The Story
Brett Williams is the highest-paid solopreneur on the internet, making over $1.8 million per year with DesignJoy - a productized design service. He has zero employees, zero contractors, and only works 6 hours a day.
Brett started as a graphic designer working a normal 9-to-5, doing landing pages, logos, and brand designs. One day he came across a subscription service offering "unlimited graphic design" for businesses - charging a recurring flat fee instead of per project. He decided to do the same thing, but as a one-man operation.
12 hours and $29 later, Brett put up a simple landing page. Within 24 hours, he got his first paying client. The secret? He grossly undercharged at $449/month for unlimited design requests. This got him in the door, let him put in thousands of reps, and eventually turned him into a world-class designer.
Key Insights
The 5-Step Playbook
Step 1: Demand-Based Pricing
- •Started at $449/month (too good to be true)
- •Got first customer in less than 24 hours
- •Put ego aside to get reps, even working basically for free
- •As demand increased, raised prices: $449 → $1,000 → $3,000 → $5,000 → $8,000/month
- •Now only needs 16 clients at $5K/month to make ~$1M/year
Step 2: Boundaries
- •Clients must submit requests asynchronously via Trello board
- •Clients can only have ONE design request at a time
- •No calls, no meetings - all requests in writing
- •Clients spend more time fleshing out requests = fewer requests overall
- •Protects his precious time so he can focus on creating
Step 3: The $5,000 Client
- •$500 clients: cheap, waste time, ask for refunds, don't make money
- •$5,000 clients: rich, won't bother you, always pay, don't churn after 1 month
- •Target businesses that see $5K/month as a steal compared to alternatives:
- •Hiring a $200K/year designer
- •Paying $30-40K for a fancy agency
- •Sorting through thousands on Upwork/Fiverr
Step 4: High Demand, Low Touch
- •Website design is HIGH IMPACT (first impression, conversion rates)
- •Website design is LOW TOUCH (build once, don't touch for a while)
- •Brett can turn around a world-class landing page in a couple hours
- •Almost zero dollar expenses as a solopreneur
Step 5: Build Once, Sell Forever
- •Created "Scribbles" - downloadable templates for $4.99 (25,000+ downloads)
- •Created "Productize Yourself" course teaching others to start productized services
- •Info products now make up 29% of his income
- •Doesn't have to trade hours for these dollars
The Math
- •16 clients × $5,000/month = $80K/month = ~$1M/year
- •Plus info products = $1.8M/year total
- •6 hours of work per day
- •Zero employees
Key Advice
"Put your ego aside so you can put in thousands of reps. These reps are the ones that eventually turn you into world-class. Your niche starts to notice, your services become more in demand, and when demand increases - you raise your prices."