Hi everyone! I put in my two weeks today for work to go full time on my service as a subscription business. I just launched https://www.kindheart.design/ last Friday, and I've had two clients sign on with me now. I'm not here to self promote my business, but rather I had a couple questions around identifying niches/verticals for my clients.
So I've been a product designer for almost the last 10 years, working across companies big and small, agencies, in house, etc. I've always thrived in environments where design really moves the needle, especially when I can move fast with small teams, which is why I've been designing for startups the past 5 years.
Now, my website is a bit more positioned right now for startups. However, my current clients include 1) an e-commerce business that has been growing steadily for 10 years, that hasn't hired a designer formally and 2) an early early startup that is essentially pre product, but wants to work with me to help execute a vision/MVP. Two very different businesses/needs.
I'm noticing that a lot of other "design as a subscription" businesses position themselves for startups, but no one is really positioning themselves towards e-commerce businesses, D2C businesses, traditional businesses, etc. My hypothesis is that a lot of these companies could use the design help, maybe have used freelancers in the past, but don't really have a cohesive brand/design, and thus leaving certain optimizations on the table, whether that's designing for trust, optimizing conversion, etc. In fact, I've worked with previous e-commerce brands, where a small facelift or even more thoughtful email design has increased click-through and conversion by as high as 24%.
Anyway, with all this being said, I'm curious about folks that are running more traditional businesses, e-commerce brands, D2C, etc. if they've previously thought about hiring a designer, and what the impact might've been for their business. I'm mostly asking since I'm not 100% sure I want to go down the "design partner for startups" route since I think it's 1) harder to scale the business that way because startups often have lots of design needs and 2) longer development/customer feedback cycles, and I think there are a lot of other more traditional businesses that are overlooking design/brand.
Thanks for any input!