"F**k 9-5 jobs!" My guest today is Punit Chawla, founder of DesignWings.in which is India's most affordable design school! In this episode, we discuss how Punit flunked in Maths, quitting a full time job, starting a YouTube channel, freelancing, and starting DesignWings.in For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show Level Up Your Design Career (Free Email Course): https://levelup.designmba.show/
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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 have a phenomenal guest with me right here. He's smiling. He's wearing an Adobe XD hat. He is none other than Punit Chawla. And a brief version of who Punit is. Punit is an avid YouTube design creator with some of the highest subscribers on his YouTube channel and he wants to leave an impact on the world. And if that was not enough, Punit actually is a three-time Google event speaker, four-time Medium top writer and design inspiration and he is a marathon runner, man, I wish I could run like him, and an ex-photographer.
So, did I miss anything by any chance, Punit?
Punit Chawla: No, that was a rad intro. I don't think I could put it any better. That's epic, man. Thanks.
Jayneil: And if you're a designer in India wondering that “Hey, what should I do to become a better designer, to get a job in the design industry, to level up my design skills?” but you don't want to pay that much money, what do you do? So, then you go to DesignWings.in which is India's most affordable design school.
Punit: For sure.
Jayneil: And there you learn from Punit and his tribe of mentors which he has hand-picked and this is a blast of course. You definitely need to go again to DesignWings.in and check it out.
Punit: Yup, exactly, man. Thanks for the amazing intro and thanks for plugging in my school. That was epic.
Jayneil: Man, I’m just so excited to be chatting with you. Wow, dude. It's bringing me back to home, thinking about India and when I left it and then you're doing so cool shit there. What was it like for you in school? Were you always interested in arts growing up?
Punit: Dude, I was a big nerd in school. I mean, I still am, I can't deny that, but in school, I was a big nerd. I was often bullied because of it but it was so much fun because I used to sit in the computer lab for, I’m not sure if the American listeners listening, maybe they had like a different system but in our schools, we have like fixed timetables and we just kind of [inaudible] all the freaking time but my computer teacher, the teacher who taught us coding and stuff like that, she was so cool, man. She was like “Sit as long as you want.” And I used to sit the whole day long. My teachers used to complain. My principal called my parents and stuff like that. And I was like “Come on, man, chill out.” I just wanted to create something cool. And at that time, I was already deep into photography but the love for photography, I just realized it was just a passion which went away after a while. I know it wasn't cool but somebody asked me to make a website and it all began. And since then, I haven't turned back and I’m loving what I’m doing, man. I always belong to like a creative family. All my family members are into some sorts of … My grandfather wanted to become like an architect. He became an engineer, at the end of the day, but he was more inclined towards drawing and all that architectural drawing and stuff like that. So, everybody in my family is just very, very creative. And I think I’m the least creative out of them. I’m more into entrepreneurship and business and marketing and stuff like that but design is first love, for sure.
Jayneil: You got some of that gujju because you're trying to do business.
Punit: I do. I don't know if I’m Punjabi or Gujarati or whatever. I think Punjabis and Gujaratis have a lot of similar values when it comes to money, when it comes to business. I think we have some similar traits.
Jayneil: Yeah. I grew up in Ahmedabad and the whole time it was like [Gujrati]. It always like you got to do your business. And I wanted to be an architect growing up. So, the flats that I lived in, on the fifth floor we had an international architect who started his career there, Kirti Desai, and he considered that office a good luck thing like where he started. So, he never went to his really posh and big office in the city. So, I would always see him and meet him and see all these drawings and I’m like “Man, I want to be an architect.” My parents were like “No, you're not going to be an architect. You're going to be an engineer or a doctor.” I feel one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in life is just do my 10th board and 12th board in India. I don't think there's anything more crazy and intense thing like that.
Punit: Every Indian parent ever, I guess.
Jayneil: Oh my God, dude.
Punit: Every Asian parent, I would say, to an extent.
Jayneil: Yeah, man. It's like the competition is cut throat like AIEEE and I remember everybody was doing that, the FITG classes for IITs and stuff.
Punit: Still, man. That's still something. Thing that I feel is everything is now evolved. Everything has now changed. The new normal is just something else now and people need to realize that people need to adapt. We need more product designers, we need more developers and we need civil engineers are building towers and stuff like that because where's the construction gone. So, I think the market has shifted so much over the past six months, it's crazy.
Jayneil: So, in school, when you graduated from 12th, did you feel that pressure like “I need to join an engineering college” or what did you end up doing?
Punit: That was so good. The best part, I think, about my childhood has been my parents, my grandparents, my mom, even though I’ve been brought up in a single parent home and stuff like that, my grandparents always were like “Do whatever the fuck you want to do. Just get a degree and just make sure you have like a backing,” I mean, like Indian parent ever except everything else was so cool. I flunked in Math and I had to shift to IT which is like a subject very few students took because they didn't get high enough marks and or a high enough grade in class 10th and stuff like that. For American people, I think, it's more like we were going into a high school and we had to take up a subject for sure. It was all cool at my place even though I flunked and stuff like that. There were like two or three teachers who were backing me all the way and they were like “You do this. You'll become this.” And I used to go to web design competitions in high school and it was so cool because my designs were below average for a good year or two and every single time I went to a competition, I won because the difference between the other designers or the other developers and me was I was able to communicate, I was able to market to them straight up “What does this website do? What does it represent?” I mean, pitching an idea in a nutshell, I guess.
Jayneil: Wow! So, you already have that acumen for design already in school. So, when you went to college, what was your major, engineering college or design college?
Punit: So, the thing here is UX and UI or even product design in general hasn't become a proper degree unless you go to like design-focused or design-centric universities, things like NIFT on National Institute of Fashion Technology. Whatever other universities I can't remember are there for design. I went to like a very basic private university where there were basic courses. My major was just Information Technology which just means a bunch of students who didn't score enough to get into B.Comm which is like the higher level of IT. It was all cool because I knew that is not what I wanted to do and I knew a degree wasn't required for where I was going. And you won't believe this but the first two full-time jobs that I got, they asked for my degree. I told them I lost my degree and then they forgot because.
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Punit: Because I started working before my college ended. And college here takes a good month to get your marks out, get your degree out and everything. So, I was like “Yeah, I just got to lie.” And they all forgot after a while and I never gave them my degree. So, that was good.
Jayneil: Damn! But right during the four years of college, did you do any internships in design or do any more design work during that time?
Punit: For sure. I was doing freelancing since school. So, freelancing was something that I was already used to but at the same time, I was advised by someone to go out and approach people so that they could give you projects in their organizations. That was one of the best advices I’ve been given and I’ve applied it. And after that, it was all uphill where I was getting more clients and stronger bigger clients. I agree I didn't have hundreds of clients but even the few five, seven clients that I had at a time, they were so strong, they were larger organizations. So, I was able to understand what freelancing was all about even though after a while I left it.
Jayneil: And they were based in India, those clients.
Punit: Yeah, Indian companies. There was a company which was an education organization. It was making products for educational institutes which was making products for international baccalaureate which is IB board which is like the American or the British board, I’d say, in a way. That is what I was being exposed to and I think that was a good move.
Jayneil: And that was through the word of mouth, right?
Punit: That was not purely word of mouth. One lady I met, she was at some party or something, just very casual family gathering kind of party there was and she was the co-founder of a startup. Nobody knew that. Even I didn't know that but I started conversing with her. She was a friend of a relative and she was there with her children and stuff like that and she was like “Oh, you're a designer?” and I’m like “Yeah, I’m a designer.” So, she’s like “We require a designer.” I’m like “I’m your guy then.”
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: And that was like at my cusp of starting out. So, I was like “Okay, I need this.” So, I got it and we started working on some augmented reality out of everything else.
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: I was like “I’m not an expert at UX already and I’m already having to handle augmented reality” even though the augmented reality there was not at the level which we see these days with those fancy ass, you could put a chair in your room and just see Ikea happen and stuff like that, not that level. The 3D modeling and rendering was done by a different department. I was basically handling the visuals and the UI of the entire AR experience. I mean, that was a good exposure. That was a good challenge, I’d say.
Jayneil: And what tools did you use for that, do you remember?
Punit: Before that job, I was a photoshop guy. And this is like four or five years ago. I’m just putting a random number to it but probably less than that. At that time, it was like either you Sketch or you don't use anything else. At that time, Adobe XD was in its beta stage. It was there, people started to use it because it was Adobe but I started using Adobe XD because it was lightweight and it was free and I was like “Who doesn't want free stuff?” So, I started using Adobe XD and that is where I like formed the love for XD because I was a Windows user back then. I didn't have the option of using Sketch. And, to be honest, I had made decent money but not enough to just go splurge a bunch of money on a MacBook Pro or something and I definitely did not want to buy a MacBook Air because it's not worth the money.
Jayneil: And then, dude, in India, you're talking about one lakh rupees or something like that, like fully maxed out? Expensive.
Punit: No, no, one lakh rupees is the one that I’m using right now to see this podcast and stuff. It's a MacBook Pro 2018 base model but with expanded memory. So, the thing is I’m the kind of guy who will never invest on a maxed-out product, never. Even my phone, even though this is an S10, this is the base S10.
Jayneil: Oh wow! The kind of opposite.
Punit: Yeah I was like “No maxed-out bullshit. I need something. If it works, it's great. I don't care if it's … I’m not editing 4k footage. So, why do I need to get a maxed-out MacBook?” It was a 2018 MacBook. So, I bought it in 2018 itself. So, I’m a very new Mac user. Before this, I had an XPS 13 which is an expensive laptop but I chose that because at that time, I was also slightly into web development. So, I was like “I’d go for Windows if I’m a web developer.” And it just so happened that I shifted to UX.
Jayneil: Well, that makes sense. So, what was the pay for your first gig when you were doing freelancing?
Punit: The very, very first project which I got was from Upwork. For those who don't know, it is a freelancing platform. Freelancers come and they pitch for jobs. That was like 300 dollars and I was elated, I was like “Oh, shit!”
Jayneil: I mean, that's into like 60 rupees, dude. That was like a lot of money, dude.
Punit: That was like 25-30 grand. And I was like “This is nice.” And at that time, I was like “Okay, if I can make 300 dollars, I can make three thousand dollars, I can make 30,000 dollars. It’s limitless.” So, at that point in time, my concept of money was just another level thanks to the kind of childhood I had, thanks to me having to do everything in my life. That taught me a lot about money which most people of my age, I’m sure, they don't know.
Jayneil: Yeah. So, you just did not take that 30,000 rupees and be like “Okay, I’m just going to spend it on something.” You decided to do something meaningful.
Punit: No, I did not spend that 30,000 bucks on anything. Dude, my bank account is stale. The thing is right now I focus so much on side income, I focus so much on passive income, the debit card of my original account, the one where all the real money comes into, it's in some corner, there's dust over it, I’m sure, because I never use that account. It's all money coming in. And if I invest in jewelry, if I invest in bank bonds or whatever it might be generally through like the website and I have an app if I ever need to take out money from that. Dude, this is number one key that I’ve learned. Never spend money from your main account, never.
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: It changed my fucking life. My mom always tells me, every time, if I buy something new like a phone or a diary or something, whatever that is, she's always like “<>.” It’s like you got to save every penny until it becomes like a million bucks. So, I always laugh at her but she tells me that it just adds up so well.
Jayneil: So, I’m thinking that you figured out the Upwork thing like wow, you can get paid in dollars and you can work remotely from India, you don't have to go anywhere. Did you decide to just go full throttle on Upwork and just continue that path or no?
Punit: Upwork is so saturated. I mean, even though they have this very strange way of selecting candidates who actually get onto their platform, if you have like a business email, a good 60% to 70% chance to get into that platform. Otherwise, if you have like a Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook or whatever, you're at the bottom of the list. So, I figured that out early. There's nothing written on that. There are people on Fiverr who get you onto Upwork, which is strange. You're paying five people on Fiverr to get onto Upwork.
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Punit: Yeah, search Fiverr, thousands of jobs just get a guaranteed Upwork account.
Jayneil: Oh my God. So, you got a business email basically.
Punit: Yeah, I got a business email for 50 bucks.
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: And the people were charging like 500 to 600 bucks for you to register for Upwork. I got it for 50 rupees.
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: It's like 60 cents or something like that.
Jayneil: Wow! So, when did you figure out that this is really saturated like you figured out “I don't want to compete in this kind of crowded market on Upwork”?
Punit: Dude, what isn't saturated in today's time?
Jayneil: That's true.
Punit: I happened to work for somebody on certain projects as a consultant. I started calling myself a consultant after a while. He asked me to find some people for a certain job. He was like “I’ll pay you whatever commission” and stuff like that. I’m like “Yeah, cool. I know people.” Whenever somebody asks me “Do you know somebody?”, I’m like “Yeah, I know somebody” even when I don't because I know that it's my advantage. So, I went on to Upwork for the first time in my life host an ad where you will say “Okay, I want this person for this job.” So much fun, dude. So much attention I got in one day. And that job was very specific. It was, again, for AR. And you know the other furniture companies who kind of place furniture in an augmented reality?
Jayneil: Yes.
Punit: Which is now becoming a big thing. Earlier it was like a niche. People at that time, they were like “Oh yeah, I’ll do this,” “Oh, I’m experienced with this. I’m excited.” I’m like “Oh damn, there are a lot of people who have experience in this.” And they showed me their work and I was like “Okay, this guy knows his work.” So, every second person is a designer and a developer and whatever, whatever. So, I realized if I’m a lion sitting in between gazelles, that makes me a gazelle. And I was like either eat these gazelles out or I can maybe become a snake and just slither myself out of there. So, I had like multiple options and I chose the best one which was I saw this video which is very important, I think. Some leader in some industry, this guy, goes up on stage and he says “If you're not fake, you're not going to make it.” And I was like “Damn! I resonate with that” because what I started to do was, I was like “I got to portray people I’m an organization.” People want to trust a company. They'll trust a company or a studio or an organization more than they will trust an individual.
Jayneil: Yes.
Punit: So, I was like “Fuck it. I’m going to form an organization.” At that time there was no GST which is general sales tax. At that time, you had to either have a proprietorship certificate or whatever there was. I got myself a proprietorship certificate. I knew some people. So, it was faster for me. And after that I just hired people on project-to-project basis. If somebody came to me and said “Hey, we need a website developed as well as designed. Can you do both?”, I’m like “I’ll charge you double but I can do both because I have an organization where people work for me.” And they’re like “Okay, that's crazy.” I stopped using my name. I was like “I’m not Punit Chawla now.” So, the thing was I wanted to my name to be involved. So, I said “Punit Web Design Studios.” I didn't want to think of a name, spend hours brainstorming up a name and I just said “Okay, Punit Web Design Studios.” And till date, my twitter handle is @PunitWeb because it just became a thing for me. So, next thing you know, clients keep coming in because now I’m an organization. So, biggest problem with freelancers is they still depend on a platform. I made my own platform, technically.
Jayneil: Damn! And then you were finding all these designers to work on also through Upwork or just through your referrals and friends?
Punit: Mostly referrals and friends. Since I was from an IT background, somebody knew somebody, we had two different majors on the same floor. So, whatever classes happened, the other major was like a slightly higher level. And there were a lot of passionate people in web development and stuff. I was like “Hey, dude, if I pay you this much money, will you come work for me on this project?” and they're like “Okay, cool. Let's do it.” That's how I went about it. I just signed up a quick contract and the project was done.
Jayneil: What if you get this guy Ramesh to work as a developer for you and then Ramesh disappears after something like a wedding or something? Did you have that happen or how would you deal with that?
Punit: There are gazelles all over. I’m not showing hate. It's not bad to be gazelles. Gazelles are fast. Gazelles adapt. Gazelles can kill you with whatever they have on their heads. It's just that I know there are people who will always be there. And till date, in my design school, I don't care if a mentor leaves. Even though we've had nobody leave, it was so cool, we just let each other do our work. and I always find somebody new.
Jayneil: You're like <>.
Punit: Yeah, let's just say yes to everything and then <>. That has been my number one thing. People think “Oh, I need to first study this.” I’ve heard this a lot. “Oh, give me some time. I need to first learn this. I need to first study this. I need to first get experience in this.” And I’m like “Buddy, you missed the train.” So, that's the thing, man. Saying yes spontaneously is so much better than saying yes later, I’d say. And that has helped me a lot.
Jayneil: I absolutely agree with you. And you're doing this freelance business on the side. At what point did you actually get a full-time job working at a corporate company?
Punit: I was doing freelancing till, I’d say, last to last summer. And then after that, I took like a little break for two-three months and I just explored my own design stuff, personal products stuff. And then I got into hotel chain business where they had their own application. They depended on their application. So, they needed UX designers. After that, I quit in five months.
Jayneil: Why did you quit?
Punit: I quit because the boss was shitty. The big boss. Not even the boss, the big boss. So, I was like “Fuck you, man. I’m leaving.” Honestly, it wasn't as much that the big boss was rude or whatever it might be. It was more I needed more out of it. I wasn't getting more out of it. And the sad part is people till date don't recognize freelancing and consulting as a full-time job. The first thing that I got from that job was “Your experience is zero years” and I was like “Wow! Okay, cool, as you say.” And that's the reaction you need to give because you can't argue with them. They're like “Oh, this is the system.” I say “Okay, I’m not going to try and fight this system. I don't have enough energy to do that.” That's my biggest problem with industry right now and I’m sure a lot of people are listening to this and resonating with this. I don't have time for the system, man
Jayneil: Politics.
Punit: The politics. Even who wrote the rules, man? Mark Zuckerberg was a college, I wouldn't call him a complete dropout, but he was definitely not experienced. He still became a billionaire. Who is going to stop that? If Mark Zuckerberg tried to get a job at some other company, “Hey, you've never had a full-time job.” So, that's crazy. That was like the worst experience that every time I got into a new organization, they were like “You have such less experience” and I’m like “Geez!”
Jayneil: You also had your YouTube channel going on at the same point, right?
Punit: Yeah, for sure. I started my YouTube channel maybe two three months before I started getting the full-time job. It's been a year and a half, maybe something like that. That was like a turning point for me. And the thing was everybody wanted me to be off YouTube. Everybody was like “Hey, spend more time at your desk.”
Jayneil: Oh, the company bullshit.
Punit: Yeah, the company bullshit. “Quit your YouTube. Stop doing this. Stop doing that.” And it's just a bunch of hate being thrown at you just because I have a better YouTube than your YouTube. I don't know what the reason was.
Jayneil: I think they were jealous. That's what I think it is.
Punit: Yeah, that's what comes to my mind. And, at the end of the day, I’ve never considered myself … I still have such a long way to go, man. I look up to other YouTubers. You’ve got Jonathan from Agent Smart. You’ve got CharliMarieTV. You’ve got so many people. I’ve probably missed 10 of them at least. And I look up to them. They're not just bigger channels than me. I don't know how they do it. I still haven't cracked the code. So, maybe that's the same way these people looked at me but maybe in a negative way and that was cool because that made me realize, I think this will be the title of this podcast, is “Fuck 9 to 5”. This is going to be an explicit podcast. You need to put an ‘e’ after this one. Honestly, dude, it's cool. For the people who want to do it, it's cool. I don't blame them for not having an enterprising mind. It's cool. And at the end of the day, 9 to 5 was never meant for me. So, I quit.
Jayneil: I’ve had similar challenges like that. I think, my thing was working at companies, and in the US, it was like let's say there's like a downtime, body's doing anything, people are playing ping-pong, people are going for walks. And my guilty pleasure is I’m just reading a Kindle book on an actual Kindle which you can see right here. So, I was reading on this Kindle and then people had a problem with it. So, I got dinged for it like “Why are you reading Kindle here?” And I think that sometimes people just want to be like “Oh but the rule says this. You have to like not do this in the company time.” And I figured that either they're jealous or maybe they had dreams, they wanted to do something when they were younger and then they look at you and they're like “Man, Punit is doing this YouTube channel. I couldn't do it. You know what? Let me just stop it. Let me stop him from doing it.” The best thing I’ve gotten is a few times I was lucky when I got a boss where he also had side things going on. So, it was like a mutual agreement like “You do your shit and I’m going to do my shit” and it was perfect because he couldn't say anything to me because I was doing my side shit because he's also doing his side shit.
Punit: Yeah, it happened to me but it was not a good thing. For them, it was like “You can't do this” and I’m like “You were designing your wife's logo last year and you're telling me to stop doing my YouTube for like 10 minutes?”
Jayneil: Oh my gosh!
Punit: Again, it's politics. What can one do?
Jayneil: And then I’ve gotten smarter. If you are somebody that still is working at a full-time job and do want to do this, I think a way to go about it is being smart about it. So, over time what I did is like “Okay, if I’m in front of everybody, then don't do Kindle, don't do your side project. Just do that thing. And then when everybody leaves, do it then” or maybe if your company has multiple floors, go on a floor that nobody can see you that well and then just do it there so you're out of people's sight when you do it.
Punit: It'll be so much fun if the companies you worked for, people there are like listening to this and they're like “Oh, now we know.”
Jayneil: I think they already knew, man. I was a pain in the ass at some of the companies I worked for because I think a lot of them just knew like “Jayneil is always doing his own shit” but I would always make it worth a while. Like a gujju person, I was always like “Listen, if you help me out, I’ll help you out in some way.” So, I don't know, man. I was just offering people like “Hey, you know what, I know a real estate guy. If you're looking to buy a house, I’ll connect you with somebody” or “If you're looking for a plumber, I will hit you up with some guy that I know.”
Punit: Subtle bribes, man.
Jayneil: Yeah, I was always like offering stuff like that. One place I was just like “Hey, I know this,” like I don't know like the Dean of Admissions of this college or whatever, “I’ll connect you with some person here.” So, it's always like “You let me know how I can help you and I promise not to be pain in the ass. Just let me do my thing a little bit.”
Punit: I think every Indian from every state is like “Oh, I’m Punjabi. So, I do this. Oh, I’m Gujarati. So, I’m doing this. Oh, I’m Bengali. So, I’m like this.” For all foreign listeners, we're racists among our own type. If I’m Punjabi, people will be like “<>. I’m like “What the fuck!” I mean, we're the same color but …
Jayneil: Surprisingly, in the US, the thing is everybody just unites. I mean, you got to think about it. I think the foreign population, if you just consider Indians for that matter, Indians and Muslims, maybe in the US, I don't know the exact stat but it's probably like less than 5% or something of the total population. I could be completely off. So, here, things are completely different. Every Indian looks at every Indian like “Oh, we're friends.” There's none of that because …
Punit: You're the only people you have for each other. You can't trust a white guy or you can't … I mean, you can, of course, but …
Jayneil: One of my best friends is a Muslim guy. I’m friends with a South Indian guy partly because he comes to my place and he cooks me dosa but we're really good friends, for the record.
Punit: Nice. I get it.
Jayneil: So, you probably joined YouTube around 2015 or something, right? 2015-2016.
Punit: I was so casual with YouTube back then. Somebody gifted me a GoPro and I was just doing random vlogs with it all the time. And I gained like 30 subscribers in a year. Then I was like “I’m not really going out so much. What else can I do with my GoPro?” The entire YouTube idea came because of the GoPro because the GoPro mic is decent. I mean, you don't need an external mic. That's why they make the mic good because they know nobody's going to connect a mic on top of a GoPro because literally, dude, it will look like this bottle over this.
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Punit: Because GoPros are small and mics are big. So, the mic was really good. So, I was like “Okay, I’ll just spin this GoPro to my T-shirt and I’ll start doing like cool design videos.” And this was just one and a half years ago I started seriously taking YouTube.
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: So, one and a half years ago, I was like “Okay, can we get 100 subs?” At that point in time, I was like “I’ll just make a video and I’ll just leave it.” And the first video did like 400 views which was a lot from my usual 30 views. I was like “Okay, let's try once more.” And the second video got like 1200 views. And I was like “Okay, okay, okay, let's see where we can get this.” So, now, from the average 800-900 views, I think, I’m now at like 3000 something average.
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: And some videos, I don't know how they do it, but some videos YouTube just pushes out and it just gets like 20K, 30K in like a week. Some videos then perform poorly sometimes. You can't always have the same results again and again on YouTube or on no platform. So, that was something where I was like “Okay, this is something that I’m going to make a part of my career.” And YouTube was one of the reasons I was able to say “Okay, I’m going to quit my 9 to 5 job” and I was like “Okay, I can now form a business out of this.” And that is where I started the design school is because I realized I can cross sell better now because of this.
Jayneil: And when you came across YouTube, I think, now you have, what is it, like 30,000 subscribers and I would say …
Punit: 33 something, I don't know,
Jayneil: 33 and then in the Indian Design, so you're probably one of the most subscribed YouTube designers, right?
Punit: There's one other guy in India, one or two other guys in India who are doing it. One is a guy who does only in Hindi. Then that's a completely different genre. I think it’s regional language channel. Ours is more English, appealing to a wider an American audience as well, foreign audience. There is somebody called Design Pilot but I don't really want to talk about it because of some YouTube beef. Welcome to YouTube. So, he’s at 45K or something but my views are better.
Jayneil: Oh my God! How many views have you got? Do you have a ballpark how many total views for the lifetime of the channel?
Punit: In the past one year, I think it's 2.5 million.
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: I want to increase my sub rate and I’m trying to do stuff for it. Let's see. It's just a journey, i guess. This is the beginning.
Jayneil: And then for any YouTuber listening to this or wanting to be a YouTuber, the first question they're going to have is “Punit, how much roughly can I make a month with your views or your stats?”
Punit: 50K to a lakh a month. I mean, it's not really bad. Okay, 100,000 dollars a month. I’m not Jake Paul. Yeah, 100k rupees you can make a month which, I think, for a side hustle, it's crazy. And then there are these brand partnerships doing some stuff with Framer, with LinkedIn, with this, that. So, there's a lot of other money involved but then that comes with when you do things consistently. They don't like a channel where it's one video a month.
Jayneil: I see.
Punit: My secret weapon has been like consistent Monday, Thursday, all the time, never miss. Maybe once in six months I miss once.
Jayneil: Wow! It's like every week.
Punit: Every week twice a week. YouTube likes that. People on YouTube like that. So, why not?
Jayneil: Damn! And then those partnerships with Framer and LinkedIn, how did that come about? Did you reach out to them or they reached out to you?
Punit: So, they reached out to me. The thing is there are a lot of YouTubers who do reach out to brands but I’ve stopped doing that because initially I was reaching out to brands but I got no answer. Maybe that was because I had fewer subscribers. At that time, I was like 10k. And there are certain brands who just want to do stuff with a different kind of channel and I totally get it. That's how YouTube works but YouTube is just another platform. I’d say, every platform you can do the same thing in a different way.
Jayneil: So, you're saying that if you grow the channel, those brands will come to you.
Punit: Yeah, definitely. Why not? I’ll say that some people I’ve reached out to initially but then what happens is, I think, it's more philosophical is where you focus so hard on something, you forget about the results. The results start coming in. That is what I’m focusing on right now. I’m all about how can I get good quality content, good quantity content out as fast as possible and how can I provide value to people. And that's the goal and that is what I’m sticking with. The brands will come on their own. I think a lot of people focus on this. I was speaking to somebody the other day and they just wanted some advice on YouTube and stuff. I was like “Okay, cool. Let's have a chat.” And there's so many people, unfortunately, who are delusional, man. Even today, I don't expect Figma to answer my messages on Twitter or on email. That is why I don't message or email them because I’m like “I’m just another guy, man.” And there are some people who have hundred subscribers and they're like “Oh, I want to do this with this company” or “I want this brand deal. I want this brand deal.” I say that on their faces, I’m like “Dude, you're just starting off. I don't get those deals. I’m jealous of you. If you get those deals, I will give you my YouTube channel.” Probably not. I mean, people need to realize it's one step at a time and just focus on what you're doing. Even if you're on Behance, LinkedIn, whatever you're doing, just focus on what you're doing. Providing value to people is number one. Number two or maybe number three is actually bringing brands on. So, money is always secondary, man. Money is a way to be free. People think money is like key to something bigger and it's not. You're the key to something bigger. Money is just helping you feel free a little bit. You don't need to worry about the rent anymore. You don't need to worry about bills. And you're just focusing on what you're doing. I think that's number one.
Jayneil: And keep the lights on, the money.
Punit: Yeah, keep the lights on or just shift to Canada and get like free money. I have this YouTuber design friend. I’m not sure if you've heard of him Faheem Md, a cool designer on YouTube. He was telling me the other day, he's like “Canada, they gave us two different packages if we lost our jobs.”
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: And they continue to give you money. I’m Punjabi. So, people will be like “Oh, Canada, huh?” and I’m like “Yeah, canada.” That's like second Punjab.
Jayneil: No, it is, man. I’ve been to Vancouver and, dude, every third or fourth person I saw on the street was a Punjabi like stores and everywhere.
Punit: It's like you're sick, you're probably going to go to Canada. There's a 50% chance.
Jayneil: It's a beautiful country, man.
Punit: It's a cool place.
Jayneil: What does your schedule look like? If you're putting out content twice a week, I’m assuming you edit everything yourself?
Punit: Yeah, I edit everything on my own. I’ll tell you a story, man. I have gotten chances for people to do stuff for me for free. They're like “We'll edit your videos for free. We love your videos,” this, that. “Can we edit your videos? We have really good editing skills. It will help us practice,” this, that. I was like “Dude, no. I can't pay you right now and I cannot get it done for free. I’ve been in your shoes and I don't want you to do work for free.” So, I was like “Dude, I’m just going to edit everything on my own.” And I was like “I’m not KBHD. I’m not editing 4k footage trying to make my videos, audios everything crisp and nice and b-roll and this and that.” So, I was like “I just got to edit screen recordings.” Just before shooting this podcast, I edited today's video. And after shooting this podcast, I’m going to put that video. This is as simple as that. it takes like 45 minutes to an hour and that's it. [Inaudible] correctly, man, 80% of the results from 20% of the work.
Jayneil: Yes, the primary principle.
Punit: And the problem is people don't take action on it. People believe in it but people don't take action on it. They're still doing 80% of the work and getting 20% of the results. I tell people “If you're not free most of the day or if you're not doing stuff for yourself, just chilling out, watching a movie, maybe grabbing some snacks from the marketplace, going out, probably not right now but in general, you're not doing work then.” I mean I watched this video from Tanmay Bhatt. He's one of the biggest comics in India. And during quarantine, he got two million subs. He started his new channel and got two million subs. And he was talking to Bhuvan Bam, BB Ki Vines, who is another big super large channel on YouTube in India and he was like “I’m free most of the time.” He's like “I take a month off sometimes from work. I just make music. I just do whatever I like interesting.” And from one video he earns at least 10 lakh rupees, at least. Just add money. He has like a real big fancy luxury apartment and a Mercedes, I don't know, GL, ML, whatever, that is, the big SUV and he's living his life, man. And he does 20% of the work. Why can't we?
Jayneil: That’s steep as hell, man, but I think it's also figuring out what is that 20% of the work that's going to really give you the meaningful rewards.
Punit: Exactly. A lot of people think “Oh, we'll do 20% of work on Tik-Tok and we'll become rich.” I mean, I’m sure people Dixie Demelia who make millions creating like 10-15 Tik-Toks a day where she's just dancing, copying, something whatever.
Jayneil: Me and you cannot do that.
Punit: I can't dance to save my life, man.
Jayneil: Me too. Oh my God!
Punit: So, I think, for everybody, it's different. It's very hard to find that one niche where you can put in 20% of the work.
Jayneil: And I think, for that, you have to get out of the 9 to 5 job at least even for six months to figure it out. You can go back in.
Punit: Yeah but the problem is people just want to get everything now. They're like “Oh, we need to get a job now. We just graduated from college. We need to get a job.” And I’m like “Okay, I’m sure there are people who need to get a job like really need a job and then maybe they need to support a family. I can totally respect that but even then, you need to take a risk.”
Jayneil: I think, for people, it looks good on a biodata like “Oh, works at Apple.”
Punit: LinkedIn, LinkedIn clout.
Jayneil: Oh my God! Dude, I got a funny story. My parents are very traditional. So, they're like “You got to make a biodata.” I’m like “I am not making that shit. I’ll just meet someone and that's it.” So, they forced me to make a biodata. I’m like “You know what, I’m a designer. I’m going to make the most fancy ass design type biodata ever.” And, dude, holy shit! I was really proud of what I created, man. It was like the most like designesque biodata ever created. It was just so funny. What I want to know is you've got the YouTube stuff figured out. You're going on the path. Then how did you figure out to start the design school? Did you talk to somebody like “Hey, how did you do your school? I want to do mine.” What was your journey starting Design Wings?
Punit: So, I realized there are so many design schools charging hell of a lot of money. And I’ve set it on their faces. 60,000, 70,000 rupees for the course.
Jayneil: And how long is the course?
Punit: Four-month course, 70,000 bucks. With taxes, that's like 80,000 something. If it's 70,000, it's 80,000. If 60,000, it's 70,000 with taxes.
Jayneil: Dude, 80,000 rupees is a lot of money.
Punit: Yeah, dude. It's like there are people who do the entire university in less money than that.
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: Government colleges, government universities in India are really cheap. They're like 5000 rupees a year or 7000 or something. They're like cheap. You're from India, man. You know that shit.
Jayneil: I was on an NRI seat. My parents made a lot of money.
Punit: So, if you come to Delhi University, some of the highest ranked colleges in Delhi University, they're like 5,000 to 10,000 rupees a semester, which is nothing, maybe even less. So, I realized there is a need for quality affordable education which also makes you industry ready. There are so many institutes who are ripping people off. See, the thing is not everybody is going to get the same results. I can't put everybody into Google. So, it's justifiable if there are some students who don't have a good experience but the thing is if you're charging so much money, how are you justifying it? Because a lot of these courses are weekend courses. So, they're like eight classes a month. Where's the justification is my question. And that question was like “If something irritates me, I need to solve it. And if I can turn it into a business, if I can turn it into something that will give value and make money at the same time, then why not?” So, I started Design Wings to solve this issue of overpriced design institutes. I saw how they worked. And the thing is I’m one of the highest paying organizations in design schools right now while being the most affordable. So, the thing is I’m keeping very little money for myself.
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: I mean the money that I’m keeping is quite a bit but the best part is I don't have a partner, I don't have investors, I don't have anybody to answer to. So, literally, all the money is in my control. If I want, I can go out and buy a car in cash right now and nobody will even question me. So, the thing is when you have control over everything, you aren't dependent on investors, on partners, on backers or whatever it might be, you can do whatever the fuck you want to. And I’m using the same principles I used with my consultancy as I’m using here. I hire people to do work for me. I don't teach any of these courses. I am qualified but the thing is I won't be able to teach those courses because I know …
Jayneil: So, you're not designing the syllabus.
Punit: I do. I am a big part of designing the syllabus but I give a lot of freedom to the mentors while keeping a check on whether we're covering everything that needs to be covered.
Jayneil: And then, now, the students probably want to chat with the mentors. And then you have the admissions committee that if there's any issue, do they chat with you or they just resolve with the mentors?
Punit: Everything's open. I have my Instagram open. I have my LinkedIn open. I have my emails open. On the website, there's a ‘Contact Us’ button. Each and every email I answer.
Jayneil: Wow!
Punit: I used to have a guy who was doing a little bit of marketing initially but now it's all me. The best part about having a passion project, I call it a passion project because, for me, it is, is you can do all the work while doing very little work. Again, 20% of work, 80% of the results. I have a demo class this weekend on Saturday and that demo class, 400 people are going to be there live on YouTube a minimum. I did a live where till the end we were just blabbering bullshit and the live was a big fail because my OBS stopped working, I had to do like some jugaad as they're called and everybody was pissed but they knew there was value to it. So, they would stick. The same amount of people who were there in the beginning were there at the end. Retention value was so freaking high. And I can guarantee this design school will be the next big thing because that is how much I believe in it.
Jayneil: It's going to be hard to keep all the students happy. Somebody's like “Oh, I didn't get my value. I want my money back and stuff.” I don't know, man, when I was in India, people were always haggling, dude, like “I want my money back” and this and that and it's fucking hard to keep people happy, especially Indian customers.
Punit: Initially, I got emails. Now, I don't get as much as I used to. Initially, I got emails from students were like “If you give it to me for 5000 less, I will buy it today.”
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Punit: And I was like “Don't worry. The course is here forever.” I’m like “If you're buying an iPhone, will you contact Tim Cook and be like “Hey, can I get this iPhone for 10,000 less? I’ll buy it right now? Will you send him a snapchat saying “Oh, I’m here at the Apple store. It's in my hand. The cash is here but if you give it to me for 10,000 rupees, I will buy it right now.”
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Punit: There are some people who don't understand the concept of fixed pricing like this is not a saree shop, this is not a sweet shop where you can say “I’ll give you 50 cents rather than a dollar. Can you give it to me for 50 cents?” That doesn't happen, unfortunately. And the thing is I cannot do that. I mean, that's a rule. That's a fixed price that I’ve kept on the website. It doesn't change. And I’ll have to be answerable to the people who are working with me and I’ll be answerable to the people in the future. He might go and tell 10 other people and they'll be like “Hey, we want it for 5000 rupees less too.” I’d be like no.
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: So, it does happen a lot and I’m sure there'll be people who'll be dissatisfied. Till date we haven't had one.
Jayneil: It's amazing.
Punit: We're so genuine, man. I don't want to toot my own horn but I just believe we're so genuine, man, as compared to the people I’ve seen. That's the whole reason I opened this school was because I wanted to be genuine. I want to tell people in their face “Hey, this is something which you shouldn't do” or “This is something you should do and we're here to support you.” I want to be for these students what my teachers in school were like “If you want to sit in the lab for the whole day, don't worry. We got your back.”
Jayneil: So rare teachers.
Punit: Yeah, man. And all the mentors I have right now, I’ve told them “If you don't have this mindset, get off the team.” And they all came with this mindset and that's the best part. I didn't even have to like search for specific people. I hired five people and I was like “For five batches, these will be good” and I was like “All these are genuine people.”
Jayneil: Damn!
Punit: They send me an invoice and they never ask me for the money. Even if I’m late, they never ask me if why I’m late because they're like “We're not in this just for the money.” That is what I want for the school. I want people to understand this and put it inside their heads is it's not just about the money. Money is freedom. It's not value. It’s like even if I was using a mic which was half the price, I could still give you the same value today. So, that is what people need to start learning, I guess.
Jayneil: Well, that is dope, man. I love that mindset. What are some of the future things you're planning on the Design Wings’ roadmap moving forward?
Punit: I don't want to leak anything but Design Wings Junior might be coming soon. So, there's a big shift in a lot of people who aren't from India, I’m sure you've heard about it, is our education system just changed, it changed overnight. And now schools have to focus more on a tertiary kind of subject. It could be coding, designing, development, machine learning, whatever that is. Schools are going to introduce that. They're going to have to have a course like that. We're going to be the first. That's all I’m going to say.
Jayneil: I love that, man. What advice do you have to any designer that wants to get out of the fucking 9 to 5 job and do something and follow your path?
Punit: I’m going to write a book on this. Fuck 9 to 5 is my first book ever.
Jayneil: It's actually a very good book.
Punit: Yeah, exactly. Everybody's going to relate to it. You know what, if I write this book which I will, I’m going to turn this podcast into a chapter. Watch me do it.
Jayneil: No, that'll be dope, man.
Punit: Give me three more months. I’m going to write this book and I’m going to publish this.
Jayneil: That’ll be dope, man, even if you can start out as a Medium article.
Punit: It's going to be published, man. It's going to be published.
Jayneil: That is dope.
Punit: When it comes to advice, man, number one, the key that I use to reach where I am and where I’m going is definitely, first of all, learn how to say “Fuck it. I’m going to do it.” There's this book, I think, everybody should read it. Except my upcoming book, they should also read this book. It is “Screw it. Let's do it” by Richard Branson. Who else to learn from how to become a billionaire rather than a billionaire? He's a billionaire. He can tell you how he did it. And he does in that book. So, I think everybody should start reading that. That book changed my life and that book can change anybody's life is if you want to get something, don't look at what is in the path. I did a live yesterday on my Instagram where I told people “You need to keep on changing your path.” Look at companies who had a solid straight path. Look at what happened to them after the pandemic started. They're fucked because they couldn't adapt. As individuals, we need to keep on adapting. I’ve never had one single path. I shifted from making websites to UX, from freelancing to full-time to a design school. So, people need to realize your goals are fixed, your why, the question “Why am I doing this?” is fixed but why is your goddamned pathed so fixed?
Jayneil: Damn! Dude, that is deep as hell.
Punit: I mean, designers will resonate with this most is yeah why do you need to have a sticky navigation? Why do you want to have a fixed navigation? Why can't you use JavaScript or whatever to get that navigation to pop in whenever you're scrolling back up?
Jayneil: Yes.
Punit: That's exactly the same thing I’m talking about in real life is your path should keep on changing. Everything else needs to be fixed. Tomorrow I can't go like “Oh, I don't want to help students. I want to become a billionaire.” Everything gets fucked. Give me one day, I’ll fuck my entire life. If I say “Okay, let's look at the goal. Oh, I don't want to teach people. I want to become a big business. Okay, I want to grow my business.” Everything gets fucked. Every single spiritual book you read, they'll all teach you the same thing is focus on where you are headed and that focus, you need to adjust. That's number one key, man. If you take that key, it will open every single goddamned door in the world, for sure.
Jayneil: Wow! It will, absolutely. I have no doubt about it, man. And then where can people find you? How do people contact you?
Punit: They can find me wherever they want to. Just search for Punit Chawla Facebook, Punit Chawla Medium, Punit Chawla YouTube, on Google. I don't even want to give my handles anymore because it's so confusing now, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. Just search for on Google “Punit Chawla UI design.” That's I think probably the keyword you need to write and that's it.
Jayneil: Punit, dude, this was a fucking blast, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show, man.
Punit: Thank you for inviting me, dude. This is the best name for a podcast is Design MBA. Every bloody engineer will relate to this and every designer will relate to this. So, that's a fucking blast, man. Thank you for having me here, man. You're doing a great job. I wish you best of luck and I just hope this becomes the biggest podcast in the world.
Jayneil: Thank you, man. That would be truly a dream come true for me.
Punit: I want it to be, man. I want it to be number one.
Jayneil: No, that's dope, man. I’m just going to keep hustling, like you said, and then we'll see where that goes.
Punit: I’m going to get you a thousand downloads on this very podcast. I swear to God.
Jayneil: Oh my God, dude! Oh my God! Oh my God, man! I don’t even know how to reply to that.
Punit: Let's do that, man. Let's achieve that.
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