My guest today is Sung Kim, who is a lead designer at Amazon and also freelances on the side. In this episode, we discuss Sung's journey of breaking into the design field from a community college, what to do when a company rescinds a job offer, putting in 80 hr work weeks early in your career, quitting full time job, benefits of being a contractor, $300,000 startup failure, doing freelance work on top of full time job, charging clients hourly, firing your own clients and much more! For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show Level Up Your Design Career (Free Email Course): https://levelup.designmba.show/
Sung was ranked 51st on the list of "The 75 Best Designers In Technology" by Business Insider in 2013 and has received a number of recognitions from Innovation by Design Awards by Fast Company in 2016, WEBBY in 2017, and German Design Awards in 2018. Previously Sung has led UX/UI design efforts for Samsung MILK VR, Sam's Club mobile shopping app, 7-Eleven.com, FedEx Office workstations, Starbucks promo campaigns, (PRODUCT)RED website redesign, and Bud Light’s first mobile site. In 2013, Sung quit his full time job to pursue a passion project and started a company with $8K in his bank account. To fund the project, he moved into his parents' house, sold his car for $5K, raised $10K from a Kickstarter campaign, and worked 120 hours a week on a number of contract jobs. But after 3 years and $300K+ of development efforts, the project ended up failing. Sung is now a Lead Product Designers at Amazon and recently launched a new tire installation service that became #3 top selling service on Amazon in 3 weeks.
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Jayneil Dalal: Today's amazing guest is Sung Kim. Sung is a lead product designer at Amazon and recently launched a new tire installation service that has become the top three selling service on Amazon in three weeks. Sung was ranked 51st on the list of the 75 best designers in technology by Business Insider in 2013 and has received a number of recognitions from Innovation by Design Awards by Fast Company in 2016, Webby in 2017 and German Design Awards in 2018. Previously, Sung led UX/UI design efforts for Samsung milk VR, Sam's Club mobile shopping app 7-Eleven.com, FedEx office workstations, Starbucks promo campaigns, Product Red website design and Bud Light's first mobile website.
What's going on, Sung? Great to be talking with you. How's life in Seattle?
Sung Kim: Well, still it's gloomy but we have a rainy season. So, just trying to enjoy the last bit of sun that's peeping through the clouds but it's okay.
Jayneil: There you go. Yeah, I’ve kind of been to Seattle a couple of times and one of the things I did notice is about that because the majority of time when I visited there, it was always raining. So, I did notice that gloomy weather that you mentioned about. It just kind of affects your mood in a way.
Sung:Oh, yeah. The companies actually encourage you to get out for long weekends.
Jayneil: No way. So, the companies actually encourage the employees to get out of Seattle.
Yeah, at least my team encourages that we get out and get some sun or you have to take some vitamin D pills.
Jayneil: Oh my God! Where do I begin, man? One of the questions I always had is how on earth did you get into the world of design. Was it something that you already had envisioned that you were going to go into design or it was just something you stumbled upon by chance? How did that journey start?
Sung:How far back do you want to go?
Jayneil: Let's take it as far back as we can.
Sung:Okay. So, when I was in high school, my counselor asked me “Hey, Sung, you're about to graduate. What do you want to do when you graduate? What are you going to major in in college?” and I said “Well, I’m going to design. I’m going to be a designer.” And my counselor was like “What kind of designer? Graphic design? Interior design? Architect? Have you thought about what kind of designer you want to be?” And my answer was like “Designer.” So, basically, that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge in terms of design. I didn't really know anything about design or what it takes to be a designer or any kind of designer. And then next thing I know, I went to a community college and I was working for a computer lab. I was just a lab monitor, just watching people, helping them with the setup and things like that, check-ins. And they had a bunch of tutorial books. So, this was when Adobe was just taking off. There were like Adobe Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, Director and things like that that, some of those software pieces that don't exist anymore, but there were tutorial books everywhere. So, I sort of started reading them, taking some classes but I wasn't really thinking about going into graphic design at the moment. And then next thing I know I joined a newspaper company at the community college as a cartoonist. So, I was an illustrator for the newspaper company and I was just drawing cartoons once a week and that was my thing. And then one day, the newspaper designer sort of got up and left. Basically, what happened was that the newspaper company updated the software from using a QuarkXPress Pro which was the standard design program at the time for newspaper to InDesign 1.0. And the designer was like “Fuck it! I’m not going to learn a new software. I’m going to go” and left. And then the newspaper had a dilemma. They either had to decide to not release a newspaper or find somebody to fill the hole but they didn't have anyone to fill the hole. So, I just raised my hand specially and I was like “Can I give it a try?” Basically, I had one night to put the newspapers together, basically. So, at that night, I opened the InDesign 1.0 tutorial book and I put newspaper together in one night. That was my first step into the world of design. And then next thing I know, I transferred to SMU and majored in Advertising. The only reason why I went to SMU was because they offered full-time scholarship. I failed the interview. So, I didn't get the full scholarship but I got half scholarship because of my GPA and the essay. So, when I got there, I realized that they didn't have a graphic design program. So, I was like “Well, if I had a graphic design degree, what would I do with it? I’d probably use it in advertising.” So, I decided to major in Advertising. That's where I learned the process of concepting. Before then, it was all about just making things pretty. I didn't think about putting meanings, intentions and purpose behind my design decisions. It was all about just making things pretty. And I didn't know anything about putting concepts together or pitch the concepts to other people. Majoring in Advertising helped me sort of understand what concepts are and how to pitch them to other people. And then next thing I know, before I graduated, I had an internship in New York for three months and I did a pretty good job there and they told me that I had a job guarantee when I graduated. So, I just took that as promise and I believed them and I sort of fucked up the last semester of my college because I was like “I already have a job lined up. Why do I have to go to school?”
Jayneil: You were all set.
Sung: “I’m going to work for BBDO New York. That's one of the biggest ad agencies in the world. my life is just starting.” Anyways, I was so excited. And then when I graduated and called them, they're like “Oh, you know what? We don't really have anything available for you.”
Jayneil: Oh my God. Did they convey to you when you were interning there that you were going to get a job or did you just assume that it was like a thing back then.
Sung:The recruiter was like “Oh yeah, everybody loves you. You're welcome come back any time.” That's how I should put it.
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Sung:I mean, there was no promise promise but then I was naïve, I just took that as a promise and I believed them. So, after I realized I didn’t have a job, I hustled at the last minute to interview in a bunch of places in Dallas and I found this one place called the Engine Studio in Dallas. It was a production company. They don't really do design work. What they do is they take the design work from other agencies and they resize them into a bunch of different sizes and print them. That's their core competency. So, my first job was literally not designing. My job was to take somebody else's design and resize them into 100 different sizes. Basically, my first job is making something called bathroom clings, one of those ads that go on above the urinal in the bathroom.
Jayneil: Oh my God! Did you resize that?
Sung:That was my very first job. And I was miserable. Basically, I was not allowed to design. I’m just resizing somebody else's design. It's going to be in the bathroom above the urinals. And I was just like “Fuck.”
Jayneil: You can't even brag about it like next time you're talking to your friends like “Hey, by the way, if you go to the urinal, that sign that you see there, that's what I designed.” That’s certainly not a conversation starter.
Sung:Yeah. So, I was miserable. I remember one day I was walking from the parking garage to the office and there was a tunnel between the parking garage and the office and I literally just sat on the floor because I just physically could not take another step towards the office. I was that miserable.
Jayneil: It was like a burnout.
Sung:Yeah. So, I interviewed at another company in the same building called Tribal DDP. It was a digital agency. I interviewed there. They were looking for a senior art director. I was not even a junior, I was barely entry-level but then they liked my portfolio, they liked the interview. So, they said “Oh, just stay in touch and see what happens.” And then a week goes by. Nothing. So, I started calling them every day “Hey! So, have you found anyone. Hey! Have you guys decided? Hey! Just letting you know I’m still available. Hey! By the way …”
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Sung:Every day. And then, basically, they didn't find any senior art directors. So, they decided to give me a chance by giving me three-month temp position. And then at the same time, this production company I was working for offered me a full-time position at glorious 24,000 dollars a year. It's like barely minimum wage but that was the most money I’ve ever been offered to that day 24,000. Think about it. The guy who just came out of college, who had no job prospects, gets offered a full-time position for 24,000 dollars which is the biggest amount of money he's ever seen in his life, for full time with benefits or take the three-month temp position that has no guarantee, that has no contract.
Jayneil: And you're on a trial.
Sung:Yeah, if they don't like you, they can let you go the next day but there's no guarantee, there's no benefit or anything.
Jayneil: But then it's the higher title though.
Sung:There's no title. Literally, I’m just like a grunt. So, I decided to take the three-month temp job because that's how much I just hated the other job. So, they put all the freelancers in the same room. There were like six freelancers in this tiny storage room and actually, another friend of mine was sitting next to me from the school, he was also freelancing for the same company. And he was always complaining about “Oh, my boss doesn't listen to me. I don't like their feedback.” He was always complaining and left the work early but then I just kept my mouth shut I just did whatever they told me to do. I went to office at 6:00 a.m. and left it like at 10:00 p.m. every day.
Jayneil: And how long was this? How long did you just continue that 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.?
Sung:Three months while I was working there. Basically, I was doing things like my boss was making flash games for Cheetos and I’d seen the digital assets like the little logos or background illustrations and things like that. So, I did the illustrations and then digitized it, put it in Flash, made logos and things like that. I had a really great mentor too. I learned a lot from him. I actually made a separate video on LinkedIn about him thanking him. So, after three months, I got the job and then I was offered 32,000 dollars a year salary, which was 8,000 dollars higher than the offer that I got. I actually hear this pattern as I told my story but I didn't realize this at the time but whenever I chose opportunity over money, that always worked out for me but whenever I chose money over opportunity, it always became a dead end, they were always the biggest failures in my life whenever I chose money.
Jayneil: Do you have an example where you chose money over opportunity and then it came back to bite you back in the ass?
Sung:Yeah, I’ll get there. It's coming up pretty soon. So, basically, in this case, I chose the opportunity without knowing this is a better thing to do and it worked out. And then I worked there for three years and then my pay went up to 45,000 dollars. And I had opportunities to work on amazing projects. I was a lead designer for joinred.com. Before I designed their website, they really had nothing. It was a one-page website but the one that I designed was the first office website for joinred.com. It’s the charity that's sponsored by Bono. I became the like the lead designer for joinred.com’s website redesign. That became the second official website. Joinred.com is a charity organization sponsored by Bono which fights against AIDS in Africa. You might have seen the red version of the Apple iPods or iPhones.
Jayneil: Yeah, it's brilliant.
Sung:That's what they do. And then I got to do things like design Bud Light’s very first mobile site ever. And then I got to work on Starbucks, the flash website, Cheetos games. I got to work on a whole bunch of different projects and really built on my portfolio. Another thing that I did for the agency was I helped them win the Nokia account by designing this widget that they pitched. And what happened was, after we won the Bud Light account, even though I was on the pitch team and one of the things I designed actually helped them win the account, because I was a junior designer, they didn't want me to work on their biggest pieces. At the time, Flash was a big deal. So, everybody wanted to design a Flash website but then nobody wanted to work on a mobile site because at the time, that was when iPhone 2 was around but there's really no concept of mobile sites. So, I was like “I’ll take it.” And then somehow that became Bud Light’s very first mobile site and later that became one piece that got me the next job that led to bigger opportunities.
Jayneil:I just want to take a small pause here. There are just some amazing questions I have in mind from your amazing journey so far. So, if it's okay with you, I had a few things I was just wondering about. You mentioned, as you started off on this journey, that you were a cartoonist. So, when you were a small child, were you always sketching comic book heroes or something like that or were you just doodling around? So, how did you figure out that you're going to be a designer?
Sung:I was doodling. I mean, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Actually, back in Korea in middle school, I was not going to make it to high school because I didn't have the money. High school is not free in Korea, by the way.
Jayneil:I did not know that.
Sung:So, I could not afford high school and I didn't have the grades to make it to high school. So, I decided to just become a cartoonist and I called one of my favorite cartoonists to asked him if he needed an apprentice and I ended up getting turned down but that was going to be my path if I stayed in Korea. When I came to the States, I sort of had a second chance of life. so, I got better grades. I ended up going to college which I never intended. And in college, the major I had was Advertising. And then when I graduated, Advertising led to working for advertising agencies. And at the time, advertising agencies were trying to pitch digital products to the clients, building websites and building banner ads and things like that. And that became my way in to becoming a designer.
Jayneil:And what is your favorite comics? The reason I ask you this is I was recently in Japan and actually, I’m a huge fan of some of the manga there like Dragon Ball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh, and I got one of the Dragon Ball Z illustrated comics. In the US we read from left to right. This one actually, the whole book, you have to open from the end and you read it from right to left and it was illustrated by the original creator of Dragon Ball Z and it was mind blowing the way they were able to convey the same thing I used to watch in the TV shows growing up.
Sung:My favorite would be just classic stuff like Naruto. Everybody likes it. One of my favorite characters, it's not exactly the good character, I’d say. Have you heard of a series called Death Note?
Jayneil:Sung, you would not believe it, when you said that this may not be a good character, right then and there in my head it was like “Is he going to say Death Note?” because I haven't read the comics but I’ve actually watched the show and I’ve loved it. I know it's a little bit dark but it's really amazing, the storyline and everything.
Sung:Did you see the Netflix American version or the actual Japanese version?
Jayneil:I saw the actual Japanese version with subtitles.
Sung:Yeah. So, my favorite character is Light Yagami. I have my evil side.
Jayneil:Oh my God! So, you grew up watching all these things which kind of now makes sense why you're drawn to being a cartoonist. And even now, do you still sketch cartoons or read comic books?
Sung:Yeah. So, whenever I have downtime, I go to Barnes & Noble and read comic books but sketching not so much. To be honest, I was never really that good of a cartoonist. I was just getting by. So, if anyone asked me to draw anything, I’d probably draw squiggly skeleton stick figures.
Jayneil:And I love the fact that you go to Barnes & Noble to hang out and read comics because I do the similar thing here in Dallas and what I end up doing is just reading architecture books and just looking at the photos. So, what comic books are you attracted to these days or which one do you find yourself opening when you go to Barnes & Noble?
Sung:Going back when I was in college, I couldn't afford to buy books. So, I spent all summer staying in Barnes & Noble reading tutorial books, textbooks, technical magazines and things like that. That's how I picked up all the skill sets that got me jobs in the beginning. And then to reward myself, in between reading technical books, I sort of picked up comic books here and there but then I ended up spending hours reading comic books instead of studying. I think nowadays I’m reading something. I’ll put the name of it. It's really gory. I’m not really proud of reading it but it's entertaining. There is a series called Hunter x Hunter. It actually was actually created by the creators of Sailor Moon but it's a completely different style, different storyline. It was done by the author and his wife and there's a partnership but they have tendency to start something and not end it. And they did that with Hunter x Hunter. They actually stopped working on it almost five years ago but they restarted it. So, I’ve been trying to pick that back up.
Jayneil:Awesome. So, in this journey that you're going, you're still working at that agency and doing work for them. When did you decide that “Okay, I think I’ve done enough work in my portfolio for the agency but now I’m going to branch out on my own and be my own boss and just freelance on my own,” when did that happen?
Sung:That came later. So, earlier when I was talking about my first agency I was working for, I went through maybe two more agencies before I broke away and started doing contract work and freelance work. So, what happened was that back in 2013, I was at an agency called Rockfish Interactive. My job was to redesign Sam's Club's shopping entire shopping app. And it was an eight-people team stuck in a conference room redesigned the entire shopping app for Sam’s Club. And one of our tasks was to basically squeeze in as many products as possible on the home screen because in Sam’s Club, there are tons of different products and categories but then when I was working with the UX designer, at the time I was just a UI designer, so I was working with a UX designer and he put together wireframes, different versions of it. And every single wireframe was particularly put together not just for this project but for every other project, especially the home screen. It was basically just different variations of carousel like slideshows and the carousels sliding left and right, up and down, diagonally, different ways to squeeze in more products into a limited real estate or a touch screen. As I was looking at it, I’m like really “Is this all we can do? Is this the best we could do as human race?” It's literally just every wireframe was the same for every project. so, I was like “This cannot possibly be my life. This cannot possibly be the best we could do as the human race.” So, I wanted to explore other ways, better ways of doing it, better ways to organize a large quantity of content in a limited amount of space. So, I started doing some research, doing some mock-ups and then after three months or three weeks, it took me some time, basically after work that's all I did, exploring different options and then I came up with a concept called Organic Information Structure. And at first, I tried to explain it to my teammates in the room who was working on the Sam’s Club “Hey, guys, I came up with this amazing idea. Let's do this” but then I didn't quite articulate it well enough to make them understand what I was saying. So, I was frustrated. So, I decided to play entire presentations together. So, I showed it to my creative director and he said “It's great” and then he helped me sort of organize it better and a better way to pitch it. And then I submitted that presentation to South by Southwest, AIGA, and TEDx at SMU. So, I got to speak at all these events. And next thing I know, I was like “You know what, people kept pushing back and said this is not possible, this is not feasible, this is not realistic. I don't get it.” People kept saying that.
Jayneil:Was it the Sam’s Club executives that were pushing back or was it the Rockfish people?
Sung:It didn't even go to the Sam's Club executives. Basically, nobody wanted to work on that concept at all at Rockfish. I just mentioned it a couple of times and it just went over people's head. So, after me explaining it, they were like “So, next topic.” So, basically, I was getting pushback and at the same time some support from people that I met at the presentations at South by Southwest and AIGA and TEDx. So, I was like “You know what, maybe I can pursue this on my own. I don't know what the next steps are but I want to pursue this full time.” So, basically what happened was because I was speaking all these events, I met a guy from Samsung who offered me a contractor position at a lot higher hourly rate. So, I decided to take that hourly job over a full-time job at Rockfish with benefits so I could have more freedom to work on this project. So, that's how I quit my full-time job and became a contractor to pursue my passion project. So, that's how I started my first company Gestures Inc.
Jayneil:Wow! And then when you were doing the hourly thing, it seems that what you mentioned is the hourly rate was higher than what if you had to convert the full time with benefits into an hourly rate at Rockfish. So, that’s because hourly rate was high, you could just go out and buy your own benefits if you needed to.
Sung:Yeah. Basically, if you want to get the total, I was making probably 110,000 dollars a year at Samsung and 85,000 dollars a year at Rockfish.
Jayneil:Yeah. And you're a healthy guy. So, it's not like you're going to max out your benefits or something like that because a lot of designers that I see, a lot of them don't want to convert full-time at big companies. They just want to stay on as an hourly contractor because they explain to me that “Hey, I just make way more money per hour than if I were to convert into the full time, I would have to take a pay cut.”
Sung:Yeah. So, basically, as I was doing that, I didn't know anything about starting a company. So, I started going to these events, I tried to recruit some of the developers from Rockfish to work on this project that I had but nobody wanted to work on it because they didn't trust me because I was nobody. I didn't have the money to pay them. So, I started going to start-up events and I was expecting to find engineering partners and designer partners and things like that but all I could find was business developers, basically people with business insights and ideas but actually no technical capabilities at all. And one of the people that I met, he introduced himself as an angel investor but then later he wanted to 50-50% partner at Gestures Inc. but then he was supposed to be the business head and I was supposed to be the creative ahead but what happened was that he didn't do anything. He made all these promises but then he didn't really know anything about building a company. For example, he asked for preferred stock instead of common stock. If you know anything about the stock, the founders are supposed to get common stock and investors get preferred stock because in most cases, investors have smallest shares in the company. So, to make sure they have some sort of power over the founder, they get preferential treatments. That's why they have preferred stock with the preferential treatments but then he didn't know the difference between preferred stock and common stock. And then he asked me to incorporate the company using Legalzoom which cannot do any custom work on the paperwork. Long story short, the paperwork got fucked up by Legalzoom. We never really sign anything officially and he ended up leaving the company just because I kept pushing more work towards him.
Jayneil:So, that was a blessing in disguise for you to go with Legalzoom.
Sung:And also, another blessing is that he made me do all the business work from writing press releases to running a Kickstarter campaign to finding a dev team in Ukraine to basically anything business writing or finding a patent attorney, writing a patent. He made me do everything. Things I never thought I would do or could do as a designer, I did it because I thought if I didn't do it, the company was going to go under. So, I sort of stepped up and did it. And if he didn't make me do it, to this day, I probably would not have done it. And now I know how to do all these things and probably I should thank him for that.
Jayneil:Wow! Do you still freelance on the side?
Sung:I really do.
Jayneil:I see. So, you work full-time at Amazon right now in house and then you also freelance on the side whatever time you get.
Sung:Yeah. So, I think one of the questions you had was what's the difference between working for agency, in house or freelancing. And it's basically the reason why I do freelance while still working at Amazon is that reason, to experience the difference between the three different jobs. When you work for big companies like Amazon, even though Amazon move a lot faster than other big corporations but it's still big corporation, there's a lot of stakeholders, things do move a lot slower than startups. So, when you design something, you usually end up designing small component on a page. It's not even a full product. It's a little feature, a little widget on a page on Amazon or things move so slowly that it takes years for it to be funded. So, when I’m not doing anything but just Amazon work, I feel like a little cog in the machine and I feel like I’m just progressing and I feel like I’m not learning anything new. I’m just learning about politics, how to navigate the politics and all these necessities in a big company but it's not really technical skills that make me a better designer. So, the only way for me to stay sharp and be able to learn best of the best tactics and skills is for me to keep taking the freelance work and see what's out there, learn the best practices, work with people who move fast and be able to wear multiple hats and not just being a designer but multiple hats as a product manager, QA, business strategist, and UX and UI designer. Being able to dabble between different responsibilities allows you to have better understanding of the entire spectrum of the process and be able to work with the clients and communicate to your clients more fluently about what they can expect and what you can deliver because you have more control, understanding of the entire scope of the project you're pitching to the client.
Jayneil:So, you have basically a hybrid freelance model where you've got the stable Amazon gig which helps keep the light on and then you also have the freelancing on the side where you can be more selective and stuff because that's not where all the money is coming from. You can be selective of which projects you want to work on and it kind of balances out versus going completely freelance.
Sung:Yeah. What I’ve done so far is that I always have one job that's like a long-term gig whether it's a lower rate, maybe they have more restrictions but I always have a long-term gig with one company that's guaranteed for a certain period of time and pick up other smaller clients that are higher risk potentially, more money, sometimes no money at all but I believe in the company, so I invest my time and energy into that company hoping that they'll grow bigger and then they'll hire me for future jobs and that has happened before.
Jayneil:So, did you actually come across this model by trial and error where you were just freelancing all the time, short-term gigs and then you realized like “Okay, from the monetary perspective, I need to have a long-term gig and then some short-term gigs on the side” or was it something you just stumbled upon the first time you were trying out?
Sung:It's something that I just learned from Charles Myers. I was stubborn. When I got the contract job at Samsung, basically the very first personal project that I started working on at Gestures Inc., the first project cost me 100,000 dollars the first year out of pocket. So, imagine the most money I’ve made at the time up to that time was 85,000 thousand dollars a year but then that project ended up costing 100,000 dollars. There's no way I could have afforded it unless I had a job at Samsung and a bunch of contract jobs. If I just stayed at Rockfish which was a pretty demanding job, I mean, I worked late hours with no overtime, so if I had a job, I would not be able to do other side jobs to pay for the Gestures Inc. project.
Jayneil:I see. Is Gesture Inc. the banner under which you take freelance work now? How is the monetization happening for that, if you don't mind me asking?
Sung:So, every project that I take on except for a few exceptions is under Gestures Inc. Basically, when you incorporate a company, you could incorporate a C-corp, S-corp, or an LLC. Basically, those are the three popular options. So, what I did was I incorporated the company as an LLC because I had a patent which I intended to get investments on. So, I incorporated a company in Delaware because Delaware has existing business cases that allow people to avoid losses that go to the courts and things like that so they can settle things outside the court, which is cheaper. Anyways, if you're thinking about building a company that's going to take investments, people always recommend Delaware C-corp but if you are going to be freelancing as an individual designer, LLC is much easier way to file taxes.
Jayneil:So, all this overhead that goes into it, let's say you're getting all these freelance projects under the Gestures Inc. banner, somebody's got to do the invoicing, somebody's got to do the billing, you got to keep track of all the project updates. It's almost like you have to, like you said, be a designer and at the same time be a project manager. So, do you outsource that or do you also do all of that yourself?
Sung:Well, I still do all of them myself. So, when I created the company, I made a bank account for Gestures Inc. and it's hooked up to QuickBooks. And every expense I make on a credit card or from the bank account, it's recorded in QuickBooks. And at the end of the year, I have to categorize every single thing I spend money on whether it's considered travel expenses, is it considered entertainment expenses, basically, there are tons of different categories where you can categorize your expenses into and that's what I have to do. I take a week or two off just to categorize all my expenses.
Jayneil:Oh my gosh!
Sung:Yeah. I just feel like you just can't hire accountant to categorize them for you because there's no way they know what I spend money on. Only I know where I spent that last 20 bucks on, at Starbucks. Is it for a meeting or is it for a product research? So, I still do my own accounting. Obviously, if the company got bigger, sure, I’ll hire somebody else but for now, it's just easier that way.
Jayneil:And then the new clients that you get on board, do they know that you're working full-time at Amazon or how do you manage if they say “We want you to come in on site on Thursday” but then you've got some kind of stakeholder meeting going on at amazon on Thursday? How do you manage those conflicts?
Sung:So, most people are aware that I have a full-time job. So, they do not expect me to fly in for meetings but then whenever that happens, I sort of take vacation days and do that.
Jayneil:That's like a pretty neat idea. One of the things I’ve struggled with, Sung, this year is, just like you, I’ve been going to conferences and stuff and I got two opportunities where I got to submit bids or proposals to kind of take on that work. So, one of them was actually creating a chatbot for a major news corporation and I had to go in and just submit my bid and it was literally because one of the designers sat in on my presentation. So, I created a chatbot for the conference and she liked my chatbot and she's like “You know what, we're working on something similar. Would you mind doing this for us?” and I said “Sure, why not.” So, when I was creating this bid, one of the things was the chatbot area or the IR is so new, I couldn't even just look up numbers somewhere online or something. So, I was struggling with it. So, my question for you is when it's something like a new gig or like a new domain expertise like that, how do you figure out not to over bid or under bid? How do you figure out like “Okay, this is the perfect value proposition that makes sense for me” but then also to the company it signifies that it’s okay because if you quote a number that's too cheap, then they're like “Okay, he's not a professional” or “she's not a professional” but then if you over bid so much, then you don't get the project? So, how do you solve that problem for yourself?
Sung:So, was the company a big company or was it a startup?
Jayneil:It was basically Forbes.
Sung:Okay, that's a difficult question. Let me think about that.
Jayneil:So, do you charge hourly per project? So, let's say a new project comes in your door whether through a referral or you've actively tried to contact them, how do you figure out are you going to charge them per hour or for the entire project? How do you go about that though process?
Sung:So, short answer, hourly. It's really rare that I charge people project based because of the nature of the digital project, even if you're the smartest person in the world, even if you can literally scoop every detail, estimate every detail of the project accurately, things could go wrong. For example, when you implement third-party API or SDK that you've never used before, you have to find workarounds sometimes. Things come up and there's no way you could deliver things on time every time. So, if you pitch a project to be project based, then you are sort of fucked and it actually ends up ruining the relationship between you and the client because when something unexpectedly happens and you're not allowed to bill more hours but they expect you to complete it with the same amount of money, there's really no compromise there with the project-based agreement. So, I don't even go there unless the project is super, super simple and has really rigid requirements. For example, if somebody wants to launch a Squarespace website and they're going to provide all the copy and images because they just need someone to launch it, sure, I’ll do that for 800 dollars flat but everything else is hourly. And one another thing you might want to consider is that if you're working for startup companies, if you're looking working for not Fortune 500 companies, think about situations when you're working for startup companies or like individual people, not Fortune 500 companies that have legal issues and heavy contracts and things like that, so when you pick up this little project, I recommend designers, especially the entry-level designers, to not just focus on cash as a way of income because when you an entry-level designer, you have tons of time, all you have is time because there is not much demand for you and you should consider your hours as a way for you to invest in projects and people that you believe in. So, for example, if there is a guy in the startup event that has this idea that you believe in and you trust the guy based on the conversations you have, if you really believe in their potential, invest your hours into it and in return, you get equity and in return you build a relationship with the person, build trust with that person. And then when that person becomes someone in the future, he'll come to you with bigger projects and bigger rewards.
Jayneil:And that's assuming that if you're going to take these risky bets, then there's also a side gig that's paying you to keep the lights on.
Sung:Exactly. That's why I had multiple kinds of jobs. So, I had multiple jobs with different characteristics, one job long-term engagement with a lower rate that's stable and it's for sure and it's relatively easy, cut back on time and money, you don't want to do that for the rest of your life kind of job. And second job is basically risky high-paying job but it could be short-term. There's no guarantee. There's no long-term contract. And another type of job is someone that I want to invest my time and energy and talent in because I believe in the person. Actually, the biggest example I could give in the use case is back in 2013, I met this guy who was an acquisition manager at a huge healthcare company in Florida and he wanted to transition into a product manager role in tech companies and he was asking me all these questions about how to go about doing it. And I didn't really think much of it and then he was relentless. So, he emailed me. He was not being rude he was. He was very polite but he followed up with me asking me questions and then he also had friends that he was working with to build a product of his own and he needed some help with the design. Because I liked this energy and I saw something in him, I offered my help for free. And next thing I know, he quit his job at the hospital, went to work for a startup company called Kibo. It's a digital uh lab technology company that was on Shark Tank. And he was one of the top product managers at the startup. And then next thing I know, he quit that job to pursue his own consulting company. And then when he was doing that, whenever he did the pitch decks, whenever he needed me to review something from all the designers, I took time to review the designs and give him feedback, helped him embellish the pitch decks, I did whatever I could to help him. And then in return, whenever he wins the big contract jobs, he gave them to me and I got paid for it.
Jayneil:Wow!
Sung:And the next thing I know, he went back to the healthcare company in Florida as a senior product manager. And now, after about two years working there, he made his way up. He is about to be the CEO of their newest future initiative.
Jayneil:Oh my God! And then if he ever needs design consulting there, you're going to be the top of his list.
Sung:I am. He literally reached out to me for contract work. It goes both ways. I saw something in him in 2013. I invested my time energy and efforts in it. In return, he got me these little contract jobs that helped me build my company, build my reputation and build my portfolio. And then because I was thankful for that, I kept helping him more and more with his personal projects and that relationship and trust built over time and he's now one of my closest friends. It started with a business transaction but it turned into friendship. And we talk about things that we can't talk about with other people because we got pretty close. So, don't focus too much on earning cash from these gigs. Cash is important but also keep an eye out for people and opportunities and products you actually believe in when you see a potential. Think of yourself as an investor. Investors keep an eye out for the companies that they want to invest in that has potential and they invest in it before anybody else sees it. You have to be out there looking for these people that you want to invest your time and energy into before anybody else sees it. And when they become someone bigger, basically, you're going to be bigger as well.
Jayneil:Yeah, you're going to get the first prize. You're going to get the VIP entrance just because you got to know them when they were nobody.
Sung:Yeah. And I’m telling you, I mean, this relationship took six years to build. I mean, we have huge ups and downs too. This is not an easy thing to do but with anything that's worth pursuing, it's not easy. So, you could either just keep getting 100 dollars an hour contract jobs and save money and become rich or you could take some risky jobs, do some free work, build relationships and trust and try to be something greater than you could possibly make from cash-based jobs.
Jayneil:Sung, the conflict that I have in my head right now is when you mentioned to me that you usually charge hourly for the projects, based on some of the videos that I’ve seen or the road that I’ve gone on, basically, the idea of charging a value-based price model, meaning the idea here is that “Okay, if you just code that, I’m going to charge you like 50 dollars” or itemize basically what you're going to do for the Squarespace web, let's take the example of the Squarespace website. So, to do the website, it's going to cost me flat 800 bucks. For another extra page, it's going to cost me that. So, instead of itemizing, it's like “You want to do the website. It's going to cost you 1000 dollars” or “2000 dollars.” It's like a fixed project-based thing. So, this way you are including all these items in it but if it's like hourly, how do you go about like tracking how many hours you're going to go in that? And even then, the client might want to know “Well, we appreciate that you're going to do hourly but we need to allocate the budget for you and we need to know how much you're going to charge?” And then how is the client going to track like “Okay, you work exactly 10 hours on this” or “This thing takes 10 hours and not 8 hours?”
Sung:I think you're talking about these videos from [inaudible], right? I really like him. An example he gave was the logo design. So, if I can design an amazing logo and give it to you in an hour, do I charge you for one hour or do I charge you 10,000 dollars because I saved you time and that's such an amazing logo? I love the approach but it's so new to the industry. You can either take time to educate your client about the new billing model or you could just work with what you have. So, in Chris’s case, he's taking risk in a way that he's taking on specific clients that agreed to his terms like the different payment models. In my case, I’m taking a risk by investing my time in projects and people that I believe in, that's going to bring me a bit greater ROI but at the same time, I am billing the clients in the traditional way hourly. So, I don't have to argue with the clients about my payment method. So, in a way, we're taking different risks with different focus and different outcomes.
Jayneil:But what if the client asks you “Sung, how much do you think it's going to take tentatively?” You still have to do the estimation like “I’m going to charge you hourly but it's going to take me 30 hours or 100 hours” to do the project?
Sung:Yeah. Here's an example. There is a taxi company in Florida, I forget their name. They came to me and wanted an estimate for their project. They wanted their app to look and work just like Uber. And I was like “Okay, that's rough but I’ll go with that.” So, what I did was I basically looked at every single screen on Uber and I tried every single use case in Uber and took screenshots, took notes and I estimated how much time it would take to design all these screens and all these use cases and flows. That work took about a week to do that. And then I provided the rough estimate, not assessment, rough estimate with the list of features that I’d scoped out from Uber. So, basically, like “Here's the estimate. This is how much it's going to take to design all these features on this list that I put together.” And I call it product requirements. So, I send the product requirements with the estimate, send it to the client, tell them to look at it, “Do see any other features that's missing? Do you want to remove some of the features from the list?” Basically, they review the product requirements and my estimate and if they agree, we start the project. If not, they can negotiate from there but I don't just send the estimates. I send my estimates with the product requirements that shows the list of all the features that I scope out for that project.
Jayneil:So, the estimate is basically the amount of hours it’s going to take you to do all these features mentioned in the document into your hourly rate.
Sung:Yeah. So, if the client comes back and says “Oh, I need this and that, I need all these things” after I deliver the design, if it's not part of the initial product requirement, it's going to be additional charge.
Jayneil:And then do you charge at the same hourly rate you had in that previous one?
Sung:Yeah, usually the same.
Jayneil:So, how do you figure out what is your hourly rate in your case? What is your thought process behind that? Do you look at like “Okay, this is how much I make at Amazon per hour. So, I got to make the same one” or is it like “This is what my skills are worth.” How do you figure that out?
Sung:Oh man, it's been a long time since I figured out my hourly rate. I don't exactly remember how I decided my hourly rate was going to be.
Jayneil:So, what is your hourly rate right now?
Sung:Right now, it's 150 an hour. And then, based on the other negotiating factors, it ranges from there. I don’t work for startups that I don't believe in. So, when I work for startups that I believe in, I always ask for equity because equity is my way of investing in companies. So, if they're a company that's just starting out from the ground up, they have no product, nothing, starting from the ground up, I ask for 1% and I lower my rate by 25 dollars. And then if the job is going to be a long-term contract, anything longer than three months, for example, then I’ll also lower the rate by about 25 dollars. So, in my first big solo freelance project, at the time, my hourly rate was 125. And then they offered me 1% in the company. So, my hourly rate at the time was 85 dollars an hour.
Jayneil:And then do you revisit your hourly rate every year to kind of keep up with the inflation and stuff like that?
Sung:Yeah. And also, I do have legacy clients, the clients that I have had for a long time. In their case, I keep the hourly rate pretty much the same even though I want to raise it but then, to me, maintaining a relationship is more important. So, I keep the hourly rate pretty much the same for the legacy old clients. For new clients, I do think about should I charge more. Every year I think about that but then it's a lot of work to figure out what the new hourly rate is, will the clients pay higher rate. So, it's just like I’d rather not think about my new hourly rate at the moment right now. I’m just sticking with 150. I’m happy with it right now.
Jayneil:How do you actually figure out dealing with pain-in-the-ass clients? So, you start this relationship with a new client and you're like “All right, there's a lot of money on the table,” you enjoy with them but at some point, it's like “My God, they're really, really pain in the ass” or they always come back with more changes or haggle on the prices or just some other issues are going on. So, how do you gracefully exit out or decide the next step for that relationship with the client?
Sung:Exiting out is a good way to put it. I don't know if I should say it but I do exit out but I don't just leave money on the table. One time I had a client who asked me to design, imagine Netflix, it's a similar app. As you understand, interface for TV should be different from interface for touchscreen or mobile or iPad. The size of the screen and the how you interact with the screen, it changes the way it should be designed, right? This CTO wanted a single interface that worked for all platforms, Android, iOS, iPhone, iPad, TV, everything. So, I tried to explain why it's not a good idea and he was bullish about “I want it that way.” And he literally told me “Sung, just shut up and do what I tell you to do.” So, basically, as soon as he said that, I mean, I wanted to just walk out of there, first of all, but if I just walked out of there, he wins, I’ll lose out on the money, the opportunity. So, what I decided was “This relationship is over. This is a no more a partnership where I care about their benefits. Now, I care about my benefits.” So, I literally did everything they told me to do and billed hours, collected paycheck while looking for other clients because I knew if I did exactly what they told me to do, the project would fail and they'll blame me because I touched it. So, when you take this approach, you have to be aware that it doesn't matter if they tell you to do certain things that that's a bad decision. As long as you move the pixel, as long as you created a file, you are accountable. So, if that project fails, you are accountable and they will blame you.
Jayneil:So, you get screwed both ways.
Sung:Yeah. They don't want to blame themselves for giving you the wrong directions. So, they blame you because a contract is expendable. I knew that was going to happen. So, I collected as much paycheck as possible before they let me go as a contractor. And that's how I burn bridge with people that treat me badly.
Jayneil:Wow! So, it's almost like an Art of War kind of thing you're doing there where you're very much aware about your own needs and benefits and not just like saying “Okay, I’m just going to walk out of here and leave all this money on the table.”
Sung:Yeah. Basically, it feels like garbage. It feels like you're sitting on a pile of garbage because somebody just shit on you and you're sitting there taking it because you need that money. I needed that money to fund my projects. So, basically, how valuable is your ego, you have to think about that. To me, fuck ego. I’ll take the money.
Jayneil:Wow! Oh my God. I remember one of the things you said to me, I think it was four to five years ago and we were, I believe, standing outside or near this like salad place or salad restaurant Salada or we ran into each other there on the street and I asked you a question “Where do you get your design inspiration?” and at that point, you said to me “I look for inspiration for design outside of design.” And it blew me away because it was so controversial to what most people would do. What does that mean?
Sung:Yeah, you asked me what kind of books I’ve been reading and what kind of books I’d recommend and I said “I recommend Harry Potter.” Remember that?
Jayneil:I do.
Sung:People tell you to think out of the box. What does that mean? That means that you have to dream. You have to think of something that hasn't existed or doesn't exist yet or things that people are not aware of. How do you do that? Do you do that by reading textbooks? Textbooks are instructions about things that already exist, things that people are already aware of. How do you dream from reading textbooks or how-to books? You don't. You dream from reading things like Harry Potter, reading things like comic books and hiking on the mountain, going to different countries, meeting random people, learning about their way of lives. You get inspirations from anywhere in this world except for textbooks or how-to books and videos. And that's how I get my inspirations. That's one of the benefits of me becoming a nomad. Right now, I’m staying at a new Airbnb that I’ve never been in before. Just being in here, looking at the way they decorated the place, it's inspirational to me. That's how I get my inspirations.
Jayneil:So, where are you based right now or where are you talking with me from right now?
Sung:It's a really funky Airbnb Plus in Seattle. It’s in the central district.
Jayneil:Okay. So, you are based in Seattle and yet you're living in an Airbnb or you've got your own apartment there?
Sung:I don't have anything. I don't know if you saw any of my videos before but basically, I sold my house in Dallas, moved out of the house in Capitol Hill and then I put all my belongings in a storage unit and then I don't have a place. I don't pay rent anymore. I don't have utility bills. I don't have electricity bills. I don't have to pay for wi-fi. So, I just go wherever I want. I stay at Airbnbs, hostels, friend’s place, co-worker’s place, sometimes five-star hotels. It's like I just be wherever I want to be.
Jayneil:Wow! That's a badass lifestyle.
Sung:The whole point of it this is not to save money, just to get more experiences. A few weeks ago, I was in Korea backpacking from Busan to Seoul and then last week, I was in Dallas and this week I’m at Seattle and in a few weeks, I’ll be in Morocco.
Jayneil:That is mind-blowing, man. What happens when one of your clients is just behind on paying you? Do you just chase them or you're just like “You know what, this is not worth it, me always chasing you for the invoice or not paying on time?”
Sung:Actually, I did have those cases. I hate saying it all depends. It actually does depend. It depends on amount of money. It depends on how much you believe in the person. For example, when I worked for an on-demand hair and makeup service company in Dallas, which was my very first big break, the CEO trusted me to build an app that would help him get customers and raise money and I did that. And he comes from a political fundraising background. So, he's amazing in raising funds, talking to people and networking. And because I’m not as good at that, I knew that having someone with that capability in my network will be amazing to have. So, that's another person I invest my time and energy in. And there were times when the on-demand hair and makeup service company could not pay me, let alone pay for anything else. For example, we had to do a photo shoot one time for the app but he didn't have money. So, I basically put down my 10,000 dollars to do the photo shoot and he paid me later. So, sometimes, you have to put money where your mouth is if you really believe in a company. And then later, he took a few more attempts to revive the company but then it failed and then he owed me probably like a couple thousand dollars here and there. If I went after him, sure, he would have paid me, he's that kind of guy but the same time, a couple thousand dollars was not worth ruining a relationship because the way it worked was that those couple thousand dollars, it's not the money he owed me. It's that somebody else he introduced that was working with him, that other guy was owing me but he felt responsible but it's not that he owed me. The other guy owed me. So, if I went after the other guy, basically …
Jayneil:You would ruin this relationship too.
Sung:It would make my friend really uncomfortable and ruin the relationship by association. So, instead of going after that guy that owed me money and risking ruining the relationship, I just ate it. I just added a couple thousand dollars and it's been like three years since I ate 2000 dollars. At one point, he was working for a VC company that funded Lyft and now, he is working for another fundraising insurance company, basically the companies that insure funding from the investors. So, he's working for that company and he has huge network of people that I’d love to leverage one day. I mean, just recently, he had to put a pitch deck together and he came back to me to put that pitch deck together and pay me for it. It’s sort of already paid off. The 2000 I ate a couple years ago, I already made the money back and the relationship is still intact. And he actually invited me to his wedding a few months ago at Country Club and I’ve never been in there before. It was an amazing experience. So, you get access to people in places when you invest in the right people.
Jayneil:Man, you’ve got so many amazing stories. I love the fact that you'll give me your viewpoint and then also call it like “Okay, this is a real-life example that happened with it.” So, this way it makes more sense versus just talking in abstract.
Sung:Yeah. That reminds me I should be doing more of that. I’ve been making videos on LinkedIn and Instagram but I’ve been doing a lot of abstract talk but I haven't really done any specific examples. Maybe I should start doing them more.
Jayneil:Because think about it this way. A lot of people talking abstract, a lot of designers but then when you actually want to know, for example, you just stated publicly your hourly rate and stuff. So, right there now, a lot of people can get some kind of baseline, some kind of understanding “Oh, well, this is how you do it. This is what's going on” versus talking in abstract like “This is what I charge X and X plus Y is this.” I remember a while back you got featured on, if I’m not mistaken, Business Insider Top 100 Designers in Tech. I’m curious how did that happen and did that publicity lead to new contract work or freelance work for you?
Sung:The short answer, no.
Jayneil:Oh my God! I was expecting a “Totally, yes.”
Sung:I know but it did have a benefit. So, the way it happened was at the time I was working for a startup company with my friend. So, I was just dabbling with the startup while having a full-time job but at the time, I had no idea I was going to go into building a company later but I was just helping my friend out with his startup as a designer. I mean, he really liked my work and all that stuff. He's an avid reader. So, he gets the newsletters from the Business Insider and then he saw news from Business Insider about Business Insider looking for top designers in technology for them to rank. And he told me to give him my résumé. So, I gave him my resume and he submitted it and he nominated me as one of the top designers. He has no insider connections with the Business Insider or anything. He just submitted my résumé to Business Insider like anybody else. And then I was kind of curious what would happen if I submit other people's résumés too. So, what I did was there was a creative director in Dallas, he is the first creative director that did not hire me, Michael Griffith, before I interviewed with this creative director for Bottle Rocket, an agency in Dallas. Everyone I interviewed with, I got the job except for him. I did not get a job with him. So, I was like “I’m going to submit a résumé to Business Insider and see how he ranks.” I also submitted another guy from Mizko named Michael Wong from Australia. I met with him briefly on a conference call because we were looking for frontend developer and I really liked his portfolio from Dribbble. So, I reached out to him and we got on a call and I really liked the energy. So, I also submitted his résumé. And when I say résumé, I really put some time in writing out, I looked at all their like portfolio pieces, looked up their LinkedIn information. I wrote a pretty decent profile for them and submitted them to the Business Insider. And when it came out, I think Mizko ranked 70 and then Michael Griffith ranked 53 and then I was ranked 51.
Jayneil:That is amazing.
Sung:I don't want people to think that this represents actual skill set. It does not. To this day, I kind of suffer from imposter syndrome. Even though I’ve built multiple startup companies, raised millions of dollars, to this day, I have things that I think I don't deserve like having ranked as the 51st top designers in technology. If you look at Dribbble, if you look at designs, there are tons of designers technically so much better than me. There are so many out there. So, just looking at their work, I always think “How the fuck did I make to this list? If they submit their résumé, would I not make it to this?” So, first of all, I’m thankful that my friend submitted my résumé. Second, every day of my life is me trying to live up to this ranking, basically. That's sort of my internal driver to live up to the ranking that I accidentally received. And Michael Griffith, he's doing really well. He built the Bottle Rocket company from pretty much ground up. When I first interviewed with him, it was a tiny little office in Edison. And now, it's a billion-dollar company that got bought out. And then Mizko in Australia, Michael Wong, now he has like hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram.
Jayneil:Wow! And then you're saying that this does not lead to direct new gigs because of this publicity.
Sung:I got only one interview from Facebook back in 2013 who found me through this link but otherwise, I didn't have anyone reaching out to me with anything except in Dallas, when I was starting out my company, trying to get gigs, what I realized was that because I had this on my résumé, my words carried more weight. At the time, I was still working for an agency while trying to get freelance gigs back in 2012. I was trying to get little gigs here and there still working for an agency. And I would say the same thing at the agency and people would just brush it off or just go over people's head but when I say the same exact fucking thing with people outside agencies, people in startups, people that don't know my past, people that know me as the 51st top designer in technology, when they hear the same thing, they believe me. Somehow my words carried a lot more weight because of this ranking. And because they believed me, I got the opportunity to prove myself that I was right. And many times, I was right and that's how I was able to get more clients and be able to raise millions of dollars for their startup companies.
Jayneil:Wow!
Sung:Because if I didn't have this ranking, it would’ve been a lot harder for me to get clients to believe me and or give me opportunities to prove myself but by having this ranking, it made my life a little easier.
Jayneil:That's phenomenal, Sung. Any last words or tips or advice for junior designers or people just starting out in the field of design?
Sung:When you're in the beginning stage on your career path, it's important for you to mimic the behaviors of successful people in the field and learn all kinds of tactics, practices, processes, and methods that they're using as a cheat sheet to quickly catch up to them but once you get to a certain point on your career path, those things don't really matter anymore because what made the successful people successful are not those specific tactics, methods, and processes but simply their drive to get better at what they do. And that drive helped them to constantly figure out new tactics, methods, and processes to help them deliver better results more efficiently. So, yes, go and copy, go and watch those how-to videos, go read as many tutorial books and watch tutorial videos as possible. Learn all the nuances of making design decisions by copying all the more successful people right now but as you get further along on your career path, try to figure out what drives you, what drives you to get up in the morning every day to do what you do, what drives you to deal with shit every day and still keep going forward. Once you figure out what drives you to do what you do, that's the actual key to success.
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