[HN Gopher] What I Learned When I Started a Design Studio (2011)
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       What I Learned When I Started a Design Studio (2011)
        
       Author : colinprince
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2026-03-13 21:45 UTC (4 days ago)
        
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       | fhd2 wrote:
       | A lot of this rings true for a development agency, in 2026:
       | 
       | > You cannot succeed in design services unless you really believe
       | in your clients and your client's products. Just as it's
       | essential to enjoy working with the people you form a company
       | with, working with clients that you like is essential too.
       | 
       | Yup. Otherwise you're just "implementing specifications", which
       | I'd argue is generally not the best form of collaboration.
       | 
       | > I've known lots of people who got into services thinking that
       | they can use the income from clients to bankroll their own
       | product ideas. That is not an impossible scenario -- it's been
       | done before more than a few times, and it's a beautiful thing
       | when it happens. But it's very, very difficult to pull off. To do
       | services, you need to wake up in the morning with a different
       | approach to life from the way you wake up in the morning to do
       | products, and only a few people have the skill -- and stamina --
       | to juggle both at once.
       | 
       | Yup, I don't think anyone I know (and not myself either) pulled
       | this off. I bet many did, just from anecdotal evidence I'd
       | consider it rare, and subjectively, I agree that it's hard.
       | 
       | > Most clients, when they hire a design studio, take the attitude
       | that the studio is lucky to work with them, that they selected
       | them from a plentiful pool of design companies bidding on their
       | business. To many clients, design studios are, in a sense,
       | interchangeable. [...] This is a deadly position for a design
       | studio because it essentially commoditizes the studio's value.
       | 
       | Yup. If clients start comparing hourly rates, they are a) making
       | a rather meaningless comparison, looking only at a single factor
       | in a larger equation and b) going to try and haggle you down,
       | which is unpleasant for both sides.
       | 
       | I usually give a rough estimate of what I think it's gonna cost,
       | and then we talk about what _not_ to do and where to cut corners
       | to get it down to the ballpark of the budget, if needed.
       | 
       | That's not even all, but I have a feeling my comment shouldn't
       | end up exceeding TFA in length.
        
         | neilv wrote:
         | That commoditization already happened for software developers,
         | years ago. (Just look at the big-tech commodity worker
         | interview process that even startups now mimic.)
         | 
         | Kudos to design studios who can still avoid that, and shine as
         | unique talent.
        
           | fhd2 wrote:
           | Businesses naturally see their "suppliers" and "resources" as
           | exchangeable. And to a degree, they really are, at the end of
           | the day.
           | 
           | But it's still a non-trivial activity with long feedback
           | loops, that requires a level of expertise.
           | 
           | Making workers easily exchangeable requires processes that
           | ultimately underutilise their abilities, finding the lowest
           | common denominator. Some businesses clearly can and want to
           | afford that. Pretty much by definition, that leads to
           | mediocre work.
           | 
           | From what I gather, a good chunk, if not the majority of
           | agency work serves that particular need. But there's plenty
           | of clients out there that want something else. Like all of
           | mine.
        
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       (page generated 2026-03-17 23:01 UTC)