Damian | Product for Startups

Helping founders scale product led growth. ⚡

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@mattwensing @allgarbled Definitely loss the reviewer with “college” in the first sentence. Difficult error to overcome.

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

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[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

This week we cover the most recent layoffs, plus a look at how SMBs are gaining big advantages with AI.

🔥 Trending Tools: SEO Juice, Jupiterr, and Flowprompter
🏆 Top Story: Tech layoffs by Cisco, Eventbrite, and more
🔍 Deep Dive: How SMBs are gaining big advantages with AI
🍿 Damian Builds: Now offering Product Audits
🌐 Social Pulse: AI is like water

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@kodjima33 Congrats on the raise. If you need product people who are already building plugins hmu. So much potential to disrupt. Will continue building on the sdk!

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

Bumble’s downfall in plain english

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@jasoncfox Profit

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@akilikajunju @gumloop @make_hq @trueclassictees Template

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@ryanseanbadger You’re lying for engagement.

If you were being genuine you’d know the Head of Product shared the situation with the internet before he did.

[Brett @BrettFromDJ]

Yesterday's post blew up.

1.3 million views.

So here's an update, then I'm moving on:

1. I'm not super proud it went as viral as it did.

Obviously, I wanted to defend myself against defamatory claims made against me.

But the client didn't commit genocide against me.

For something like this to warrant such a reaction is surprising, to the extend the CEO's wife was allegedly receiving hateful messages from my supporters.

Why people care enough about my situation to go to such lengths seems crazy to me, but the internet is a wild place.

2. Why I shared this publicly to begin with.

I'm generally not a fan of airing things out on the internet.

What you might not know is a private message was sent from the CEO to his head designer about this matter immediately after I let them go.

It stated two falsehoods:

1. That they cancelled Designjoy.
2. That the work provided was "AI generated BS".

Both of these points were provably false, but the head designer decided to leak a screenshot of the message on Twitter in an effort to "out" Designjoy

Essentially making fun of me for being caught and fired.

I was made aware of the post by mutual follower, and noticed it had 15,000 views already, and counting.

So, I got my side of the story out the best way I knew how, as quickly as I could. Thank god I had a following.

Going public is the only way to defend such claims. I blocked the designer in question long ago for trolling me on Twitter, and he therefore had me blocked as well. For that reason, I couldn't simply reply to his tweet.

3. The leaker (aka head designer) has a history of hating Designjoy.

This is key here, and likely speaks to why I received the feedback I received.

Had I known of the connection (that someone on their team already strongly disliked Designjoy), I would have never taken their money.

Still unsure of how the CEO signed up for Designjoy despite his head of design being so against me. That part baffles me, and almost feels as if I was set up to fail from the get-go.

4. I believe the CEO acted in good faith the entire time.

Sure, the feedback he passed along from his design team does paint him as being severely tone-deaf in terms of how disrespectful such language is, but again, we aren't talking murder here.

Obviously, going behind my back and trashing me to his employee is a hard pill to swallow as well, but doing so in private is different than doing so in public.

Afterall, he personally made nothing public. His designer did, however.

Also, you have to know these things are going to happen. Everyone talks sh*t about everyone at one point or another. I'm certainly not naive to this.

To his credit, the head designer's post has been since removed.

5. Was the work actually AI generated?

Obviously not. I speak frequently on here about how terrible AI generated design work is.

The client had access to the Figma file the entire time and could easily see how the files were constructed.

The CEO later stated to me that it was an overstatement, and was more so disappointed in the design missing the mark generally.

I can accept that.

6. "Well, they do look AI generated hahaha".

First off, I don't take anyone seriously who can say this given how little was shared.

If anything, it shows you, too, have a biased against Designjoy.

But, the work shared with the client was nothing groundbreaking or award winning.

It was a handful of social media templates throw together quickly to see what the client thought of the direction.

The client contemplated whether or not they need to invest in a studio shoot for the product photography.

My intention was to spend 30 minutes mocking up concepts to prove it wasn't necessary.

This was stated in the original message.

These were never meant to be seen by the public, or be sold as production-ready designs.

This is quite literally the same process nearly every decent designer on planet earth goes through.

Of course the design wasn't jaw-dropping.

At the end of the day, these are concepts. Not anything meant for public consumption.

6. My final point.

Getting back to the very thing that started this entire debate.

The feedback.

You have to understand I receive an ungodly amount of feedback from Designjoy.

I'm a decent designer, but nearly everything I do requires at least some changes, and in some cases, many.

Working with as many clients as I have (500+ in the last 7 years), I'm a pretty flexible person to get along with.

I let go of my pride long ago when it comes to my work.

I put forward what I think is best, push back on anything I believe to be detrimental to conversion, but otherwise let the subjective things go and do what the client requests.

That's been my approach for years now.

But when the feedback isn't constructive/helpful, and instead, the first engagement I have with the client is nothing but downright demeaning and disrespectful, I end the engagement immediately.

I do so because I can afford to do so. That's always been my approach. Some might call it harsh.

But the mental energy I have to put towards a client like this when I have 20 others who provide constructive feedback is not even close to being worth it.

7. This is the last post I'll make about this situation.

I already feel it's gained way more attention than is warranted. At the end of the day, be kind to each other.

Most designers are willing to work with you if you're respectful, and you at least attempt to be helpful.

As designers, there's a million different directions we could go, and we're capable of going down any of them.

But we aren't mind readers, and design is a process.

Patience goes a long ways.

[manu @manuhortet]

almost anything that requires 1. mid level of creativity and/or 2. text processing, can be sped up having an llm around (no properly crafted products, literally just access to an llm). Think:

copy
content creation
litigation
legal research
data analysis & insights
anything documentation
personalized education
design ideation
financial modeling
translation services
scriptwriting
anything storytelling
anything having to process conversations with clients (legal, health, any sort of client interview)

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Outside of coding and customer service, what are areas where GenAI / LLMs result in very clear productivity gains or business gains, without a deterioration in the experience for customers?

These are two areas I currently see as "yeah, GenAI actually works here, not just a fad"

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@YamanJaiouch @isabella_patane @JellyIvy Isabella really out here trying to tell the internet not to buy domains 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@levelsio @levelsio]

Tiers of online entrepreneurship by challenge level (updated):

1. Consumer app millions use

2. Recurring SaaS business

3. One time payment business

4. Paid online community

5. Tools to start a business (eg boilerplate)

4. Book or ebook

5. Course

6. OnlyFans

7. Dropshipping

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@natiakourdadze Thanks. I was never able to share a public folder or shared drive, but I was able to manually open each document and publish it to the web.

If anyone has further advice, thank you in advance!

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@kodjima33 Hey Nick, what are the use cases for the programmable button?

Also, did I mess up my most recent pull request? I noticed it hasn’t updated yet.

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

Comments section exposing how out of touch people are in the design world. Use some brains cells to discern what a 24-hour mock looks like.

This is Day 1 value!

[Brett @BrettFromDJ]

Fired another client.

They signed up for the $5,000/m subscription.

24 hours later, I delivered several social templates including mockups of their products.

4 mins later I get this response. See ya. ✌️

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@nategraville @BrettFromDJ @dpmorris84 Egos are not a great look Nate.

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

The hands gestures are creepy and weird

[Linda Yaccarino @lindayaX]

A Message to X Users

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@natiakourdadze Is "Public on the web" now "Anyone with a link"?

Seems weird as the whole point is to drive SEO without the link in hand.

[Damian | Product for Startups @damianwolfgram]

@natiakourdadze I'm not able to create a Public Folder.

Does anyone know the secret or process?

The instructions on the internet show it as being in the sharing settings under advanced, but I don't have those options.

Help!