My guest today is Preet Singh who is the founder of DesignX, a leading global design community. In this episode, we discuss the following: - Why Preet moved from India to Canada - How Preet got into the design field - Why Preet started DesignX - Challenges organizing the first ever DesignX event - Doing a full time job, freelancing. growing a community on the side and being married - Leaving a stable job to focus on DesignX full time - Taboo of monetizing a community - How to make the community self sustaining - Why partners are better than sponsors - Why Adobe is an amazing design partner to have for your event - Rejecting an acquisition offer for DesignX - Difference between community organizer and conference organizer - Pet peeves of event organizers - Benefits of volunteering for a design community - How to start your own community - How to collaborate with others - How to deal with rejections - How to contact Preet Singh - How to provide value when building new relationships For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show Level Up Your Design Career (Free Email Course): https://levelup.designmba.show/
Preet is the founder of DesignX – one of the largest UX & design communities in North America, and the curator, founder and host of renowned design conferences such as Design Leadership Summit, Remote Design Week, 5 to 9 Conference and more. Over his design career spanning 10+ years, Preet has had the privilege of working with clients including corporates, and unicorns to early-stage startups – Chan Zuckerberg Foundation, Quicken Loans, Xero, TeamViewer, Teespring, Miami Ad School, Couchsurfing, and many more. From building a strong grassroots non-profit movement while in engineering school, to founding a t-shirt startup centred around social issues in India – community is at the heart of everything Preet works on.
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Namaste and welcome. This is Jayneil Dalal and you are listening to the design MBA. This podcast is a real-life MBA program for designers where we interview design hustlers and learn the skills, mindset necessary for a designer to launch a business venture. You can learn more. Find past episodes and stay updated at designMBA.show.
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Jayneil Dalal: Today, I’ve got a phenomenal guest with me, Preet Singh. Preet is the founder of DesignX, one of the largest UX and design communities in North America and the curator, founder, and host of renowned design conferences such as Design Leadership Summit, Remote Design Week, 5to9 Design Conference and many more other conferences. Over his design career spanning 10+ years, Preet has had the privilege of working with clients including corporates and unicorns to early stage startups such as Chan-Zuckerberg Foundation, Quicken Loans, Zero, TeamViewer, Teespring, Miami Ad School and so many more. From building a strong grassroots non-profit movement while in engineering school to finding a T-shirt startup centered around social issues in India, community is the heart of everything Preet works on.
So, without further ado, Preet, welcome to the show, my friend.
Preet Singh: Thank you so much, Jay. Really excited to be here.
Jayneil: So, walk me through your history. So, you were born in India, right?
Preet: Yep, born and raised in India, moved to Canada about 10 years ago or nine years ago.
Jayneil: So, what made you make the move?
Preet: That's just the next stage. When you grow up in India and you turn 25, you're like “Okay, where can I go next?” even though maybe there is some truth to that. So, I met my now wife back in India where she was doing like a travel and work kind of internship. And she's from Germany. So, I was doing my T-shirt startup back there and I used to get a lot of these like kind of expat folks that would come to my store, I had a physical store, to get some nicely designed gifts when they would go back to their countries. And that's how I met Nora, my now wife, and we dated for about a year. And, of course, India was culturally very different for her. Germany is culturally very different from what I grew up in including the language and diversity and everything. And after one year of dating, we decided to just blindly pick a country where both of us uh move to. Neither of us had been to Toronto and we just picked it and moved.
Jayneil: Oh my God! That's quite the crazy love story.
Preet: So, those stories usually either go really bad you move after one year of dating someone or they work out and, in our case, luckily it worked out.
Jayneil: So, at that point when you decided to move to Canada, were you still doing design work or you had not made that full transition into the design world yet?
Preet: Actually, that's how I got into design. Right after my engineering school, I was really passionate about the social issues, plenty of them in India and how I could help contribute to fighting them, solving them, tackling them and I started using T-shirts as the medium of communication to talk about these social issues and that's how I got into graphic design. I tried to design some posters, some T-shirts on my own and I still remember that was actually the first time in one of the press coverages where I got featured as a young designer from my city Chandigarh that's using T-shirts as the medium of social change. That was the first time someone called me a designer. And so, using my startup, the Karma Republic it was called, that's how I got into design and I was doing everything. I was designing T-shirts. I designed the website. I designed all the graphics but that was a kind of big motivator to learn design because I was trying to solve my own business goals. So, that's how I got into design. And even when I was doing Karma Republic, it didn't make any money. It was a lot of fun, also very fulfilling like you felt good about you're trying to make a change and all those things but to pay my bills, I started picking up other kind of web design and graphic design projects on the site as freelancer.
Jayneil: So, you moved to Canada. And you're in Toronto when you moved there, right? I actually lived there for two years when I was in sixth grade.
Preet: That's amazing.
Jayneil: It was a huge cultural shock for me just moving from India and going there. We had this Indian parathe and thepla, the chapati. So, by the time I left there, people were hooked on to it. We were like “What is this exotic spice?” I remember in sixth grade, I had everyone in the class watched Dil Chahta Hai movie.
Preet: That's incredible. That’s amazing.
Jayneil: So, you were doing this graphic design work and you were working as freelancer for all these firms. When did you get the idea or when did you notice that “Hey, you know what? I think there needs to be a design community or a movement here in Canada and that I should start it?”
Preet: It was all quite organic. There was no kind of one strong strategy behind starting DesignX. It started about me being in Canada for about five years. So, I came to Canada, I could only come as a student. With an Indian passport, you have a lot of restrictions. So, I did that two-year fake student thing. It was a business program. I really enjoyed it. It was a business program because my parents never let me study business. They were like engineering or science. So, I really enjoyed that part but I knew that right after this program ends, I want to get back into design. And so, after having worked as a designer in Toronto for about, I would say, almost four years, so overall six years, I was craving a community, a local design community. So, I went to a few events. And I am not the most extrovert person even though I organize a lot of these conferences and events and run a large community. If you see me at something that I’ve not organized, if you see me at another conference, you'll see me usually just standing awkwardly by the bar alone or like I’m “What do I do?” So, I would go to a lot of these design events. Also, when I moved to Canada, I had zero social circle. So, I would go to a lot of these tech events, startup events, design events. I would listen to the talk and I would roam around awkwardly for 15-20 minutes and then come back.
Jayneil: That's happened to me a lot. Most of these events, everyone knows everybody. So, if you're like the new person there … They all have their cliques. So, it's really odd to just break in and kind of introduce “Hey, my name is Jayneil and I’m kind of new here.”
Preet: Exactly, exactly. And also, being a kind of a visible minority, in downtown Toronto, when I go to those events, especially design events, I wouldn't see someone who looked like me or even brown people or Indian, for that matter. I wouldn't see them. So, I had always felt awkward. And to add to that awkwardness, so many times people would come up and they're like “Oh, so what do you do?” So, I’d be like “Oh, I work at this agency.” And they're like “Oh, so you're a developer?” I’m like “I never said I was … I just said I worked at an agency.” They just go to that “Oh, India. You're a developer.” So, that actually happened like, no jokes, like six-seven times. And I think a part of me was also really kind of annoyed or triggered by that but I was “Why do you think someone like me can't be a designer?” And then add to that … or I would go to these tech startup events and how they interpret design would be really different. So, I would be like “Oh, I’m a product designer.” And they're like “Oh, can you design my business card?” Again, nothing wrong with designing business cards but their understanding of design was so confined. So, when I started DesignX, my goal was actually how do you bring designers together locally in Toronto, so selfishly, I could meet people like myself and then how do you elevate the conversation of design, how do you help these folks understand more about design and it's not just about designing a business card or putting lipstick on something.
Jayneil: So, the first meetup you organized, was it just going to meetup.com and saying that “Hey, DesignX officially exists” or how did you even host the first meetup?
Preet: So, our first thing we did was actually not a meetup. So, when I thought of this idea, and another aspect around starting DesignX was the void that I saw in the community was that all these subdomains of design like graphic design, UX design, design strategy, design research, they were all very siloed. There's a lot of learning that happens when these people meet each other because my journey was engineer turned marketeer turned graphic designer turned website designer. And then when I came to Canada, I became a UX designer and design strategist. And when I started DesignX, I was doing more design strategies bleeding into service design kind of work. So, it was like such a wide spectrum. And so, I was trying to find out how I can bring these folks from different domains together. So, before even starting DesignX, I actually approached most of the existing design communities in Toronto, and there were some big ones, the graphic design ones or the UX design ones or design strategists, half of them didn't want to talk to me or didn't reply which I understand a little bit like they were “I have a large design community and who's this guy coming in asking me to give suggestions or something?” and half of them were not interested, they were like “No, you know, we're fine being our graphic design community” or “being a UX research community.” So, that's when I was like “Okay, then I’ll start a Slack group and bring people together.” And, in fact, I partnered with someone who already had just started a Slack group for designers in Toronto. And so, I joined him and we started just nurturing that small community. And I think we were about 100 people when we were like “Okay, let's meet.” So, it just started as a casual conversation.
Jayneil: What year was that?
Preet: 2017. So, three years ago. February 2017. January, we started the slack group. In a month we were like “Okay, let's all meet up and maybe invite some speakers.” And as I started working on it, I approached some of the you know really well-known names in Toronto and all of them said yes and I was like “Oh, okay.” Even I was surprised like “Really? Can you come and speak it out?” and they're like “Sure” I’m like “What? Really?” And the topic was very broad. It was just like state of design in Toronto in 2017. And we had one of the design leaders from one of the largest banks in Canada, design leader from one of the most awarded agencies and then another really … well, I think they are one of the largest fintech companies to come out of Canada. So, all three of them said yes and it turned out to be an incredible event. I think our capacity was 80. We were at 90 folks. That's from where kind of it became a little more official and just took off.
Jayneil: Wow! So, the first couple of years was just like volunteer effort like you just pulling in all-nighters and stuff.
Preet: Sorry, you're asking about before I started designing or when after I started designing?
Jayneil: You're doing design. The first couple of years it was pretty much you and a few people who walked here just to kind of like get the community going.
Preet: Yes, absolutely. So, the first two and a half years, I would say, or two years, that was it. I had my full-time job. I did invest a lot of time into designing on the side. I do work a lot. I enjoy what I do. So, I would end up spending my week nights, weekends, just nurturing the community, building it. And as things started to grow faster, then you had to put in even more effort.
Jayneil: So, at one point isn't there like … How do you even manage this? I mean, you've got a wife, you've got a kid, you've got a full-time job and then you're doing designing on the side. At some point, something's got to give, right?
Preet: Yeah, definitely. All of those things happen gradually. One thing I’ve always kind of trusted is my gut feel. Back in India, I left my full-time jobs like four times. The longest tenure of a job I had was six months because I would join an opportunity and I was like “Ah, this is not impactful work. Maybe I should do something else” and I would not hesitate to jump or leave. I didn't have any savings or anything like that but I knew that I would always make things happen, paying the bills through freelance or other things and I knew that my learning always got elevated every time I took the plunge. And same thing happened with DesignX. I invested a lot of time, a lot of energy into DesignX. It was hard first two years having a full-time job and growing in my career too so I was not stagnant, also doing well at the job, of course keeping your family happy, and building the community. And the community was growing. We grew from just being a Toronto-centered community to having chapters in New York, Amsterdam, Toronto, Vancouver, doing events in even Montreal and London and then even starting conferences on the side. So, after two years, last year is when I did start to feel that “Okay, I’m starting to maybe burn out.” And the second thing was I was like “Why do I need a job right now? If I’m enjoying designing, I should go full heads on into it.”
Jayneil: So, you quit the job full time.
Preet: I did quit it, yes, last February.
Jayneil: Wow! Damn.
Preet: It sounds tough but I think I’ve built that muscle so much of or flexed that muscle so much, it's so effortless for me. My parents still get shocked and I’m like “How are you shocked? That’s the eighth job that I’m leaving.” It was paying so well or other things. At the same time, I don't want to make it sound too kind of reckless or aspirational like “Yeah, leave your job and follow your dreams.” I did really work my ass off in the first five years even before starting DesignX. When I started DesignX, I had already bought my first house, of course, with my wife, not just me alone. We had bought our first house in Toronto, continued to really work hard at my job. On top of the things you already mentioned, I was still freelancing on the side too. So, it was like DesignX, freelance, family, and job. And lastly, when I left the job, I did have considerable savings, we had just moved into our second home, the first one became an investment property. So, even though I’m not a very numbers person but there were some financial metrics that I did want to hit which I had hit. So, it felt a little secure. And then at the same time, with DesignX, I was like “What's the worst?”, which happened this year, I was like “What's the worst thing?” All sponsorships will dry up, no revenue will come in and I might have to go back to the job. That's not the worst thing when you really like what you do. I really loved my last job. I didn't leave it because I was not enjoying my work but it was just that I was really enjoying DesignX too and I had to pick one of the two.
Jayneil: And then you have this business acumen to just making something sustainable. With your jobs, with your freelance, I see this trend where you're not necessarily obsessing about every single number going in and out but you think at a high level like “Hey, how can this be a self-sustaining business?” So, it seems like you don't have to be nurturing it every second. So, it's kind of like a taboo thing to talk about because most people, when they look at design events and community events, they're like “Oh, it should be like non-profit like just for the good” but then how the hell is that going to pay the bills. So, how did you tackle that with DesignX, with volunteers and all these people you got to pay and stuff?
Preet: Yeah, it definitely has been tricky. Especially when it comes to communities, there are no comparables, right? If you're starting a tech company, a tech startup, there are a thousand books written, there are videos and articles that you can read and be like “Okay, that's how I raise my family and friends or bootstrap” and all those things. With community, definitely a lot of taboo. I still remember when we did our first event and there was a sponsor locally in Toronto and I think we were doing the event and we were like “Would you like to sponsor us?” It was a recruitment firm and they had just gotten me my job. So, I knew they made good money off me by placing me. So, I was like “Can you help us? I’m trying to do this and you get in front of all these candidates. So, can you be our sponsor?” And they were like “Sure, we will sponsor events.” They were like “How much?” and I was like “A thousand bucks. There are about a hundred people coming, ten bucks a person for food and drink. So, roughly thousand bucks.” I still remember that sponsor, at the end of the event, I sent them an invoice for a thousand bucks and they were like “No, no, no, not thousand bucks. Send us the invoices for how much the food and drinks were instead of like just thousand bucks upfront.” And I was like “But we talked about it.” And you know how much the difference was? I think the invoice was like 920 or something, so like 80 bucks. And I was like “What do you think happens at the next event or in between?” If I’m sending email newsletters, who pays for MailChimp, right? Who pays for the web hosting? There are so many costs you forget. The least of the costs. After the end of the event, the next I met the team to plan the next event, I wanted to celebrate. We did a first event. We worked five six hours that day alone and then after that sending thank you emails, blah, blah, blah and I wanted to treat them to like a meal each. Who pays for that, right? There are all these things. So, definitely, it was a little challenging but I definitely did keep headstrong. I did not worry about what people are thinking, how someone is perceiving it. I knew that I’m not trying to con anyone. I’m trying to build a sustainable community. And so, I’m going to do what is the right thing. And then if someone wants to ask me, they should come up and ask me and if they want to perceive things, that's okay. I was very proud we set volunteer kind of stipends in place last year. Even before that, we would do it on an ad hoc basis. Otherwise, every month we would do a team townhall. After the townhall, at one time we were like 25 people, we would always go out for lunch and DesignX would pay for it. So, my goal was at least have enough buffer of savings that I don't have to worry if we are doing a winter event and I want to buy branded hoodies for my team or I want to get a banner printed or I want to rent like a stage for the venue. So, we always kept on kind of keeping our goals in place. Last year, even we hired one of our volunteers for three months full time to prep for one of the conferences, paid them the salary. At one time, I also paid for a lot of the phone and internet connections for some of my volunteers who were doing social media because they were like “I don't have good enough data plans.” Even bought iPhones and laptops for some of our volunteers because I like to invest back in the people.
Jayneil: This is like a startup.
Preet: It is, exactly, but it's a startup where if people think you are making even 10% of the money, and that's going into like a buffer savings, they're extremely wary of that. I’ve had people who are like “No, no, you have to show us all your finances” and I’m like “I’m not answerable to you. I’m investing my own time and money. And if I wanted to make money, freelancing is a great way to make money.” I would rather than shut down DesignX and spend all my time there but, again, you get these kinds of folks and questions, I think, in anything you would do. So, I’ve learned to know who I want to share these things with and with whom I’m indifferent.
Jayneil: And recently you started to make the Slack community a paid community, right?
Preet: Yes.
Jayneil: Just charging people for it?
Preet: Yes. So, a couple of things happened. Last year I went full time on DesignX. I had my savings, as I shared with you. So, I did not draw a salary last year. I had planned to draw a salary this year because also we were expecting our first kid and she was born in February.
Jayneil: Congrats.
Preet: Thank you. Two weeks later COVID hit and our sponsorships for this year were like 20% off last year's sponsorship. So, those things dried up. In-person events dried up. With that even more revenue dried up. And at the same time, we decided to hire our first full-time employee. The day of the joining of that employee, the first day she came to the office, from next day that office was shut because of COVID. So, literally, that was the timing but I was determined that “Okay, I’m not going to let COVID kind of ruin my plans of building DesignX and all those things.” So, we kept her on payroll, put together virtual conferences, did everything possible so we can meet the expenses of the team but then after our last conference, we saw that “Okay, people are having now Zoom fatigue. So, you can't just keep on throwing virtual events to try and generate these spikes of revenue.” And that's when I was like “Okay, need to again come back to sustainability.” And that's when we were like “Okay, we have 5000 people. Let's ask for two bucks each from people per month and try and kind of raise some revenue together.” I knew that it's not like all 5000 are going to pay. There's still going to be people who are going to complain but we kept it really accessible because we did have folks from outside North America too. We had folks from India where even though 2 dollars is not a big deal but if I had charged something like 10 dollars a month, it would still have been a considerable amount. So, that was kind of the reason that “Okay, let's at least make sure our basic expenses like software expenses …” we have freelancers that we pay every month for quite a few things that we do, volunteers that we compensate. So, I wanted to make sure that those expenses are taken care of. And I think I’ll have to wait even this year to see if I can draw even a salary for this year or not.
Jayneil: And what's the goal there? How many people do you want as paid members to make the whole thing sustainable?
Preet: I would say we want at least 5000 people like at least a revenue like DesignX generating a revenue of like 100K a year so we can at least one full-time person back on staff and then the other freelancers are kind of part of that, so at least sustains like two, three people. And that's not including me. So, if I decide that next year I’m like “Okay, DesignX is sustainable” and we have people to help with some of the things so I can then take myself out of the operational tasks and either go back to a job or focus on doing other things with the community, the community itself stays sustainable.
Jayneil: And that's why you mentioned that you look for partners and not necessarily sponsors. Can you explain what's the difference between someone who just sponsors the events and somebody who's like a partner?
Preet: Yeah, absolutely. So, my goal always when we are partnering with companies, it's not just to stick their logo on the website and other places and kind of just use ourselves as a billboard because, again, my roots were in business and not in kind of creative arts and design. I do always think of the business impact of any relationship that I’m building professionally. So, with the companies that we tie up with, I am quite focused on what value they get out of the community but also what are they contributing apart from just giving us money. So, I’m really careful about the partners that we select that how engaged are they, how much they understand what we are doing. If we are working on a conference together and they are the sponsor, what value can they bring apart from just the money part. I want to brainstorm with them on the topics, on the speakers, on the scheduling and all those things. And I think that approach really helps because overall, the event also turns out to be much better experience for everyone involved, right? They are more invested into helping make this event successful because they are not just a sponsor but it's also like kind of like they have sweat equity into the event or the initiative.
Jayneil: Do you have an example?
Preet: Yeah. So, we partnered a lot with Adobe XD folks this year, really love that team. Again, when they sponsor us for any event that I’m doing or any initiative, we're doing portfolio reviews, if I reach out to them and I’m like “We're doing portfolio reviews for early stage folks. Can you help me find folks who would be interested?” and they'll send me 20 names. They're like “These are the people that we work with. Who do you want to connect with?” And I connected with some of the most incredible folks. At Remote Design Week, we had some amazing folks that came out. At 5to9 Conference, we hosted the CEO of Basic Agency, the agency that's done massive work in Silicon Valley with some of the best tech companies. So, Matt was there on one of our panels talking about starting an agency. So, that kind of an individual coming and sharing his journey was incredible. First of all, I did not even think of that agency or the name because it didn't seem like approachable and they made it so easy. It was like “Here’s the introduction with them.”
Jayneil: Damn! Give me the intros!
Preet: Yeah, intros. Sometimes even confirmation. So, those kinds of partnerships are incredibly helpful but, again, it doesn't happen every single time and also it goes both ways. So, it's like when they reach out and they're like “Preet, we need help getting feedback on this part of XD,” and there's no monetary kind of incentive for me but it's like if you would reach out to me after this podcast and you're like “Preet, I’m trying to bring this person on the next episode,” I’m like “Yeah, sure. I’ll make the intro,” right?
Jayneil: That's how this happened. Patrick Hill was like “Yeah, let's make the intro.”
Preet: Exactly. I think that's also a beautiful part of the design community folks. It is not about the kind of extrinsic motivators or thinking about the financial impact all the time but it's thinking more about the relationships and the long-term impact even though that would have financial and business outcomes.
Jayneil: And I was just reading through your newsletter, the DesignX newsletter and one post that I was mentioning is “DesignX getting acquired.” So, can you tell me about what happened with acquisition or what was that story about?
Preet: Yeah. So, I had some interesting reactions to that newsletter. I don't remember why I included it but at the time, I think, maybe I was like a little emotionally invested. So, it was really exciting, I won't lie about it because this year has been extremely crappy and you can beep the words out if I say anything more. So, we had just completed our Remote Design Week. At that time, it was the largest virtual conference focused on design. We had put it together in six weeks after COVID because my employee had just joined and I was desperate to just stay above the water. And Remote Design Week had 3000+ attendees, week-long programming, some of the best speakers in design. It was just incredible. So, right after that, one of the really big brand names InDesign, and I had like a relationship with one of the senior folks there, they approached and it was like “We've been seeing what you've been doing and it's really exciting and we've been thinking of doing something similar. So, what do you think about coming together?” That's a massive company and we are this tiny team. So, the conversation was around acquisition. So, I did have a few chats with the CEO. That company is at a different stage, we are at a different stage, we had kind of different vision for what DesignX would become. So, DesignX would still exist as a part of that larger company network. And so, I did not kind of see myself aligned with that vision at that time. So, it was really hard. It would have been, especially now that the conversation was like six months ago almost, and the last six months it's been quite tough. So, now that I see that, it definitely would have been massive ego boost for sure.
Jayneil: You were in the news like Canadian entrepreneur …
Preet: Yeah, absolutely. And I can go on LinkedIn and make the post and get a lot of likes and all those things, you get social validation. So, definitely it would have helped with those things but then I didn't think it was the right thing for the community as such. So, I walked away from it. Again, it was kind of respectful. It was like “Okay, maybe we chat later in the future but at this stage, I don't think it'll work for both of us.”
Jayneil: Wow! One could argue that if you had such an acquisition offer and all you had to do then was just keep on conducting events or maybe just churn out event after another. And even without the acquisition offer, if someone looks at this like “Oh, DesignX is like a money-making machine. Let's just throw out event after event like 5to9 Conference, another conference, every two months there's another conference and just bringing the money.” Why do you go away from that kind of idea or thinking?
Preet: It's just personal. I don't think there is anything wrong in it. I definitely think it's wrong if you are just a serial conference organizer but you call yourself a community because most of these folks, and I’m seeing a trend now, it's like “We organized like 10 conferences in a year and now we launched a Slack group. So, we have a community.” Again, it's like “Sure, starting a Slack group takes like 30 seconds.” It's building and nurturing it, fostering it which uses a lot of sweat and tears. So, community is where all the members are equally invested and also gain from it and get elevated together, not just the bank balance of the conference organizer. I don't see it as a negative Definitely I am weary of the positioning part. That's why I have no kind of guilt when I call ourselves a community because that's what we do. I still spend so much time on everything that's non-revenue generating like too much time, I know that, but also that's where I really enjoy. Yesterday, we were talking about like WordPress websites that I sometimes build on the side as a freelance and chatting with one of the community members and I was just breaking out everything, I was like “This is how much I charge and this is my process and this is where you can optimize blah, blah.” And those are the things which, I think, make it valuable to learn from each other right in the community and not just, again, being just as constant source of pumping out one-sided content. Content is really important and that's why we also put conferences but conversations are also really important. So, you need the content part but you also need the conversations part.
Jayneil: And I think it's setting a precedence because if you're just churning out event after event, then that's the mindset everybody who's associated with that community kind of thinks of it that way like “Oh, DesignX, yeah, another event as usual” and then before you know, I don't even know what the analogy is, but the cow doesn't have any more milk to give.
Preet: True. Again, I don't want to discourage anyone who wants to follow that path. It's like there are some massive businesses being built like Web Summit has like three other massive conferences, right. And conference businesses sell for massive amounts of money too, if that's your goal, but then, for me, it would be like if that's my massive payout dream, then I would rather go and build a SaaS startup or something rather than trying to be in a massive, really competitive space like conferences, right?
Jayneil: And I’m going to get into some of the pet peeves that you might face as a conference organizer. So, what is your reaction to when somebody says “Hey, I want to volunteer for DesignX” and you ask them why and they say something like “Oh, I just want to give back to the community.”
Preet: Yeah, that happens. And, again, it depends who's saying it. We do get a lot of interest from folks interested in volunteering. I am sometimes too much of a straight shooter, especially with people that I work with. So, in the community, in public, you all have to be diplomatic and you say the nice things and write things.
Jayneil: I’m just here for the conference. I’m not here for the job.
Preet: Yeah, exactly. So, with people I work with, I am quite direct. And so, I appreciate when people come and they're interested in volunteering. I really ask them. I’m up on the stage right at the DesignX event. I’m the one that's getting most of the credit. Even though I’ll put up the names, I’ll invite the volunteers on the stage but still people will come back and be like “Oh, thank you for organizing and everything.” And, again, I’ve no shame because I do end up also putting in the max amount of effort and all those things but at the same time, I’m like “What is in it for you? Why do you want to invest your time? You could go out and either, if financial outcomes is your goal, do freelancing; if getting a job is your goal, then work on your portfolio, work on other things, work on networking but what is your kind of vested interest?” And so, of course, when I ask the question just without any other kind of preamble, folks are like “I want to give back to the community.” And many of these folks are like people that just graduated from a boot camp and I’m like “You just graduated. You're looking to first get something out to give back. You need to get a job, all those things, gain experience” but, again, I think that's just the norm. It's become the right thing to say. Again, that's just the state of things. So, what I try and do is make them feel comfortable so they can be really candid with me. So, I am like “No but tell me like do you want to be on the stage? Do you want to conduct the interview? Do you want to meet the speakers? Do you want to get a job out of it?” And, again, it's not easy to go from totally saying give back to the community to asking for like a list of things in return for the volunteer opportunity. So, I then try and make it comfortable and also keep on asking that question. So, every two-three months when we do kind of a formal check-in, then I will be like “So, what are you doing? What do you want to get out of it?” and that answer becomes clearer because sometimes even they might not know but they want to just get involved but they don't know what they want to get out of it. And last year alone, I made introductions for three of our volunteers. All three of them like ended up getting a job at respective companies. And that feels good. It was like they put in effort, they helped DesignX. So, I was not lying when I referred them. I was like “This person is really incredible and I worked with them on these things” but at the same time, it should also not be a way for someone to kind of exploit you or anything. We are very clear that we ask the volunteers to not … our requirement is can you spend four hours a week on DesignX work. Usually, it ends up being even lower than that because there is always like when you have an event, those two three weeks are busy but then the next six weeks, there's not much to do for most volunteers, not all of them but then the others that do put in the effort, then we do make sure that there are financial incentives, there are other kind of incentives for them.
Jayneil: And I can see that if I just come to you as a stranger, I don't know you, you would prefer that I say “Hey, Preet, listen. I want to volunteer and help out with DesignX but what I’m hoping to get in return is maybe meet the agency founder who's giving a talk, maybe you can do the intro. So, it's very clear what you're doing but I think there's this taboo that if I tell you that upfront, it's going to seem like weird like this person just wants to get something but I think it aligns both of our goals in that way.
Preet: Again, I think I mentioned that, it's so much about kind of personal preferences or how your personalities are. So, I volunteered for many organizations where they would prefer more flowery terms and things like “I want to make an impact and I want to do this and do that.” And at some places including myself or leaders that I work with, I just always appreciated the straight talk. And, again, I think, definitely being in Canada makes an influence. Canada, I think, does have this problem where you are expected to not be direct and kind of like say more overarching great things, go around even though you are very clear on what you want inside. So, I try not to adhere to those standards.
Jayneil: Now, there are so many people, man, that just want to build their own community. I’ve seen this trend myself. Let's say DesignX is running, it's already successful. So, my thinking is more like, let's say, I want to do a workshop series on freelancing and I tell you and you're like “Oh, by the way, we're already doing this 5to9 Conference. Why don't you instead try to merge efforts together so we're not like rebuilding from scratch?” but what I’m also seeing, for example, from Dallas, is people just branch off and do their own version of the community. So, it's becoming even more fragmented because everybody wants to do and sometimes the intentions, I don't think, are that noble. I think at some point what happens is if I can't get on stage at DesignX, then what I’m going to do is I’m just going to branch off do my own community and I get to be on stage.
Preet: Right.
Jayneil: So, what advice would you tell people that want to build off their own community and actually make it sustainable for the long run?
Preet: I think that's like a very innate human behavior. It's not a bad thing to do that, to branch off and do your own thing because what they're trying to do is … And you're right. You're spot on. A lot of times, it's not about the money, it's not about anything else but it's about the ego. It's like “I want to be known for this thing as my own thing. I do not want to be known as the lead organizer at DesignX but I want to be known as the founder or the creator of the smaller community” which is like one of the core basic human behaviors, right? You want that recognition. And so, I think, in fact, people like me can do a better job at recognizing the team, talent and behavior of people that are helping you so that those people feel encouraged, those team members, those folks you collaborate with do feel encouraged. I also don't think I do my max or do the best. I’m always more focused on DesignX as the entity. So, my goal is also not just to kind of amplify myself. My goal is to more focus on what can I do better for DesignX or for the community but at the same time, I need to do a better job at making sure that the team members that I work with are also kind of brought more into the limelight and things like those. And then the folks that are branching off, I would say even if you want to do your own thing, reach out and collaborate and like try and connect those kind of different wavelengths, different thoughts together because in the end, that really helps the community. So, there's no harm if someone's like “Okay. Now, I’m going to start my own community and that's only for motion design” but then if we are doing something on side projects, I would say come on and our motion design community could share their side projects and we could do something together. So, I’ve made this a principle that I’ll just go out and anyone that I really like, I always reach out to them and I’m like “I don't know how but I would love to figure out a way to collaborate.” I remember when you and I were talking about the podcast last time, just doing audio check and all those things, I said that to you too. I was like “I really like what you're doing with design MBA. First of all, let me know how I can help you beyond coming on your podcast but then I’d love to figure out if there's something we can do together.” And many of those times, I don't have any well thought strategy or a very analytical kind of approach to these things but it's just gut feel, right?
Jayneil: What's the end game, yeah?
Preet: Yeah, it's just a gut feel. It's almost like saying “Oh yeah, let's hang out again.” So, it's like I enjoy talking to you, I saw what you're doing, you know what I’m doing and I think let's figure out maybe we can do something together. And if you have the intent, the opportunities are obviously endless. So, I’m sure there are many opportunities to collaborate. And in the end, kind of two brains are better than one. You will end up creating something much better.
Jayneil: Oh, thank you for the kind words. I think, growing up in Gujarat in India for the most part, it was always this mindset of like how can we collaborate with other people instead of just going alone. So, I always had that attitude to things because the solo journey is really disheartening to kind of continue following on the long road because you're just by yourself but I think when we collaborate, and yeah, I mean, one has to lower their ego, it's more of like shared credit at that point in terms of doing it. So, one thing I’m wondering is how do you deal with rejection? I’m sure there's going to be speakers and people that you reached out to for DesignX that for whatever reason turned down or couldn't make it. So, how do you deal with that rejection?
Preet: Right. I’ll be extremely candid with you. So, my brain many times works in extremes. I’m a Capricorn and maybe that has something to do with that. I’ve seen many Capricorns who kind of always be on the extremes even with their emotions. Either I’ll be like extremely calm that I don't care or I get like really worked up. So, even with rejections, with speakers rejecting and all those things, I would say 95% of the times I’m very indifferent, indifferent as in like I don't get hurt about it. I do try to kind of look into it and poke into it like “Why did they say no? What could I have done better that they could have said yes? Should I make a video and talk about like how great this opportunity is?” It’s like you did. I really like that part.
Jayneil: Thank you.
Preet: “Could I have maybe explained DesignX better? Could I have shared the speaker benefits better, what would you get out of presenting, all those things? Could I've built the personal relationship first?”, all those things. So, the engineering brain kind of goes into that tangent and then the more creative brain … 5% of the times my ego also does get hurt and then 5% of the times I’m like “Okay, fuck you. You know what? This event will be …” but I don't say to them but in my mind I’m like “Yeah, fuck you. I’m going to show. This event will be a massive success.” And I think I do thrive on both these approaches. The second approach also does help me give a kick and gets me, I’d say, fired up. I got a lot of rejections when I started planning Remote Design Week and also, I put it together in such a short time like six weeks. So, many of them were like “Yeah. No, I’m not sure. No one's going to sit on Zoom for five days blah, blah, blah,” all those things. So, of course, you're going to get naysayers also. Of course, some of them are generally busy but the ones that don't believe in you, even when I started DesignX the first time, no one knew me even in the Toronto community, leave alone the global design community and many people said no and I was like “Cool.” And sometimes I do thrive on doing it because I’m like “Okay, let me show you that I am capable of putting together a good thing and it would have been amazing to have you.”
Jayneil: What if a non-believer gets converted at some point after seeing your track record and they're like “Oh, Preet, I think now I would love to collaborate,” how do you approach that?
Preet: I’m really happy about that. So, no ego, nothing. And that has happened a lot of times. Especially for my first year of DesignX, I’ve had people who I’d approached early on to either host the event or use the space or have them on the panel, things like those or invite them to the community and I was like straight out ignored and not once, few times. I would email them few times and they would just not reply and I would see that the email has been opened. I’ve seen people, again, early on, look at me and kind of just like turn their eyes away at in-person events because they were like “Oh, this person's going to ask me again.” Even though I try not to be that annoying pesky person but I just kind of follow up and all those things. And those same people then have turned to them being like “Oh, Preet, we'd love to host you. Can you come into your office space and do an event?” or “Is there an opportunity for us to collaborate and need to share my learnings?”, which means like they want to be on the stage, all those things. And, again, I always think would I have done this and it's like yeah, I probably would have done the same. Earlier if I didn't believe someone would really do a good job and not interesting but then once it kicks off, then you're like “I want to be on that rocket ship” or whatever you, “I want to participate in that exciting thing.” And so, I would have done the same. So, I don't blame them. Again, I think as designers one of our strengths is always mapping these behaviors to the reason and it's like yeah, that's just how we humans work.
Jayneil: So, how can people follow you or contact you, Preet?
Preet: Follow me? I’m on Twitter even though I don't tweet that much but my DMs are open there. LinkedIn is open. And my email is Preet@DesignX.community. The best way is on the DesignX Slack group. I am quite responsive. I try to be responsive. So, don't shy away from connecting for anything. I have people sometimes who are like “I hate to disturb you, Preet, but my DesignX account is not working” and I’m like “That is my problem. So, don't worry about kind of pinging me about that.”
Jayneil: But how can people be not that leechy. Obviously, you don't want to get bombarded with 15 messages from people like “Hey, Preet, I want a job. Can you hook me up?” How can they approach that kind of conversation?
Preet: That's a very good question and I think that's not just for me but I would say if you're approaching anyone in the community that you want to get something out of, I’m not even going to say like someone senior or someone more experienced or more known, anything that you want from someone, there are two parts to it. One is like just basic etiquettes like you're adding someone on LinkedIn, quote a one-liner like say “Preet, I listened to the podcast” or “I came on conference. That's why I’m connecting.” Right now, no jokes, I tweeted the other day about it. I have 400 pending LinkedIn connections and 95 of them have no line. And I do want to connect with people but I literally read every name and then I’m like “Do I know this person? Did I see them anywhere?” because I want to be mindful. I don't want to be arrogant or anything. And so, that puts a lot of work on me. So, if you would just have those basic courtesy things. And then, secondly, you don't have anything to kind of offer in return, it's always good to just either say it or just be like “Is there a way I can help you in any way?” I’ve not always done that. When I would early on approach speakers, I would just be like “Can you please come and speak at my event, blah, blah?”, not offering anything to them in return, which is very selfish of me. So, I’m trying to build on that muscle too and learn how to do that better is always asking like “Is there any way I can help you in return?” or even if you can't help in return, I’ve seen people, they would approach me for some ask and then at the end, they would be like and “I saw you recently,” an example like “DesignX transitioned to a paid community. This is a book or article I recently saw on paid committees that might be helpful.” Such a small thing. You didn't offer to kind of give me anything like massive in return but you're like “I did think of you and I did some research. This is something that might be of value in return.” And that's really nice. I really appreciate that.
Jayneil: So, it's such a common or basic human etiquette but it's rare that it doesn't get to happen often or I just don't see it at times. And one of the sayings that I was always inspired by growing up in India was always like this thing “Dogae toh milega. Pehle doh, fir loh.” And even with my approach to the whole thing with the podcast and everyone, it's always been about instead of me just hitting someone up, that's kind of one of the reasons why I also did the podcast is this question that I’m asking you about event organization, I’m sure so many other people want to know about it too. So, the value proposition, if I just reach out to you directly via email and ask you these questions versus let's do it via podcast so other people can benefit if there's something in it for you, for me, for everybody. And then you're probably going to get this but everybody that’s come on the show, I always give them a book because I love reading books and that's my way of saying thank you. And it's authentic to me. If somebody's into coffee, I don't know, they can give coffee, whatever is congruent to them.
Preet: Right. That's a beautiful idea. And I think, because I generally, and it might not be always the right thing that I’m treating myself as like I’m designing something and I’m treating myself as the user, but in cases like these of understanding human behaviors, the first thing is I’m always looking inside and also I don't remember you know the exact statement but it's in our Sikh scriptures, Gurbani that before you kind of point a finger, look inside, look within. And so, whenever I’m trying to understand these behaviors, I’m like “Why don't I do that more?” And it's usually like we're living in a time where the most scarce resource is always time like every day you're like “I want to pack in 20 things. I want to do my podcast and I want to read the book and I’m going to Tweet on twitter with a thread on design and post on LinkedIn with card images and all those things.” And because of that time scarcity, you are always thinking like “me, me, me, what can I do more to help my goals move forward?” And so, that's why any time you have to switch like stop-pause and be like “Wait. The person that I’m talking to, what do they want? How can I help them in return? It does require a little bit of like an effort. It's not as effortless. And even though growing up in India, again, as you shared, relationships are so transactional there. And, again, that's because the society, that's because the society doesn't live in abundance like it is in North America. There's a massive difference. So, there everyone's just trying to survive for themselves and their loved ones. That's their biggest priority. When I came to Toronto, I met a guy who was living in the Valley and had just moved to Toronto. He worked and lived in the Valley for like 10 years, 15 years even though he was of my age, or 10 years, I think, and then came back to Toronto to build a startup. And he told me a really beautiful thing. He was like “In Silicon Valley in San Francisco, there is such a culture of giving and it's not altruistic. It's not like that I just believe in giving but it's like because you do not know the person you're helping out who they turn out to be.” I’m helping this person and who knows they'll be the next Mark Zuckerberg. You never know that. So, there everyone's always about “Yeah, sure. Let's meet for coffee. How can I add value to you?” And because he was comparing it to Toronto. Toronto is still a little more transactional, not the design community. I’d say the design community is still largely about giving but the overall tech community, it's all about like “How can I move ahead myself?” and that's maybe rooted in it being majorly immigrant population and, again, everyone trying to build their own roots but I definitely try and always keep the thought in mind because, again, for me also, personally, it's been a big mindset shift having grown up in India to always being like “Okay, let's help out folks.” And, again, selfishly, it could be karma that I’m helping this person and later on it could somehow come back and help me too.
Jayneil: True. Very well said, Preet. Thank you so much for coming on the show, man. It's been a blast.
Preet: Same here. Thank you so much for having me.
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