by over 30K designers
His product growth index a year ago
Amazingly, he solo-handled 130K+ daily users and scaled DesignJoy to $1.15M in revenue and he spends only $95/month for maintenance and keeps all the profit for himself.
In short, as a solopreneur Brett only does 3 things:
Service Clients for DesignJoy
Teach others in his Productize Yourself course
Spends $1100/year in subscriptions for $2M/year revenue
Let’s get into this amazing founder story.
Starting a design agency
How this all started
In 2017, Brett worked full-time but wanted to explore design freelancing/agency.
While looking for inspiration, he found a graphic design agency doing design-as-a-subscription.
He stole the idea and launched his similar MVP in 24 hours.
Screenshot of the project — Design pickle
For those who don’t know MVP stands for minimum viable product. The exact steps he used to develop his MVP can categorized into 3:
Created a single-page board website on a Saturday (6–7 hours)
Paid $29 to get it up and running
Launched on Product Hunt
Hue (DesignJoy) Launch on product hunt
Idea it’s creation and marketing
He launched his brand “Hue” in July 2017 (renamed it after “Design Joy”). His business model is simply design-as-a-subscription: pay a fixed amount/month and you get unlimited designs.
This model was new and unheard of back in 2017, especially in his niche.
DesignJoy pricing/subscription
In the beginning, Brett regularly shared his product progress on indie-hackers (a vibrant community of solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, bootstrappers, etc.).
He started writing detailed articles and replied to every question
shared insights from his journey and created a narrative that people loved
That’s how he acquired his initial 100 customers.
Screenshot of Brett’s article from indie hacker
On the other side, he also started sharing his progress on his Twitter/X profile. This way he gained trust and built a massive personal brand. Today most of his customers come from X.
Screenshot of his Twitter/X post
But his MRR still stayed well below $50K for the first 4 years. He was unsure if DesignJoy would work out so he side-hustled for 3.5 years. He would do the work on Zoom meetings.
But then Brett quit the job at $60K MRR and guess what, his revenue almost doubled in the next 3 months.
Brett’s growth graph after leaving his full-time job
Screenshot of his LinkedIn post
To summarize all the above steps, what he did:
First, pick his idea and launch it on Product Hunt
Second, built-in public by joining communities like Indie Hackers
Lastly, built a personal brand — most of his clients come from his Twitter now
How does DesignJoy exactly work
As I have stated at the start of the article — the design-as-a-subscription model idea was a new thing in 2017. So in this section, I will try to break down how DesignJoy works.
First, clients submit requests through a Trello board where they have access to every piece of information they need. One client can request Brett to work on one design at a time.
Screenshot of Trello
Then he works on design requests with a 24/48 hours turnaround time. He spends all his working time creating designs, never getting on any calls.
DesignJoy sample
Brett has a zero-tolerance no-meetings policy. He gets on a prospect call and clears the doubts. But he never gets on quick calls to discuss work and works 100% async. Meetings are distractions so he’s created an environment where he can focus on serving clients.
He came out with a sustainable approach and limited the number of clients to 30–35 clients. He didn’t want to overwork himself because that would compromise quality and take a toll on his health too.
So he also drastically increased his rates from $500 to $5000.
Screenshot of his Twitter/X post
His playbook and how is he doing today
Brett is famous for launching things in minimum time and making it successful like launching MVP within 24 hours and testing if the audience bites.
He created DesignJoy in 24 hours and his course Productize Yourself in 12 hours (recorded in his car). It’s doing over $90K/month.
His income as a solo designer in the last 365 days:
Designjoy: $1.15M
Productie Yourself: $940k
Consulting: $24k
Screenshot of gross income — Stripe dashboard
Founder story lessons
Keep a full-time job before you make enough money.
Have a belief in yourself. You are capable enough.
Know when to quit your job. He quit his job at $60K/month but could’ve quit way earlier.
Here’s the future of work in the next decade:
Serve multiple clients (solopreneur/business) and not just one
Work async, remotely, and focus 100% on your core skill
Once you have proven expertise, teach others
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