What do I want my days to look like? - UI/UX Design Consultant Rafal Tomal
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What do I want my days to look like? - Freelance UI/UX Designer Rafal Tomal
Rafal taught himself design and started freelancing around his schoolwork at age 16. When he moved from Poland to the United States at 18, and with zero contacts and no design qualification, he landed a full-time job as a developer.
Rafal progressed within the company, designing for some of the biggest websites and blogs out there, all while continuing with freelance work on the side. Until, eventually, he left the job to focus on his business and his personal brand full time.
He formed a small agency with friends later, before leaving because his days were filling up with project management tasks rather than design work.
These days, Rafal’s running a one-person design studio (with help from assistants and other specialists) and selling digital products and courses. “It’s not for everyone,” he says. “But don’t quit too soon. Give yourself a chance to see what’s really out there.”
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Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with UX/UI Designer Rafal Tomal and Steve Folland
Steve Folland: Let's crack on, find out what it's like being freelance for UI and UX design consultant Rafal Tomal. Hey Rafal.
Rafal Tomal: Hi Steve. Thank you for having me.
Steve Folland: Thanks for doing this. As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Rafal Tomal: Yes, so I started freelancing very early, probably when I was still in school when I was 16. That's how I started making some money on the side, and I was still in high school. I remember my teachers telling me that I should spend more time learning and if I want to become someone, I need to attend all the classes, I need to go to college and all that stuff. But even in high school, when I was freelancing, I started making more money than my teachers did, so I knew there was something in it, and maybe college and all of that stuff, maybe it's not for me.
Rafal Tomal: So that's how I started, I started looking for some small gigs when I was in school, I was hired to even make some projects for students and I was helping them finish their classes in college and universities and they paid me for it. So I knew there was something in it, there must be more that I can do, and that's how it all started. Steve Folland: Wow. So after high school, did you go to college or did you just think, "Nah, clearly I can make a living from what I know already"?
Rafal Tomal: At the end of high school, I had a big decision to make, I finished with honours and all that stuff. So all my teachers expected me to go to college. I have to go to college. After talking to some of my friends who went that road and they told me like they're teaching us stuff that we already knew a couple of years ago, that you could already learn from internet online. And they're teaching us some outdated stuff here and it's waste of time. And I saw my friends who were very good developers, very good programmers and designers, and it's slowed them down, going to college and learning all this stuff in a different way. And I was always a self-taught designer/developer, so to me, it was much easier for me, even in school, like I could listen in the class, I could listen to the teacher, but I had to go back to home, I had to open the book and read it myself to understand it. Like I couldn't understand anything that people were trying to teach me, I have to do this myself. So that was like a natural way of learning for me.
Rafal Tomal: And at the end of school, I got an opportunity to move to the United States. And so that was my decision. I stay in Poland, probably have to go to college, probably have to do all this, stop that what you are supposed to do, or I can drop everything, move to the United States and start over, and see what else is out there. So I chose to drop everything and move to the United States. And that was a good decision to me.
Rafal Tomal: When I came to the United States, nobody was asking about the college, nobody was asking about a degree. I got my first full-time job as a PHP developer, and I was 18 years old. And they didn't even ask me about the diploma or what college I graduated, I just passed a test for PHP developer and they hired me. So that was the world I was looking for.
Steve Folland: Flipping heck. That's so cool.
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, that was surprising. I came to the United States, I came to Chicago, I'm Polish and Chicago is known for having a big Polish community. So when I came here, everyone told me like, "You're either going to be a construction worker or you're going to work in a factory, like there is no other job for Polish people in Chicago. That's the way it is." And everyone told me this and I was a little bit discouraged, but the first job I tried to apply to, and I was afraid, like I was 18 years old, I was afraid to show up in the interview. If they see me as a young person like this, that will discredit my skills and everything, but they didn't even ask me for interview. They just send me a PHP test over the internet. So they didn't even know how old I am. Rafal Tomal: So I pass the test, then they invited me for an interview. So probably that was the advantage of the situation. So they knew I have the skills, then they saw me and I'm like too young to already have any degrees, anything, so they didn't even ask for it, probably.
Steve Folland: Wow. Just to put that in perspective, how long ago was that? What year was that?
Rafal Tomal: That was 2007. Steve Folland: Okay. So clearly a lot has happened since. So what happened next?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, so that was my first job, full-time job, as a PHP developer. I started as a developer and I transitioned slowly into design. I worked in that first company for two and a half years, but I was always freelancing on the side, like even working full time. I always had some clients on the side. I always did some projects. Like I wanted to stay in the game of freelancing because that was like my backup plan.
Rafal Tomal: And again, living here on my own, I was 19, in this big city renting my own apartment, and having like $2,000-$3,000 in savings, I was afraid what happens if I lose my job, if I even have money to buy a ticket back to Poland, or what happens then? So I wanted to have as many backup plans as I could have. So freelancing was one of those.
Rafal Tomal: And after working two and a half years in that company, I decided to quit and to go full-time freelance. And that was probably the scariest decision of my life and even much more difficult than moving to the United States. But it was also worth it because then I could focus 100% on my freelancing, so looking for more clients and just open up to a lot more opportunities.
Rafal Tomal: And from there, I met Brian Gardner, the founder of StudioPress, so I started working with Brian Gardner, with StudioPress as a contractor. And when they started, and then they offered me a job at Copyblogger Media, Copyblogger Media was a company that combined StudioPress and Copyblogger and a few other companies, they created one big company, and they offered me a job as a lead designer at the company.
Steve Folland: Okay. How did you meet them by the way? Are they based in Chicago or was it an online thing? Rafal Tomal: Yeah, Brian Gardner is based in Chicago, and it's actually a funny story because when I was freelancing, I saw Brian Gardner, I was following StudioPress, I was following everything that happens in WordPress. And that was a time I was slowly moving into the WordPress space. So I started following StudioPress, Brian Gardner, and I saw Brian Gardner announcing that they're looking for some designers to work with on some projects. And I emailed Brian, I used the contact form an emailed that I'm interested in working with them. I showed my projects and I never heard back from Brian. So I felt like, "Well, maybe I'm not good enough." So I kept working. I kept freelancing. And every time I had finished a project for a client, I put it out there, somewhere in the CSS galleries, design galleries, everywhere, whenever it was possible, I wanted everyone to see my designs. That was the way for me to get some attention.
Rafal Tomal: And then I got an email from Brian Gardner saying that he saw some of my projects, one of the CSS galleries, and he sees I'm in Chicago, and if I want to meet up and talk about some work I could do for StudioPress. And I thought he's replying to my first email that I used to apply for the job. And he said he didn't even see my message. Like they got probably thousands of messages and they just didn't see my message. But he reached out to me somehow.
Steve Folland: Awesome.
Rafal Tomal: So we met. Before our meeting, I even created a project, like I wanted to show him my skills. So I sat all night, and I designed a possible theme for StudioPress, just to show him my skills, what I can do. And he was surprised to see that I was able to do that, and prepared for that meeting. So then we started working together. First, I worked as a contractor, so I did some projects for Brian, for StudioPress. We were working like this for almost a year, and then they offered me a job with Copyblogger Media. Once they started establishing a bigger company. And so I became of the lead designers at Copyblogger. I was like 22 back. And to me, it was like a huge shift from what I was doing before, because now I was working with multimillion-dollar companies, multimillion sites, with people like Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, Diana Rose, Neil Patel. I was able to design to design some for some of those biggest websites, some of the biggest blogs out there. So that was a shock to me.
Steve Folland: Wow. When you went in-house, did you carry on freelancing on the side? Because you mentioned before that that was your backup plan.
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. I was still freelancing, and even though I had a very good stable income and I still felt like I need to keep freelancing, I need to stay in the game and just stay in contact with my clients. And I was always clear about that, like I will never give up my freelancing. So even when I got hired at Copyblogger, I told them like, "I will still be doing some freelance work on the side because that's my thing. I can't imagine like give this up and disconnect from this world," because I know how hard it is to get back into that. So I kept my personal website. I was building my portfolio all the time. I was working on my personal brand, like doing everything from the outside, like I was still available, still a designer for hire, even though my full-time job was at Copyblogger Media.
Steve Folland: One thing I realized I never asked you, which inevitably I ask everyone, so just to hit pause on where you are right now, back in your story, how did you find those first freelance clients when you moved to the States? When you were working in-house for two and a half years, you were freelancing on the side, how were you finding those freelance clients?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. So, in the beginning, it was very difficult. When I was in Poland, it was much easier to find clients because I had some friends, I had some connections, I could tell people around, "I'm a designer. I can design websites." And like that message was carried along somewhere, and then someone contact me, like a friend of my friend told me that you're doing a website. And so that was much easier in Poland.
Rafal Tomal: So when I moved to the States, I didn't know anyone. Like I was completely, I moved here and I lived with my father for the first year. He was the only person I knew when I came here, but he didn't have any contacts to get me any work. So I started like hustling, joining some forums and replied comments to people, helping people with some website problems they had. I started commenting on some other people's blogs and trying just to be helpful. And from one of those forums where I gave someone an advice or some tips, how to fix their website, then they reach out to me and like, "Hey, maybe I just pay you, and you'll do this for me because it's too difficult." And then I took that gig. I did that work. And then that person recommended someone else to me to fix their website. And that's somehow the message got out there.
Rafal Tomal: I also created a lot of like fake design projects. I started just designing a website. It wasn't even my client, I just came up with a business name and designed a website. And I'd put it in one of those CSS galleries just to show my design skills. And that was good enough to get a client who liked the design and even ask me if they can buy this design, if they can just change the name of the business, because they saw it was like a template. It wasn't a real client's site.
Rafal Tomal: So slowly, step by step, I got through this and in the beginning I did also a lot of small sites for like $100, for like $200-$300. That was my beginnings. I did some free websites for charities, just to as much as I could, get my name out there. And the more people knew me, they started recommending somewhere, and I got through this.
Steve Folland: And how did you manage to fit all of the working and side projects for that matter, all of that stuffed into your day, especially when you were full time in places as well? How did you manage your time?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, so in the beginning, I was young, I had a lot of time on my hands, I didn't have family, I didn't have kids, so I could just work on nights and on weekends. And that's how I did my site work, some of the site projects. When I started working for Copyblogger, I didn't have to worry that much about getting those small $100 projects, then I started getting like $5,000-$10,000 projects. So I could take one project like this for every two-three months and be fine just to stay in the game, just to do some of those projects and didn't have to hustle that much.
Rafal Tomal: But also when I was working for Copyblogger, I focused more on building my personal brand than focusing on taking clients, because I already was making good money from my full-time job, so I didn't have to worry that much about the money. But I wanted to use the fact that I'm working for Copyblogger, I wanted to use that as much as I could and somehow benefit from that and bring that into my personal site, into my personal brand. So I spent more time on writing my blog, I published an ebook, I educated people about design, about development, and a lot of people, they knew me from Copyblogger. So they knew that's someone must be legit, let's sign up for his newsletter. And that's how I started building personal brand, that later and now I can use to do all of the client work, all freelancing work.
Steve Folland: That's so cool. So when you were creating that personal brand, who was your audience? People like you or potential clients?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, so most of the people were people from the WordPress, and when you look at the WordPress community is a mix of like do-it yourself type of people who know a little bit of design, a little bit of code, but not enough to create a custom website, but they know enough to be dangerous in WordPress, and like take a theme, customize it, put it out there, but they always need something more. Like they need a custom landing page. They need how to create a custom call to action or hero section. And that's where I came in, helping people to fill those gaps. You already have a website, here's how to customize it. And I feel like that was my niche of all those website owners who had their website, they wanted to have something more, something more custom, but they are not developers or designers, so they could learn something from me, they could benefit from that.
Rafal Tomal: And then a lot of those people just contact me, "Hey, can I just hire you to create a custom design for me? Because I was playing with the site for years, I was customizing it, my business doing now much better, now I'm ready to pay for a full custom website." And that's how I turned some of those people in my audience into clients, I think.
Steve Folland: And you, you mentioned a newsletter and a blog and an ebook, was the book free for people to sign up to your newsletter and what were you doing with your newsletter? So many questions, bad interviewing, sorry.
Rafal Tomal: No, no, these are good questions, because the way I did that like five years ago is different than I do this today. Five years ago, I started blogging and I was writing articles, everything was free. I did some free tools for designers like wireframe kit for Photoshop, website guide for Photoshop, like all of those free tools. So I was collecting newsletters from those free tools that people could download. But my ebook was about designing in Photoshop, and was a little bit higher level. If you have all of those tools and you have your website, but then want to take it to the next level, here's my ebook, I will show you how I do these things and how to design. So my ebook wasn't free. It was a premium product and it was my first premium product that I sold from my website.
Rafal Tomal: But today again, I have some free stuff that I get people to sign up to my newsletter. I have my typography course. That is a premium product. I have design tools as well, premium design tools. So not only free tools, but also premium tools. So I'm trying to also connect that. You get the tools, here's how to use them. And my plan is to go even more in that and create more tools, create more courses and cross-promote those between each other.
Steve Folland: To take you back to when you did that first ebook, like how long did it take and how did it feel when you put it live?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. So the first ebook took me to me a long time to write as I was working full time and I had those occasional freelance clients. So whenever I had a gap, I started working on my ebook in the evenings and on the weekends. And I was probably overthinking it, like almost all creative people that are creating their first products, like trying to make it perfect and everything. And that was also the year we were expecting a baby. So that motivated me because we had a due date in December. So my goal was to finish the ebook before the baby's born. And I feel like if it wasn't the baby, I wouldn't be motivated as much to finish the book, and will probably extend even further than that, but that motivated me to finish the ebook. I finished that in December, published this in January, so I could focus then on the baby.
Steve Folland: And how did it go when you hit publish? You've got a bit of an audience by then.
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. I got like 5,000 email subscribers at that time. And I did very well, I made like five figures in the first week selling this ebook. Then it started slowly going down from there, but I was surprised by the response and how well it was received. And that also opened my eyes because I published that product, and I thought that I'm now switching from like ... on my personal brand, now I'm switching from doing client work into products, but actually that ebook brought me so many clients. Like people started contacting me, asking me to do custom work, custom design work for their sites and custom design their websites, all of it because the ebook. Like probably that ebook, people could see me as an authority in this area. And they wanted to have me to design their websites. So that also was a big sign to me.
Rafal Tomal: If you want to have more clients, you can't just focus on your portfolio and doing the client work and marketing your services, you have to go above and beyond and create products and have a blog, do all the stuff around that, that benefit and that you can benefit in your personal brand from, and that can also bring you a lot of clients.
Steve Folland: Wow. So when you released that, so that was five years ago, and were you still full time employed at that point at Copyblogger?
Rafal Tomal: Yes. I was still a full-time employee.
Steve Folland: Which means, so I'm just thinking you decided to build your personal brand, you've made extra income, which is amazing, but not only that, but it's bought you potential clients. So how did you go about like that... well, I guess almost perhaps an almost overwhelming amount of potential work that you could be doing away from your full-time job, did that tear you, and I guess, did you just have to say no a lot?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, that was very difficult for me because I love my job, and I had still a lot in front of me in terms of having a career in Copyblogger and we had big plans and we were releasing new products. I was excited about that stuff we were working on, so I didn't want to give this up. I was still excited about all this stuff. And our company was growing like crazy. We went from like 12 employees to 60, and our company crossed $10 million a year at some point. So everything was good happening in the company, I didn't want to give this up, but at the same time on my personal brand, on my personal business, like things also were picking up and were doing very well. So I had to say no to a lot of clients, a lot of projects. I had to decide what to focus on next.
Rafal Tomal: And it was also a good time for me. Like I wanted to spend more time with my daughter. I wanted to be more around the house and let my wife to finish her school, to let her work. So there was also a time that I want to focus more on the family and like relax more on the work. I didn't want to work that much on the side and handle too many things at the same time.
Steve Folland: How did you know what to say no to?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, this is very difficult. And it's probably the biggest challenge right now. Like in the beginning when you start freelancing, when you start your career, you just say yes to everything. And this is also like... you have to learn to say yes to everything, you have to just take all those opportunities, you have to hustle, you have to like do a lot of things. And then later when you progress, when you get to this certain level, you have to start learning to say no, and that's very difficult.
Rafal Tomal: Even now, this is the biggest challenge right now to me, I have so many opportunities, even job offers, which has very good income and that is very attractive, because you can have a stable income, you can have health insurance, which is very important in the United States, it's very expensive if you pay this on your own.
Rafal Tomal: So a lot of those benefits that come with a full-time job and all of those offers you have, but at the same time, you don't know what's waiting for you if you say no to this job or to this offer, you never know what's waiting for you on the other side.
Rafal Tomal: And so I keep saying no to a lot of opportunities right now and keep trying to stay focused on my goal on my way. And the smart way to do this is not to think only about the money, because it can be very misleading if you think, "Okay, this is a better opportunity because I will make more money." But you won't be happy doing that work. That's not going to work for you. And you have to decide like what I'm happy with, what I like to work on, what I like to do, what do I like my every day to look like? And that's how you can start making those decisions.
Steve Folland: Yeah. So back into your story then. To rewind five years, you released your ebook, but you were at Copyblogger, you're saying yes to some things, no to some things and settling into being a dad as well. So yeah, how did it unfold from there?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, so I tried to manage all those things at the same time. I stayed two, three more years after releasing my ebook, and I left the company, I quit, it was 2017 or 2018 when I left. And I decided to go back to my own full-time business again. Steve Folland: I guess you've got a diverse business model, for want of a better word, in front of you, in that you're not just a freelance designer at this point, you've got an audience, you can get products and courses ahead of you. So how did you decide to split what you were doing?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. So when I left Copyblogger, my first plan was to focus entirely on the products. So again, I said no to many clients, to many projects, I spent like six months focusing only on the products. And that was when I had this idea to create a design class and have courses. My first was about typography, then I wanted to create about colours and layouts and like all the different things.
Rafal Tomal: But the problem was I think I didn't do the proper research before doing this. And I spent way too much time building before asking if people even need this. So when I released the first part of this course, the typography part, it wasn't that much of a success as I was expecting it to be. And that was okay, like I wasn't losing money or anything like this. It was just, I expected a lot more from it. So I decided that it wasn't a good decision to give up all the client work and focus only on the products, that it's good to have that balance. So I balance that and have some products, have some client work, so I can keep experimenting with my products and get to know my audience better, find the right product, work on that release.
Rafal Tomal: And if I hit the right product to the right market, and if this goes big, then I can give up the client work probably entirely and focus on that. But until I get there, it's very risky to like trust just your instinct, that this is going to going to be big, because even those within that time when I was working on this product, like everything was changing. There were other courses released about those topics. There were a lot of the... There are different things that were happening at the same time. So it's very risky to have one idea, stick to that and say no to everything else so you can focus just on one thing.
Rafal Tomal: If you can balance somehow and have those, again, this backup plan of freelancing, I feel like you'll be much better positioned, even if your product fails and this can happen, a lot of product fails, all those beautiful stories we hear on the internet, like how someone wrote an ebook and made a 100K or created a course and made a million dollars, like those are the single stories we hear. But behind them, there are like thousands of stories of people who didn't have that much of success. And you have to be aware of that and be prepared for that.
Steve Folland: And as time has gone on then, how often would you blog? How often would you send out a newsletter and communicate with that audience?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, so I'm really bad in keeping this regular. I have some seasons when I started blogging and posted every week, then I stopped for a couple of months and I came back to it, and I had a season where I only sent a newsletter and didn't post anything on my website. Like I experimented a lot with a lot of different things.
Rafal Tomal: I feel like it's more important to if you post less frequently, but try to create better content, I feel like that's more important than going after this hype of blogging every day or every week, and just putting regular average content out there. Because some of the posts, I really put a lot of attention and a lot of time into, they got very popular and they brought me a ton of traffic. And some of other posts, I didn't spend that much time of doing, they were just another post on my site. It didn't do anything for me, didn't do anything for my personal brand. So I would rather spend a day or two and write a really good article, a really good post that is useful and goes all the way through the entire internet and gets me all those links and people that come and see and read it, than just to fill the gap on my blog and just to have a checkmark that I posted a post every week.
Steve Folland: Where would you say you put most of your sort of marketing, I guess, marketing would be the right word, energy now, like how people find you and you're visible?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. So I still have my website. Now I've built a lot of those links and connections, people coming to my websites, I'm trying to catch more people to my newsletter, and my newsletter have a sequence that I'm trying to segregate clients from designers, and I also have my Dribbble account where I post some of the designs.
Rafal Tomal: I focus now more on Instagram. It's very visual. It's the type of content that I feel like I can get more attention with the type of work I do. So if I post a design, if I post a short video of what I'm doing on the screen, like that can get a lot of attention and it can bring up people to my website.
Rafal Tomal: But I'm trying to use all the social media, everything more as a... I don't want to build like a platform on Instagram, I want to build my huge Instagram account and have people over there. I'd rather create something Instagram, spread it out on all the different social media and redirect everyone back to my website, so people can go to my newsletter, sign up for my newsletter, with my stuff, buy my products, and I can get clients from there.
Steve Folland: And so it's interesting about the newsletter. You try and find out early on, who's a client, who's a designer so that you can then send them appropriate emails. You mentioned when you originally released your ebook, you had 5,000 on your list, which is quite a considerable amount. Do you mind if I ask how many are on your list now, like five years later?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. I have now 20,000 people on my newsletter, but I would have a lot more, but whenever I crossed 20,000, I cleaned my list and I removed the people who are the cold subscribers, who haven't opened my emails in a long time, who are not interested. And I'm trying to maintain that list around that number.
Steve Folland: I love that. Yes, so even that, yeah, it's not a glory metric. That's actually 20,000 people who might actually interact with your email rather than just have it sent and not look at it.
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. I know a lot of people don't recommend doing this. They say we should keep as many people on a list as possible, you never know when someone may actually open your email, a lot of stuff, but I want the real fans, people who follow me, who read my stuff, who are interested in doing this, and it's much easier to convert them into customers. I'm not a great marketer. I'm not going to write catchy headlines and like even probably convert some of those people who are not convinced. So I'm not even after those type of audience.
Steve Folland: Yeah, it's such a fascinating story, especially because of the number of clients that continued to come your way. Were you ever tempted at any point to sort of build a team or hire other freelancers and take on that work that was sitting there?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah, so actually the last year in 2019, I started a design agency with a couple of friends. It was me and Brian Gardner who actually hired me in the beginning, but Brian's sold StudioPress and I quit StudioPress before the sale happened. So we decided why don't we try to create a company together? And we formed a small agency. There was five of us, there was a developer, there was a person that was a good marketer, so we thought like each one of us had different and good skills that we can combine together. And because we all had too much work, we all had too many clients, so we could work on the clients that are interesting to us, on the projects that are interesting to us, and outsource other work and hire other people.
Rafal Tomal: So that's what we did in 2019. The company was growing pretty fast. We started hiring people even the full time, but by the end of the year, I decided to leave that company, because I felt like it just wasn't for me, I didn't feel good. My day-to-day work started shifting from designing into being more like entrepreneurs, a manager, and a project manager type of person, which I didn't feel good in that role. I love designing. I couldn't imagine a day that I'm not designing, that I only manage projects and not doing the actual work.
Rafal Tomal: So by the end of the year, I decided I needed to go back to where I felt good. And in 2020, in January, I went back and decided to start again as a small one-person design studio.
Steve Folland: Do you call yourself a design studio before? Or would you just call yourself a freelancer?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. I always called myself a freelancer. And that's why I'm trying to shift now more into a sole design studio type of thing. Positioning yourself as a studio, I feel like has a lot more benefits than saying I'm a freelancer, it sounds like you are not established enough, you might be doing this on the side, like all those different things. But when you start working with some bigger clients, bigger companies, like I was working with Microsoft on some projects, and positioning yourself as a small one-person design studio sounds much better, and you can probably win some of those bigger clients easier as a freelancer, it's much easier to get through. And for sure, you can get a lot more those smaller projects and you can open up yourself to more opportunities. But yeah, that's the shift I'm trying to make right now.
Rafal Tomal: And also I'm calling myself now a design studio because it's not only me, like I am the main designer, but whenever there's something development involved, I outsource development to other developers. I also have some assistants that help me even with the design work. Like I did all the creative, all the main work and my assistant is going to help me to prepare the files for the client or organize the project that I was working on, get some assets, do some research. So all of this stuff around the main work, I can get some help with.
Steve Folland: Ah, you didn't want to remove yourself from that designing. So in fact, you found people to manage the things that go around it so that you can concentrate on that still?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm not saying this the right way to do, because I haven't tested that yet. I just started this this year. I'm still trying to see how this works, but it feels right to me. Like I love designing, I love all the creative work involved with it. I don't like spending time looking for assets or organizing those assets and sending invoices, preparing contracts, doing proposals, like all this stuff can be outsourced, all that you can have someone to assist you and help you with.
Steve Folland: I realize I've not actually asked you about work-life balance. Just to touch on that, do you feel like you've you've got it sussed?
Rafal Tomal: Yeah. So yeah, I work from home. I've been working from home for the last, I don't know, probably 10 years since I left my first job and started freelancing full time. So I don't find this difficult right now, maybe because I had a lot of time to get used to it before I had a family. So now, my daughter was born, I was already working from home and she already knows all the drills, like how this works. And she's been surprised when she goes to her friend's house and their parents are not working from home. Like she doesn't understand why. So she gets used to it, I'm in my office, then I'm working, if the doors are closed, you're not supposed to come in, ad like all that stuff, I feel like are well established. Maybe if I was working in the office and then I suddenly start working from home, and now having a kid, like probably will be too much and it will be very hard shift to make, but it's not such a problem anymore.
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self, one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Rafal Tomal: It's not for everyone. So you have to discover this by yourself. I would say not to be afraid to explore, not to quit too soon, not to give up too soon, because in the beginning you will have those shitty clients and bad projects and you have to hustle a lot. But if you can get through that and give yourself a chance to see what's really out there, if you work on your work ethic, I feel like you can be very successful and you wouldn't even look at other job offers again.