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If your income stops the day you stop working, you don't have a business. You have a job you gave yourself with a cooler title.
I run a my studio. I LOVE the work. But last year I looked at my numbers and realized that I was the ceiling. More money = more me and that it's a trap. [1/5]
I agree, and it hits harder in the late game.
I looked at my project folders and realized I was sitting on a literal goldmine I've been ignoring.
Every client engagement, I was building positioning frameworks, naming systems, strategy templates and real stuff that actually works. Then I'd deliver, close the project, and...
So now I think about income in layers:
Client work is still the core, probably always will be. But I'm also packaging the actual tools I use on real engagements as templates. Building guides that teach the strategic thinking, not just the design tricks. And shifting to fixed...
The thing I wish someone told me earlier is your client work IS product development. You just don't see it that way yet.
The brand positioning doc I build for a client? Template. That process I've run 30+ times? Course. That deliverable structure I keep reusing? Product.
I've...
I haven't figured it all out. I'm just sharing what I'm about to do. But the timing couldn't be better. Contra just rolled out product selling, so now the same platform where I find clients is also where I can sell templates, frameworks, courses, and guides. Plus instant...
this hits hard bro, feel the same, this is the year when we start diversifying and have our experience work 24/7 as a productized asset 🔥
Thanks bro. Now I just need to figure out how I map out the products haha
This is something I want to focus on, moving away from my business making money only when I work. Thanks for sharing this.
happy to help :)
That shift from operator to architect is everything. When the business stops depending on you, that’s when real leverage begins.
very true
Can't wait to see how that unfolds what main direction you take to scale inifinitly!
this hits so hard, this year i am focused so much on positioning and building my own design studio. making money outside of work is key
glad it resonated
This hit hard. "You don't have a business, you have a job you gave yourself a cooler title" is one of the most honest things I've read. The ceiling realization is real — and recognizing it is the first step to building systems that actually scale without you.
the sooner you understand it the better
Thank you, Daniel, for sharing this. It’ll motivate a lot of people to create products.
Maybe I could help
Yess, this is exactly it! We already built all these systems to help us work better. But right now they're just docs and templates sitting in a Google Docs file or Notion board.
Meanwhile others just starting out are figuring out how to grow and become better. Why not turn it into a win=win situation?
Exactly you exactly understood my point
great insights and learnings. thanks for sharing
Thank you
wow that nice
Yep — that line hits hard. I love running my studio too, but realizing ‘more revenue = more of me’ was the same wake-up call. The work is fun… the ceiling isn’t. Curious what you started changing first to break the bottleneck — offers, systems, or hiring?
I started trusting other people, and using my own mind is the creative while letting other people help me
This is one way to do it! The way I do it is i still focus hard on delivering the best consultancy / design work, and just invest anything i earn in either property or ETF. With the understanding that time is limited, templating and products is not the only way to passive income!
That's the way
Gotta bookmark, print and frame this up on my wall for reminders why i do what i do. Thank you Daniel, keep on going!
I'll make sure to post something similar every once in a while to remind you!
Great man
Delegation
I used to run a website company in the UK, I had 200+ clients and was wordpressing websites all day. I had no time, just more clients and more requests to add webforms, move icons, and all this I also outsourced but still had to manage. I sold the business and took a year off...
you have to mitigate, or you'll crush down HARD
Amazing Work
Thanks for sharing this sir! It'll be important to read this again once I get there🙌
My pleasure
In the end, the one thing we can't recover is time lost. Best to make the most of every moment.
That’s right
The 🔑 is making money while you 💤
Haha exactly
Agree Daniel!
Well said Daniel 👍
This is really an eye-opener for me, glad i came across. It makes me realized how have been a ceiling to my earnings. Thank you for sharing this Daniel
This is the exact thing I am trying to crack right now. Your insights will surely be helpful.
Killer post and great insight! 🤘
Thanks brother
W!
I love your point on the power of passive income
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Related posts
Are you still managing tools… or building systems?
I’ve been consolidating my early-stage process inside @FLORA - exploration, concepting, prompt development, and visual creation all in one place.
Flora isn’t just an image generator - it’s an intelligent, node-based canvas where I can connect AI text generation (via ChatGPT) directly to image and video models inside the same workspace. No jumping between tabs.
What that looks like in practice:
• Explore text, image, and video models in one place
• Connect a text node directly to image/video nodes to generate + iterate instantly
• Refine prompts, edit visuals, swap elements, build scenes layer by layer.
The shift?
Centralizing AI doesn’t just save time - it protects creative momentum.
Check out my Ai workflow below:
Today I'm celebrating the businessiversary...
My labour of love: Studio Ayl turns 4 this month 🥳
Forgive the cliché but time DOES fly when you're having fun!
Four years ago this was just me, a laptop, and a very loose idea of “making design more human.”
Today it’s a studio, a community, and a body of work I’m really proud of.
✔️ Crossing 5K on Contra
✔️ Mentoring creatives around the world with adplist.org
✔️ Building a community of freelance creators in Barcelona who support each other
Alongside the client work, all the bits in the middle feel like the real growth: strengthening my values, showing up consistently, trusting myself, and being there for people over time.
Thank you for being part of my journey! I'm so eternally grateful.
The gap between "freelancer who does great work" and "freelancer who builds something that compounds" isn't talent.
It's not marketing either.
It's just not deleting the thing you already made.
I spent years rebuilding the same frameworks from scratch on every client project. Same positioning docs. Same guidelines structure. Same strategy templates. Delivered, closed, forgot, repeated.
Last week I finally packaged all of it.
Wrote about why it took me this long in this week's BRIGHT Method.
linkedin.com
Your Client Work Is Already a Product. You Just Keep Deleting It.
I had a bit of a moment last week. I was going through old project folders — brand strategies, positioning docs, naming frameworks, guidelines decks — and it hit me how dumb I’d been.
Such a sharp way to frame this.
Took me a while to realize how much valuable work I was ‘resetting’ instead of compounding.
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