I had a call with design legend Dan Mall. Here's what he taught me about growing a studio.

I've been tired.

For eight years, I've done it all - Marketing, Accounting, Project & Product Management, HR, and, of course, Design.

But every time I think about growing my business, I freeze. I've started regularly hiring people to grow into a proper studio. But the risk still feels overwhelming. The U.S. financial pressure leaves no room for mistakes. (Hello, healthcare costs!)

So when Dan Mall offered a free mentorship consultation, I jumped on it.

Here’s what I learned from our conversation:

1. Profit First, Always

Okay this actually was a complete switch for me.

Dan's project pricing framework changed how I saw business finances:
Forget "Revenue - Expenses = Profit".
Flip it: "Revenue - Profit = Expenses".

If I were to summarize: pay yourself first, always. Without you, the business doesn't exist.

Better yet, he broke down exactly how to think about financial distribution with a spreadsheet that he made available online for free. (Yes, Dan Mall is basically Santa Claus for designers.)

Here's the overall breakdown that solved all my anxieties:

• 50% goes to "back of house": 10% profit, taxes, core team and expenses

• 50% goes to "front of house": contractors, project expenses

Note that this only works for value-based pricing.

Then the spreadsheet details percentages for each category. Instead of costs determining profit, this method accounts for profit (based on project), operating costs etc, and allocate what is left to contractors and project-specific expenses.

This isn't unfamiliar. If you're into personal finances, this is quite similar to an envelope system. You commit to a number and pre-allocate funds, starting with unmovable expenses: fixed costs, savings, investments. Then and only then, you get to know if you have enough to pay for a guilt-free house cleaner.

More specifically, I had never thought of:

• Building profit into the business for cashflow reserves and more, I do this intuitively as a solopreneur for my own revenue. Dan’s sheet highlighted this as a mandatory planned step for the business too.

• Take your cut as owner—your risk deserves reward

At first, if you're like me, your "cut" of this spreadsheet might appear in both back and front - back as the owner, front as the "contractor" still doing the actual work.

2. Buy Back Your Time

(Or: Stop Being Your Own Accountant, You Weirdo)

I've been doing my own accounting for years, patting myself on the back for being "efficient." In reality, I spend the equivalent of $2k worth of my time doing something someone else could do better for $600.

Dan pointed out: Who would pay that much to do accounting that badly? (Okay, he was actually nicer about it.)

The formula he gave me instead is simple:

Hire someone who can do what you do at 80% of your quality,
at a quarter of your rate.

Looking beyond accounting. What tasks fall outside my "zone of genius":

• Email management

• Project coordination

• Business Development

• ... insert whatever tasks I’m pretending to be good at or that I simply don’t enjoy

Why not start with junior designers? Because design quality has driven my biz success so far. Teaching my design standards needs extensive SOPs and training = poor initial ROI.

3. Separate yourself from your studio’s identity

What does it mean? Most likely, I’ll keep writing about personal opinions here, but most of data visualization related content will move into a new newsletter sent by the studio.

Dan’s personal newsletter is all about what's of interest to him including advices on how to make money as a creative. He keeps most design system related content in the Design System University newsletter.

He explains:

I want to make it clear that I’m not always the one delivering on the promise, eventually there will be a team that will be leading the work

Want to dive deeper? Dan recommended two books:

• Profit First by Mike Michaelowicz

• Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell

I’ll add a third: Dan's newsletter. It is full of insights, free resources, and more. You should subscribe.

We talked about much more but this is all for today!

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Thank you Dan,

Gabby