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If you’re someone who values flexibility and independence, you’ve probably found yourself drawn to freelance or gig work at some point in your career. After all, the autonomy that comes from working for yourself is certainly an attractive prospect! Gig work, however, is not without its challenges, and the tradeoffs are well-known among those who’ve experienced it. Common frustrations include the burnout associated with constantly chasing new clients or projects as well as the feast-or-famine sensation induced by an ever-changing income. So what’s the answer? Is it impossible to have the best of both worlds? Or is there a way to preserve that autonomy and marry it with the security of regular, full-time employment?
Enter the concept of productized services — a unique opportunity to turn gig work into a sustainable, scalable business! Today, we’re exploring how Russ Perry, founder of Design Pickle, transformed his life as a burnt-out creative agency owner into an eight-figure business by productizing graphic design. Learn how this strategy can apply to your own business aspirations and how it might just be the key to more freedom, stability, and growth. Let’s dive in!
The Birth of Design Pickle: From Burnout to Breakthrough
"What started for me in 2005 as 'I want freedom, I want this choice for my life and for my family,' I woke up as a prisoner of what I had created."
Before Design Pickle, Russ was a creative agency owner struggling with the challenges of managing various clients and their robust projects. He was forced to acknowledge that, despite having sought entrepreneurship for the freedom that it promised, he felt more trapped than ever. Finally, after closing his agency, he faced the uncertainty of his next steps, all while juggling the responsibilities of a growing family. How can I adapt my business model to better suit the lifestyle I desire, he wondered? It was in this period of reflection and desperation that the concept of a subscription-based design service was born.
By creating a business model that offered graphic design on a subscription basis — providing clients with unlimited design help for a flat monthly fee — Russ could solve a common client problem while also avoiding the pitfalls of overextended projects and unpredictable income. This simple yet powerful idea led to the birth of Design Pickle.
Solving Common Problems with a Subscription Model
"What if you could get design help anytime you need, but it’s like a Netflix subscription where you just pay the monthly fee?"
When it comes to productized services, the key to success lies in solving a common problem in a way that’s accessible and easy for clients to understand. Russ identified a pain point — small businesses struggling to manage design needs without hiring a full-time designer — and addressed it with a subscription-based service. This approach gave clients predictable costs and easy access to creative services, while also allowing Design Pickle to scale quickly and efficiently.
Productizing a service like design work — or any service-based offering — simplifies processes for both the client and the provider. It offers clients the value of an in-house team without the management headaches, and it provides the service provider with consistent revenue streams, reducing the feast-or-famine cycle typical in freelance work.
The Power of Focus and Consistency
"I'm not the smartest, I'm not the most creative, I'm not the strongest, I'm not the fastest, I'm just very consistent, and that seems to have worked well."
One of the biggest lessons from Russ’s story is the importance of focus and consistency. He didn't try to reinvent himself with every new business idea. Instead, he zeroed in on his expertise in design, took a systematic approach to building a subscription model, and focused on refining it over time. Consistency helped him scale the business from a one-man show to an operation with over 700 designers serving thousands of clients.
For anyone looking to break out of the cycle of irregular gigs or freelance burnout, maintaining consistency in your offerings and your processes is crucial. Whether you’re sending emails to potential clients, refining your product, or managing existing customer relationships, it’s the daily, disciplined actions that drive long-term results.
Building a Global Team: Scaling Without Boundaries
"We have a global services team that we try to pay as best as we can and hire at the market rates, but their cost of living is quite a bit lower, so that our cost of the business to deliver the service is much less."
An essential part of productizing services is creating a system that can scale. For Russ, this meant leveraging a global team to deliver high-quality design work at competitive rates. By building a team of designers in countries like the Philippines, he was able to offer clients quality work while keeping operational costs down. This approach also allowed him to reinvest in growth and technology improvements, creating a more seamless experience for clients.
Freelancers and small business owners can take a page from this playbook by exploring how to leverage global talent to create a more competitive offering. It’s about finding the best people for the job — regardless of location — and creating systems that allow you to scale up or down as client needs change.
Embracing Technology: From Process Documentation to AI
"From the very beginning, I realized the key to great creativity is not a good designer. It's a clear brief."
Russ’s focus on process and technology has been a cornerstone of Design Pickle's success. By meticulously documenting every step of the design process, he created a scalable model that ensures consistency in the client experience. This documentation made it easier to train new team members and to maintain quality as the company grew.
Today, Russ continues to integrate new technologies like AI into Design Pickle's workflow to streamline processes and improve client communication. From generating mockups to managing feedback loops, AI tools enhance the efficiency of creative work, making it easier for clients to get what they need and for designers to focus on what they do best.
For entrepreneurs looking to productize their services, embracing technology is a must. The right tools can help you automate routine tasks, manage client communication more effectively, and ultimately provide a better customer experience.
Key Takeaways for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
"The more you've been in corporate America, the more opportunities you'll find to solve problems that no one else is solving that can become the business."
Russ’s journey from struggling agency owner to the founder of a thriving subscription-based business is filled with insights for anyone looking to transform their service offerings into a scalable product.
Identifying a common problem, focusing on consistency, building a scalable team, and leveraging technology are all factors to which he attributes his success.
…Class Dismissed!
Productizing services has the potential to change the game for freelancers looking to create a sustainable business. By focusing on solving client problems with a clear, repeatable process, you can build a model that not only scales but also frees you from the unpredictable nature of gig work. Whether you’re a designer, a marketer, or a consultant, the principles that guided Russ’s success with Design Pickle have universal applications.
Want to hear the full interview with Russ? Click here!
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Transcript
Russ: [00:00:00] And the longer you've worked, the more you've been in corporate America, the more opportunity you'll find to solve problems that no one else are solving that can become the business.
Brien: Welcome to the Millionaire University podcast. I'm Brian Guerin back in the saddle with you. And today we're going to talk about productizing a service or what's oftentimes a freelance type of business. And that's the name of the game for today's guest. Russ Perry of Design Pickle, a company that completes graphic design tasks for clients for monthly subscription.
So Russ, thank you so much for joining me today.
Russ: I love your simple, simple summary of the last 10 years of my life. It sounds so easy when you say it that way. That's great. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Brien: Perfect. I worked on it for hours. I distilled it down perfectly. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Russ: A couple of chat GPT iterations.
I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, no worries. No [00:01:00] worries.
Brien: Yeah. Well, anyway, today we're going to cover as much as we can from your origin story to how you grew this business, what you were doing before the business, everything into your team, your logistics margins. You name it, we're going to hit on all the nuts and bolts.
So let's kick it off right there. Let's talk about your origin story. It's my understanding that at one time in the past, you were a, uh, a bit of a long suffering creative agency owner in that kind of led into design pickles. So why don't you take the ball and run with it from there?
Russ: Well, I'm actually going to start you earlier than that, and I'm going to say I was a college student at Arizona State University, and I had a daughter my senior year, which, for the record, I just saw her at Northern Arizona University.
She's a sophomore in college now, so it shows you how old I am there. College to college. When that happened, it was a big life change for me as it is with any parents and a young parent. And I was working at Apple and I [00:02:00] was in a place that I loved my job at Apple. It was fantastic. I was one of the early employees in the retail stores.
There was only one in Arizona, but It was really limiting for me with a young child. And so taking time off and spending time with her and all of the things that, you know, you sort of take for granted prior to kids. All of it was out the window. And, and so at that time I had studied design and I was kind of, you know, Tinkering around with freelancing and starting my own business, but really my entrepreneurial journey started because of my daughter and I have two more daughters now, so three total.
And it was a change. It was a scary big change for me. So that I could at least what I thought at the time was have more freedom. Now that's not always so true when you start your own thing. And then that path led me to what you mentioned, which was two agencies that I ran [00:03:00] running big branding projects, which was redesigning logos, experiences, websites.
We were an early HubSpot reseller, which was really fun and exciting until I realized how complicated it was to deliver on those projects and kind of failed miserably on them. And throughout that journey, I just was honing my skills at running a business, managing creatives, getting really familiar with the process of design from a practical standpoint, not necessarily how to be inspired, but How to collect the right information, how to manage timelines, how to expect client says versus what they really need, which is not always the same thing.
And part of that journey towards the end, I ended up with a partner in Argentina, his name's Federico and him and I. Became close friends. We had all of our design done in Argentina, and I ran the businesses here. So this was early, early [00:04:00] 2010s, and we were really one of the first companies that I'm aware of that was outsourcing services as an American company at our scale.
Now, I know big international companies have outsourced services for a long time, but unfortunately, Brian, I really as a business owner. And so that business, my partner did amazing. He did exactly what we wanted him to do. Low cost, creative, high grade, great quality, good designs. But I struggled. I didn't know how to read a PML.
I didn't know how to hold clients accountable and manage them as well as, as I could. So projects would go. Overtime, over budget, and eventually I was just super burnt out and what started for me in, in, in 2005, as I want freedom, I want this choice for my life and for my family, I woke up as a prisoner of what I had created.
I was a prisoner in my own business, which is worse than being a prisoner in someone else's business. [00:05:00] At least if you're an employee and a prisoner, you can kind of like point the finger somewhere else a little bit. But when you create it yourself, that's definitely something that's really heart wrenching.
And so I just closed it all down. I didn't have a plan. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was freaking out because I was married by then and had two other daughters and I was like, how am I going to pay my bills? Like, what's going to happen? But ultimately, I took all of that experience that I had running a traditional design and creative firm.
And I, and listening to podcasts like this, listening, reading books, I created a subscription service for design. And we were the first, and I'm very biased, the best and the largest today, but it was like, what if you could get design help anytime you need, but it's like a Netflix subscription where you just pay the monthly fee, you use it, you request it, someone's always available, you don't have to hire, you don't have to worry about your bill, you don't have to worry about 20 rounds of revisions, because it's [00:06:00] going to be the same price.
And so that core concept is what I launched in 2015 and next January. 2025 will be our 10 year anniversary. And that's, that's it today. Like not a lot has changed from that thesis. Now we have really cool technology and a lot of other stuff we've done and we've expanded our scope of services, but that is still the core of the business as we stand.
Brien: Okay. I love that. So this was back in 2015. So was this a new concept back then? Did you have like first movers advantage?
Russ: Yeah, so I always want to be historically accurate. I did research, because I was actually listening to this podcast series, I don't know if it's still around, called SAS Academy. And then I read this book called Seven Days Startup.
And it's still a book I recommend. It's about 100 pages by a guy named Dan Norris. And I was like, okay, I'm going to start something really fast, and it's going to be Really crazy with this thing called recurring revenue, which I had never had in my agency. I was like a bill collector half the time. When are you going to [00:07:00] be able to check?
When can I get wired? Like, when are you going to do this? But I did research and there was one other, I remember there's a woman and I wish I could remember her name that kind of had a subscription model, but it wasn't like her whole business. So I say we were the first. With an asterisk, but we launched an entire industry because today when you look at productized services The history books sometimes acknowledge us But we literally were the first one out there in design and now you can find it for pretty much all services out there Professional personal, you know, there's productized services for taking your trash can out if you want like it's all over the place And today there's lots of people that copy us.
I'm friends with a lot of people in the industry that, that are in my lane. It's a huge market. You know, if you took all of the companies that are in our space, combine them all. And you just even compared them to like a fiver. We're not even like 1 percent of the revenue, you know, like these, it's just, just massive how much content [00:08:00] we all need every day.
And my goal is just to continue to provide it in a really affordable and unique way to businesses that, that we can support.
Brien: So how did you land on design? I mean, it sounds like you read the seven day startup. Great book. Were you at the point where you're like, especially in your creative agency, you were kind of probably all over the place, right?
You were, you had multiple projects. You had multiple aspects to every project on top of clients that you probably didn't really enjoy that much. Did you just decide that, Hey, I was onto something here. We made some money, but maybe if we focus on one aspect of what we did for these people and really zone in on that, is that the moment you had, or what?
Were you a designer? Like what led to the actual design aspect of this being the main thing?
Russ: So I actually haven't told this story in a long time. You, if you really dig in deep to the Russ Perry podcast archives, you'll find this story, but Google has buried them by now. So it started before that. And I want to build on what something you said, you know, knowing your audience, you've probably got people thinking about doing [00:09:00] something, thinking about going off on their own or they're testing stuff.
So when I closed my agency in 2013, I was lost and I was lost. And I was also trying a million things. You know, I was like, do I create a kid's product? Do I launch another agency? Do I create a nonprofit? And I had, I, it was crazy. And so I remember I hired a business coach and for anyone listening, one of my biggest keys to growth and success is coaching and accountability and learning from people who aren't smarter than me, they're just more experienced and further down the path than me.
I'm not saying I'm a smart guy, but it's not about. Intelligence. It's about experience. It's to say, Hey, you're down that path. I like that path. Go tell me where the landmines are. Tell me where the pits are. Tell me what I need to know. And I'll pay a hundred dollars, 10, I paid for events and experiences and coaches.
So I hired a coach. And [00:10:00] his whole coaching framework, his name's Taylor Pearson. I actually haven't connected with him in a long time. I guess he, what he's up to, but he had read Ray Dalio's book principles. And at that point, it wasn't a book. It was just essays and inside of Ray Dalio, the big investor and head fund manager, he said, look for your life to be.
Happy supremely satisfied with your life. What must be true? So I took that statement like well, what must be true in my life because i'm not happy. It wasn't happening my agency I'm, not happy chasing 20 ideas simultaneously and trying to pay rent That's super stressful and I created a list which I then coined later on my decision filters And it was a lift of my life and lifestyle without any business ideas.
So number one I needed to be able to work remotely. My agency, I had to fly to offices, I had to be in seats, I had to host meetings, I was anchored in a place. So basically, it was like an online business, although I, I, I focused it more on the travel. Two, I wanted to [00:11:00] stay in my lane of expertise. So this comes back to your comment about creativity.
I didn't want to go learn product manufacturing. I was actually inventing Brian, I don't know, are you a parent by any chance?
Brien: Yep, I've got three, almost four, one coming next month.
Russ: So the really universal problem of young parents is when you have the car seat that you take out of the car and you go to the restaurant and you're sitting over rocking it at the restaurant so they like sleep.
I was like, well, what if I could make a device that rocked it for you? I called it the rock block. Terrible idea. And I'm like going, I'm like, I don't want to make things. It's like, what am I doing? So my next filter was like, I had almost 10 years of working in creativity. Let's find an idea that stays there.
I don't want to go get a new degree or learn all of these new things. And then there was a bunch more, like I had lifestyle stuff, like buy a house, recurring revenue was another thing. So once this was locked, I was able to take my business ideas and start filtering through them. Usually didn't even [00:12:00] make it past the first one or two filters.
And then I'd say, okay, I don't need to do that. And then so I just bided my time and I consulted and I did side hustle jobs and I just you know stuff I knew wasn't permanent but would get some cash flow and then finally one day enough consulting clients that I put them all onto a project management platform that had an email address and I said hey if you have any design just small stuff send it here and then I hired a couple contractors because I was getting busy my consulting actually was doing pretty good I didn't want to do it forever but I was like hey I'm going to make some money while I'm at it My design contractor sent the files to the client without showing me and I didn't know this until the client came up and said, Hey, Russ, um, thanks for those business cards.
That was awesome. And I was like, yeah, no problem. And in fact, my mind was like, I have no idea what he's talking about. And so this little moment was the light bulb to say, wait a minute, I got someone to thank you, which rarely happened in my previous career. It worked. I didn't do anything. It was all online and so I [00:13:00] pulled up my decision filter and I said, what if I had other like sold this, not just to my clients, but to anyone.
Okay, it's remote. I can travel. If I make money, I can buy a house. It's recurring. And it was like, check, check, check, check, check. And my decision filter, it passed. Then it was like, okay, this is the idea. And in 2014, I just, that's when I read the book, seven, a startup. And that's when I like was testing it more and figuring out the brand and doing all that.
And we launched in January of 2015. Long answer, but I hope you can see how it all kind of worked together.
Brien: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's a valuable story to tell because every entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur Has or will go through that at some point. Like it's not everybody just wakes up one day, has a business idea, launches it, and everything's smooth sailing and you're worth millions of dollars right away, it simply does not work that way.
Unless maybe your name's Elon Musk, but I think he had trouble starting up too. You know, everybody does.
Russ: And I also don't think it works like, [00:14:00] look, I'm not like I, there's always exceptions to the rules. I also don't think it works trying to be short sighted and just trying to. Hey, I'm going to do NFT trading, or I'm going to do this, or I'm going to do this.
I'm like, what's the latest fad and I'm going to sell AI stuff or whatever. Like I solved my own problem first. And then I realized. Wow, if this can work for me, I'm sure other people would want to buy it. I validate it here. And that's why today I have a business with value that runs without me and I'm not chasing a fad.
And if I go away for a week, took some trips last week, I went to a Harvard event and I studied and I went to a business mastermind event and my business ran with me because I think when you solve a problem yourself and then create a business around a common problem or products or whatever, that's something that can be built beyond you.
When you're just like in hustle, short [00:15:00] cash, I want to do this, I want to do this mode, Then you're basically just have a job. It's just with a bunch of other people you're responsible for rather than a traditional employment job where you might just have one boss. So, you know, I think that was the big thing that I knew intuitively, but in hindsight, especially with your audience of like, what do I do?
Where do I go? Like start there. And the longer you've worked, the more you've been in corporate America, The more opportunity you'll find to solve problems that no one else are solving that can become the business.
Brien: Yeah, I love that. I love that. So back to design pickle and your, the origins to the beginnings, you almost stumbled upon your concept here.
It sounds like you got that, the reply back saying thank you. And you're like, okay, we have something. How did you guys take off? What were your next steps? How did you market yourselves? How did you get your next five, 10, 15, 20 and a hundred clients?
Russ: So number one was a brand and a company [00:16:00] name that didn't suck prior to design pickle my agency name Brace yourself everyone and mind you we did a lot of outbound phone calls for sales was NSB forward slash keen ke a ne my partner's company and my middle name with the forward slash in there Not a backslash a forward slash So this was a horrible
Brien: name
Russ: and hard to say, easy to misunderstand, lots of soft consonants.
So first I was like, look, I just want it to be a memorable brand. I don't want it to be some weird, clever spelling that you have to explain a hundred times. Like your podcast, Millionaire University, let's be honest. Not a very creative name, but let's be honest, super clear, you know exactly what it means.
You're not going to forget it. You're not going to misspell it. Like it's a great brand, you know? So the reality for me was I wanted it to be memorable. And then the next [00:17:00] piece was actually before we got into the growth and the clients, which we'll get to. I wanted it to mean something. So when it was just me by myself, I established core values, a vision statement, and a mission statement.
The vision statement is the same as it was in 2015, change lives through creativity. Values have evolved. They're a little similar mission is a business case. So that's changed over the years as you evolve the business. And then launch was simply about as hustling as I could possibly get. I downloaded every contact from gmail every email I could find I personally Not bcc'd personally emailed over like 12 000 people Telling them about the business asking him if I could guest blog.
This was prior to launch. I did a guest blogging launch On the launch week Mind you, I didn't care what your blog was. It could be women's injectables and I figured out a [00:18:00] way to write about it and tie in, you know, design pickles somehow. And the last piece was I knew we, I did a lot of financial modeling and a lot of thinking about the mechanics of the business so that we were going to make money from day one.
No capital, no startup, The unique part about Design Pickle when we launched, we are, we cost less than still do today, less than a full time employee or even a half time employee in the States. But my cost structure was less than what we were charging. So there's the basic math of business. You charge more than it costs you to deliver the product or service.
So when we launched with the guest blog and my hustle actually got blocked by Gmail multiple times that month because of sending too many emails. We launched and we had 30 clients at the end of the month and we were profitable. And at that point, it was reinvesting all of that into more growth and systems.
I learned myself [00:19:00] how to do Facebook advertising. I took an online course and I was the first Facebook manager for two years. I consulted up until July of that year, and then I could see my growth and the numbers and knew that I had to make a leap of faith with consulting. And that's going to always be the big challenge for anyone trying to launch a business with a full time job, is you'll never get full time results without full time focus.
And so for that leap to happen, I had to be very dialed into my growth. And around April, May, I could see, okay. If may comes and then june and then july Then I have enough cash in my bank right now that I can quit and like may I forget the exact month It was it was a leap of faith because I wasn't there yet But I had enough savings and I kind of could play the the game But as soon as I went full time design pickles to say full pickle It was like from there because I might every day wake up.
I didn't have to juggle it Late nights all of that kind of [00:20:00] stuff
Brien: Wow, I love it. Okay. So that first month you got 30 new clients. You were profitable. Tell me about building your team. Like how did, what did the fulfillment side of this look like? And how did you get that going from day one?
Russ: Well, from day one, in addition to the core values and the company principles, I documented everything back in the day.
I use Google docs today and we use them as soon as we could. It's a company in front of my runs called train you all. com disclaimer. I am a investor, but I wasn't when I was using it. I just loved the product so much. I decided to invest in it, but train you all today and probably since our second year has housed every step of every process that we've had, and it was a little overkill at first because it was me and one designer and a client management person, like.
Do I need to document how files are saved? No, because they just do it. But I was a maniac about documenting every process, which generally in creativity isn't [00:21:00] often documented. And then we just started to slowly scale from there, repeating the structure that was, you know, I kind of knew, okay, this team could handle maybe 10 clients.
When we got to eight or nine, I had hired another team. Now we can handle 20. When I got to like 15, I started for the third team. And we just started to repeat that as well. Um, the biggest mistake I made though, in growth and teams and hiring was hiring for people who I had no idea how they were going to be successful.
And what I mean by that is early on, I hired a college friend, a really awesome dude named Matt. And like recruited him. He was like a big insurance salesman, great sales guys. Like, cool. You're going to be my sales guy. Come aboard. Let's do this. Guess what? We never had a sales guy. I had no idea how to do sales.
All of my growth thus far was me just hustling and writing content and just doing it the old fashioned way. And he bombed, but he didn't bomb because he was a bad salesperson. He bombed because [00:22:00] I made it impossible for him to win. So for me, then a rule of thumb became only hire people if you have as best as you can, because sometimes there are just new jobs and new roles, you know, What it is that you expect them to do and your best possible guess of how they're going to be successful that when they start, they can see that and they can do that.
And I can't tell you I violated this rule so many times over the last 10 years. And I think with about 90% Certainty, if I break this rule, it doesn't work out. There's been a few people who it's worked out with, but ultimately that to me, for me is so critical when hiring is don't think people are going to come in and just fix your problems, especially when you're first starting third thing real quick, I just hired people that I knew and trusted, but maybe didn't have the right skills, the hard skills.
So one of my best friends from high school was my first employee. And he was with us all up until last year, like just had an incredible run. He is someone I can trust. I could throw him at any task. [00:23:00] But I knew this guy since I was 14 years old. Now those people eventually become, it's challenging because you have a deep relationship with them.
But ultimately as you grow, you need specialists. You don't need generalists. But the beginning to me, it was like, I trust you. This guy, Jim, he sold his house to come work for me because he could not afford the salary that he needed for that first year. Talk about commitment. One of the greatest guys. Like I know one of the greatest humans still to this day and a lot of what we're at We wouldn't be here without him But like someone who just wants a job and a salary that you've meet on Indeed or whatever They're not going to have that conviction.
So as you're building your team My suggestion is find those diehards give them some equity give them some pieces of the skin But also be very clear that they may not be here forever Because that's ultimately what you want. You know, you want to work at yourself out of a job and that will happen with other people too.[00:24:00]
Brien: Absolutely. And so have you utilized overseas talent for the actual designing process? Like the actual client fulfillment work? How does that operate for you guys?
Russ: So when I was consulting and I had my like fake design pickle system that was just kind of working, I interviewed for a designer and I had three interviews, two were in the United States and one was in the Philippines.
And the Philippines person was like a thousand percent better from a talent professionalism. And then the cost was like extraordinarily less. So I then just started to build a team there, not because I had some master plan to become a product high services company or do this thing, but it was just like, Look, I used to have a partner in Argentina and that team was amazing and they worked hard.
Why would I have an ego or something about this to not find the best talent anywhere in the world? And if I can pass those savings on to my clients? It actually helps grow their businesses here [00:25:00] in the states because they can use that money They would normally spend on a designer for their marketing or whatever else So from there, it just started to grow like wildfire And today a hundred percent of our creatives are around the globe.
We're in 12 countries. We have over 700 people that create Call Design Pickle home and show up every day to work for us. And all of our support teams are here in America. We have employees in Portugal, and we have employees in the uk. Sadly, we are closing our Australian entity. So my dreams of living on Bond Beach are now, are now fading away, and that that project didn't work.
Covid kind of messed it up, but that's the beauty of Design Pickle is we have a, a global services team that we try to pay as best as we can and higher the market rates. But their cost of living is quite a bit lower so that our cost of the business to deliver the service is much less than if we had a U.
S. based design team.
Brien: Wow. Okay. And you said there's over 700 people on the Pickle team?
Russ: Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. It's a monster. Let me tell [00:26:00] you.
Brien: Yeah,
Russ: I have become a wild expert in international employment law in many, many countries. So if I ever get that column in jeopardy, I am going to dominate.
Brien: Yeah. There you go. Perfect. Your second calling. You'd be international law. Exactly. So talking about the, the size of numbers here. So let's, maybe we'll start with your pricing. So when someone contracts to work with Design Pickle, they're paying a monthly subscription. It's typically, it's going to be a business, whether they're B2B, B2C, any size, what are your pricing ranges and what does that look like on a per customer basis?
Russ: Yeah. So I always get in trouble when I give pricing because then if we ever change pricing, then the, this podcast lives forever, but let me just say this. You can go to our website, designpickle. com slash pricing, our base plans are with three plans right now. We're always looking at involving them, but really we just think about what kind of design work you need.
A really mature business that needs video, Figma design, Canva, everything that's less than [00:27:00] 2, 000 a month. So I won't say an exact price because I know between now and a few years from now, it won't go over 2, 000. And it's not to be weird. You could just go to, I'm not like you just go to the price of agency, but I, you know, Literally, I've gotten in trouble with this.
It's like, I heard a podcast and you said this price, and now it's this price. And then if you need less scope, so maybe you just need graphics. Then that would be under 1, 000 a month. And you get about two hours a day from a dedicated designer. Um, generally if you're doing the same thing, so you're doing Facebook ads or you're doing eBooks or whatever, the designer you get matched with is the designer you work with every business day.
But let's say you have a video, a PowerPoint presentation, motion graphics, you know, editing, illustration. Our system is set up to find the best designer for that job. So you're not always having to find new designers, or if a designer is unavailable, we'd match you. So it's, it's really like your, your part time employee is design pickle and you just tell us what you [00:28:00] need and we, we get it done behind the scenes for you across.
Almost everything visual web design is coming soon. And when, when I say whether we do it today, but what we're looking at is how do we partner with tools like high level or I've got some splinking on some other, you know, Wix or whatever, so that we could actually push the implementation and push things into those tools as well.
But my goal, Brian, to be honest, it's just like, you don't got to think about it. You log in, you submit your brief, generally things are your first draft or look is back in a day or less sometimes same day if you get a head start on it and you iterate from there and we have feedback prop, feedback tools, we have AI built into our platform, we're creating an API so eventually you don't even have to use our platform, you could use like Asana and make requests and that and get your files and talk to your designer, so it's just.
Getting rid of the friction. Like that's my mission here too, is just like, I want everyone to create all the time and not be worried about billing and invoices [00:29:00] and days off and all of the things that they have to deal with when they try to manage this themselves.
Brien: Wow. Okay. So you mentioned AI. I want to get to that in a second, but sticking to business numbers here.
You guys have 700 designers on staff. You guys must be doing incredible numbers. If you're able to share what's top line look like and what are the margins in a business like yours?
Russ: Yeah. So I'm going to, we're a mid eight figure business, so, and growing and, uh, margins for us oscillate because every time we grow, we have to hire more people, but I would say between 60 and 70%.
That's where we're at in gross margin. So much better than a services, strict services company. Not as sexy as my sass, pure software counterpart CEOs, those guys I'm so jealous with always, but that's the game for us, you know, we're not trying to pretend like we're something that we're not, but ultimately for us growth to I mean, that's right around four to 5000 clients that use us and mind you, [00:30:00] some companies have many users.
So that's That's actually a user number, not a company number. But for me, I want to get to 10, 000 clients in the world and my wildest dreams will come through like that's 10, 000 super happy clients using us every single day. And when I size up that, that is easy to think about because I'm in Scottsdale.
There's probably 10, 000 people in Scottsdale within two miles of me that could use what we do.
Brien: Wow. You're welcome. Well, so to get to that number, what do you guys do currently to continue to grow that base?
Russ: Well, over the last year or so, we've pulled back on a lot of our growth, advertising spending to focus on the product improvements, which are finally coming to fruition.
But generally our growth engine is paid social paid search. And just getting the word out, you know, um, there's only a very small buyer window. Our clients have generally something's messed up, something's not going well, and they're urgently needing [00:31:00] help. So unless we're just perfectly delivering the ad at that exact right time, most of our clients see us months or even years before they need us.
And so we're continually having to continue to be aware and branding. Like, I would love. To hear two years from now, you know, one of my clients saying, I heard you on million university. I was starting my business. And then two years later I needed you. And I thought about the pickle and that, that, that, that, that, like, that's why I always do podcasts because we just have to be aware and make sure our brand is aware and wait it out for then clients to say, Hey, I need some help.
I want to try something else. Well, I remember that weird pickle guy. Let me go look at him. I'd say only 10 percent of the people that hit our site are actually ready to buy in that moment. The other 90%, we have to just do brand awareness and remarketing towards.
Brien: Right. Okay. And then your typical client, is this anybody at any size business or are they typically like a marketing manager?[00:32:00]
Are they a designer who just has so much work at a certain company? They need to outsource some of it. What does your ICP look like?
Russ: Well, it's a challenging one to answer, and I answer it in two ways. And the most easiest way by definitions of ICP and target audience metrics is we have done a lot of research on employee size.
So five to 200 employees, I know it's a huge range, but anything less than five, usually the person's doing it themselves pretty effectively, and they. I kind of joke, they think that it's more valuable for them to be a designer than it is for them to run their business, but eventually they learn and they start hiring people.
Over 200, it's just too complex for us to partner with those kinds of companies because the systems, the processes, even selling into the organization is really complicated. Other than that, we look for two things. Companies that use creativity to make money. Now, I don't mean sell creativity, which could be a way, like if you're an agency.
[00:33:00] Like I was and you're selling design hours and services great But maybe you do an outbound sales system and you do custom pdfs for your prospects Or maybe you do a lot of online advertising. So anytime part of your growth and sales and money engine Requires visual stuff. That's great. And then the other piece is if your company grows The need for that grows.
So take like an insurance company that does one pamphlet a year. Yeah. They use that pamphlet to sell insurance, but it's just one pamphlet, right there. If they grow, they grow. But if you are like a D to C insurance company doing ads every month to get clients, And you, you know, expand your channels and now you're on TikTok and now you're this and you're doing this.
Well, then your creative needs would increase. So if you have both, that's the sweet spot for us. Creativity helps you make money either directly or indirectly. And as you grow, you need more creativity. So not the easiest [00:34:00] thing to target on Facebook with that answer, but it's something that we've seen because not all industries are created equal.
I can't just say education because we have some universities who we've done every touch point of their whole campus from the lunch signs to the new client, the new cost, uh, student brochures to everything. And we have other universities that. We'll do one thing a month for, because they use us differently.
It just depends.
Brien: Okay. Gotcha. So you had mentioned some of the technology and AI being one of them. What are some of the tech upgrades that you've put together in the last 10 years? And how, how do you guys utilize AI today?
Russ: Yeah. So from the very beginning, I realized the key to great creativity is not a good designer.
It's a clear brief. So our platform currently and will forever. Always be thinking about how do we get people to communicate better? Anytime I see a client feedback that says design pickle, the designs aren't good quality. I [00:35:00] would bet 95 percent of the time, the brief wasn't a good brief we hire. It's harder to get a job at design pickle as a designer.
Statistically speaking that it is to get into like Stanford or Harvard in terms of how many applications we get versus what we accept the problem then and becomes is just communication. And it's not always a client fault. Sometimes it's on us too. So the platform and the software, we want it to streamline the process of creativity.
So it started at, how do we create the best brief? Then we've expanded into other like same look. You need to provide feedback. Well, how are most people doing that? And email, Slack, phone calls, whatever, let's put that in our platform. So over the years, we've just said like, let's look at the creative process and let's digitize tools inside of our platform, a small win, but one that was big for our clients is we embedded all, a lot of stock photography libraries into our platform, and today we're doing the same thing with AI.
So we first, you know, early on last year, we were like, let's put some generation [00:36:00] stuff, so you have an image generator. We did a brief request, brief generator. So if you have an idea of what you want to design, it'll write out the instructions for your, your creative. And then the next phase of these tools are just going to continue to push inside that same philosophy.
You know, we're not going to out generate open AI, but we can think about two creatives or two clients. Where can AI be more helpful in the communication of what you want and what you're intending? So today, like if I make a request and it's something that's new, I will use the AI tools to generate a rough mockup of something.
I will send that in and my designer gets it pixel perfect in a day. And so I don't have to worry about prompting all day long. I don't have to figure it out and I can make it exact, but also start my creative a lot further along than if I was just writing it out inside of it. So we, we're going to embrace it.
[00:37:00] You know, all of our designers have access to Adobe Firefly. So it's commercially legal AI or training them. We're training our clients, we're doing content, you know, like we want everyone to use it because it makes sense. Like our job easier. And again, our clients don't want to become a designer, so I'm not really fearful, like the marketing manager at some big companies, like, you know what I want to do today, right?
To chat GPT all day long. That's what I should do. No, they're going to have designers still, but those designers are going to use different tools. So we're just trying to keep ahead of that.
Brien: Have you guys had to do anything to mitigate over interaction from clients? Like, is there, I'm sure that every client is different, but.
Are your clients pretty well, or is your system so down pat that it's like, Hey, here's what we need, here's what we need from you, you submit this, you're getting this design back. Is there a lot of back and forth that wastes time and money or is there, how does that look like?
Russ: So I think you're getting to a question I get a lot of times.
How do we don't get scammed? I wouldn't want [00:38:00] people to like overuse us and go down a dangerous path. Our preference is you're talking a lot to your designer and sometimes clients have a lot of revisions and that's fine. It's why we were built because you're not getting charged anymore. You just pay your flat monthly rate and that's good.
We protect ourselves through the speed of delivery. So if you submit one request, you'll generally get it in a day, maybe less. If you submit a hundred requests, you'll get the first one in a day or so you'll get the second one in the next day or so you'll get the third one in the next day or so if you want revisions on the second one.
Well, then you'll get that before the fourth one. So it's just this pipe of little marching requests that you can fill up as much as you want. And then they just start rolling off the assembly line. If you need a lot more, that's how we grow our business with current clients is you can buy more subscriptions and then your pipe gets bigger.
And instead of one request a day, you would get two or five or a hundred. Like, doesn't matter. We can scale as [00:39:00] fast as we could hire eventually. So this ends up being a really good. Fit for a lot of clients who suddenly have a lot of design needs is they can just go into the settings, add more subscriptions.
And then wallah, now, instead of two hours a day, they're getting 20 hours a day, no hiring, no management, no anything, literally just like a light switch.
Brien: Yeah. It's kind of like a stadium model in a, you know, a sports stadium where if you want to, you want to be the season ticket holder sitting right on the dugout.
You pay for it and you get that level of service. You get that access to the things that those in the middle or in the upper decks and the nosebleeds don't get.
Russ: Yeah. And, and, and I think to us, it's about being flexible as well. Cause a lot of our clients, that's the paradox and kind of the peril of hiring is like, okay, I need someone, but then, man, I got to fire him in three months, like I don't want to do that.
So we effectively can scale up or down and. Overall, most companies need a few things [00:40:00] a month, so it's nice to keep them. But if there's a big rush of work or a big campaign, or you rebranded and you need to redo all your collateral, that's where we can slip in and, and help out.
Brien: Okay. So you had mentioned that, I think you said coming soon was, was it web design or was it just web graphic design?
What are the other services that you guys offer or perhaps for a different buy in level? Do you guys have multiple things that you do or are you really just sticking to, we are graphic design, these are our lanes?
Russ: So we started with graphic design. We do custom illustrations. So unique one off work that's super consistent.
I know a lot of the AI tools can do illustrations, but try doing 10 illustrations that are the same. We'll see how that goes. PowerPoint, Google Slides, we support Canva, all the file formats there, Figma. Video editing, motion graphics, and web design exists as a light version, but we're going to be focused more on the CRMs like a high level or like a square [00:41:00] space and being able to do templates and designs fully for those sites and eventually.
My product seems going to kill me if I say this, but it is going to come, not this year, probably next year, being able to just push that into your instance. So you don't even have to worry about you approve the designs and the things are live. So currently we don't do copywriting, which I think most people can actually figure out with, with chat GPT, if they really don't know where to go.
And other than that, you get the source files, you get everything. A lot of designers are clients in design pickle because they get actually like a design assistant. So we can do all the initial concepts and ideas, and then you can hand that to your designer. And they're like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I didn't have to do all of this initial work and set up, but it's full service.
It spans pretty much across creativity on most things. Today, we don't do like 3d rendering or CAD drawings. Those are, we're kind of staying away from, but I mean, look, I always kind of joke, like you work with your designer [00:42:00] directly. So if you're nice and polite and convincing, you can probably figure out To get them to do a lot of other things that we don't do.
We're not jerks about it. Like we want you to be successful. We want to help your business. And often we're doing stuff that is above and beyond one of our core values is help when nobody's watching. And so that's something that's really embedded into all of our creatives.
Brien: So what's a day in the life of Russ Perry look like now you've, you've built this thing from the ground up.
You're sitting at mid eight figures top line. What's the day in the life look like for you?
Russ: Well, it's gone in seasons, but today or yesterday, I wake up around 4. 30, I study and meditate, I journal, I go to sleep. Get ready, get my girls, take them to school. I come, then I work out after that. And then every work day is very different, but basically I'm here from about eight or nine [00:43:00] until six or seven.
And then I go home. I eat and try to get to bed by nine 30. I was going to say, that's a typical day. That's a typical day now. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. But I'm very routine driven when I'm, and I think that is part of my growth success. Boring stuff. Over and over and over again. It's like back when I did, you know, kind of close the loop on this conversation from where we started when I launched and I was emailing thousands and thousands of people, one by one, not exciting, not sexy, not some hack.
It was simply basic stuff. But it worked and it got me far enough that first month that I could then reinvest it and put it into the next month and reinvest it and put it into the next month. So I'd say my consistency is one of my superpowers and I'm not the smartest, I'm not the most creative, I'm not the strongest, I'm not the fastest, [00:44:00] I'm just very consistent and that seems to have worked well.
And any time in my life, Where I've experienced the biggest struggles and the hardest points of my life is when I've fallen off that wagon. So, yeah,
Brien: I love that you share that because consistency for many people in general, not just entrepreneurs, but especially entrepreneurs, consistency can be the hardest thing because there's so many balls that are up in the air that you're juggling.
Whether it's between business or multiple businesses, partners, wife and kids, so many different things that need juggling that that consistency can be hard to get to. But once you get to it, you can experience your biggest growth. And obviously you're a perfect example of that. So as we round it out here, if you could distill your entrepreneurial journey into A piece or if you need to a couple pieces of advice for our listeners who are entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs, what would that advice be?
Russ: Invest in access or coaches or just people that are down the path that have proven [00:45:00] that What you're working towards, they have done consistency. Obviously we just talked about it. I say there's the compound return of focus. So we talk about compound interest, but it's the same thing with focus. Every time you change your focus, it's like a bank account and you pull all the money out.
You don't accrue that compound interest. So, so stay focused, stay consistent. And. I'd say be creative and I don't say that as a self promoting thing, but like I do think a large part of businesses that we revere and we think about and we talk about, there's always a lot of creativity, even if they're engineering companies or tech companies or financial companies, like creativity can be your superpower and it doesn't have to be design, it could be how you charge, it could be The way you support your customers or whatever, like think of just challenge yourself to be more creative.
Brien: I love it. I love it. Well, Russ, uh, we're going to wrap this thing up, but first I want to make sure [00:46:00] that, uh, anybody listening today can make sure they're able to either find you or find design pickle. What are the best places to do that?
Russ: Yeah, well, design pickle. com is where you can go. If we can support you in any step of your journey for, for entrepreneurship and business.
I'd say, like, it's, if you have nothing going on and it's just for an idea. Use chat GPT for some initial ideas. But once you have a business and you need some dedicated support, that's where we come in. Um, I also have a podcast, so you can go to jar of genius. com and I talk a lot about creativity. I talk about creativity from the lens of CEOs, software executives.
I talked to an ayahuasca shaman, like we tackle it from all angles. And so if you want to be inspired. You want to laugh, you want to hear more and learn more about creativity, head over to chargenius. com.
Brien: All right. Awesome. Well, you heard it here first, folks. Make sure you check out Russ Perry. Check out his podcast.
[00:47:00] Russ, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your time and knowledge.
Russ: Yeah. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Take care. All right,
Brien: man. Talk about cracking the code on productizing a service business. Thank you to Russ Perry for joining us today. What a great conversation.
Story and still living story on how Russ went from a, a burnt out creative agency owner, all the way up to a mid eight figure business owner after productizing that graphic design service and expanding it into what it is today. And I think one of the big takeaways for me was the advice Russ gave at the end of the episode, where he said his consistency.
Is what led to his success amongst other things. But one of the biggest things was his consistency, that consistency and pounding the pavement, sending those cold emails, getting his business off the ground, you know, building it as he was flying it. So I want that to be something that we all take home today and think about the consistency [00:48:00] in what we're doing.
To build our businesses. All right, folks, before we sign off here, I have two requests of you. First one, as always, if you enjoyed this episode, please do me a favor, hit the link button and the share link button on your pod player and send it in a text message to friends, family, coworkers, whoever it is who you might think, enjoy this episode as well.
I would really appreciate that. And second of all, I want to put out a little tease for something that's coming down the pike. Date TBD from us here at Millionaire University, and it's gonna be our first foundational business course So we're gonna be talking about things like how to help you actually start and grow your business not just think about it But actually do it now helping you developing a millionaire mindset and finding points of leverage to help you grow it So I don't want to give away the farm yet, but I want to put it on your radar We have our foundational course in production And it will be coming sometime in the near future.
So folks, thank you all for joining me [00:49:00] today. I am Brian gear and signing off. I cannot wait to see you on the next episode of the millionaire university podcast, and I want you to all go out there and absolutely crush it today.
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