So now I can brand, design and deploy entire products on my own... which is incredibly cool and fun, and Valuable(??), you'd think that my rates would go up and clients or positions would become easier to find. And Yet, I've never had inbound this dry, email outreach isn't working, nobody seems to be looking, at least not for what I have to offer. At this point I'm literally posting coupons on twitter.
So I guess I have four intents here
(1) To throw my experience into the pot as evidence of... something going on. If an experienced designer can now do the work of several people, why isn't that also becoming more valuable to the market?*
(2) ofc I'm hoping some founder who needs a designer will see this and reach out. I do well with engineers and abstractions and I suspect I'd work well with anyone in here. Note even a successful REFERRAL and I will lovingly design or build something for you.
(3) if you have any thoughts on how I, or other designer-builders like me, might change our approach or packaging, I am all ears and would very much appreciate your thoughts. See pieratt.com. (also see D. below)
(4) I'd love to hear if anyone else is going through this? proof that I'm not just a fuckup would be worth quite a bit.
*Four potential explanations I can see: A. market is weak B. market is evolving at same pace and so no change C. Institutional lag, the state is not yet logging my type of tree, market admin requires clear roles for e.g. hiring and invoicing. D. I am presenting clear signals that I cannot see that are preventing me from finding work.
- Your website confused me and I had no idea who you are. You may want to add a menu or "About Me" page etc at the minimum.
- Design jobs are becoming more rare because of AI (in my opinion as a founder myself). I want to move fast and I can prototype with tools like v0 or claude etc. May be I am not the right fit for what you do but most founders may not be looking for a "designer" anymore. This is something you have to think about.
I think that no one is going to hire only "designers" or even "frontend" devs. Now you need to be fullstack and own the end to end AND move fast with AI tools. I say this as a founder who recently ended a frontend role for someone who wanted to only work async on "tasks" based on requirements and that is not needed anymore. I just talk to my AI tool now and get things done for the most part especially for prototyping/brainstorming ideas.
And even if that didn't turn me off as a potential customer, I'd be seriously questioning whether I want to hire someone who claims to be a designer, when they didn't even put together a design for their own site that effectively tells me who they are.
Basically, I think you are too close to your own site design to see just how flawed it is. Sorry is that sounds harsh. But I'd re-do your entire approach. Don't put up a portfolio and then try to add commentary at the bottom - put up a easy-to-read, concise explanation of what problems you can solve for people. In this scenario, you are the product, and you need to market yourself just like any other product - tell people right off the bat why you will improve their life. If you don't do that, the portfolio is meaningless.
Everyone else can do this too now. I suspect that today, many companies are still wrestling with AI, how to use it, how to incorporate it, and many are thinking they don't need programmers anymore.
In time, some will realize they still need someone that speaks the language to talk to the AI.
My best advice, start your own company, launch your own products, while also looking for work, or accepting contract jobs. Then you'll have 2 revenue streams.
Only thing stopping you is you.
I think it's a real challenge you are facing but there is always a way to make it work by evolving.
Some questions:
How did you get leads before and what was working for you until recently?
I haven't looked at your socials, I know you mentioned being in twitter/x. How are you using those channels, e.g. what are you posting that would catch the attention of a buyer? E.g. running a campaign based on something interesting in your space that will be useful to your target audience.
Do you have an ideal client profile and do you already have a sales funnel e.g. how to attract your ICP and take them through a process to closing them e.g. discovery call, proposal deck, pricing and contract etc?
Some comments:
I'm getting leads every week where a business owner has built and designed something with AI, but what they now need is security, hosting, hardening etc so it could be you may need to move up the value chain e.g. often these pieces of work are poorly designed, no accessibility considerations, not thought to good information hierarchy or UX/UI.
I think design led discovery is still valuable; user research, prototypes etc telling businesses the right thing to build in a world where people are just throwing together AI stuff.
I would recommend like others to make it clear on your website what you do, why to work with you, how to work with you, and make it easy to get in touch.
I think it's worth considering spending a lot of time on sales, e.g. marketing, outbound, referrals, campaigns, build a pipeline and so on.
Good luck!
Even if you are the one who can complete a project at incredible speed and quality, you might still become the barrier between the product manager and the AI when the specification changes.
The only way out? Find your own business opportunity and build your own products with AI. Your experience makes you a thousand times more efficient at this than a product manager. The sad news is that so many people are doing exactly this, and it is hard to stand out.
You could also try out tools like icpsignal.com for lead generation if that's more your speed.
See where the gaps are and from that you'll learn which areas you should focus on.
Why would your rates go up, or work be easier to find, when no one wants to hire humans to do this work anymore? Even if you could demonstrate that you can do work better than an AI - and no one is going to bother to give you the opportunity to demonstrate that - the fact is cheaper and faster and "good enough" always win out over quality.