What Have I Learned This Far?

0:00Janne Parri: Hello guys, another week and another episode, but today I do not have a guest. Yeah, it's a gap week, but it's a great opportunity to reflect on what I have learned this far. So, yeah, I'm going to go through some topics if you want to check those out, check the timestamps in the description. And yeah, I recorded about an hour of footage. I deleted the fluff and now there's about half an hour. if you're that kind of person who listens to 2x the normal speed, you're going to blast through this one quickly, but hopefully there's some nuggets of wisdom for you, too.

0:44Janne Parri: But enough yapping. Here you go. Okay, Janne, have you learned anything from the few episodes you have made this far? Well, Janne, of course I have. Yeah, this is a mono episode. And the first topic I'd like to visit is getting the first client. And before the old-timers, the more experienced ones leave the call so to speak, I believe that this first client challenge comes up again and again throughout one's career. So it might be the first ever client, it might be the first let's say 10k clients.

1:18Janne Parri: It might be the first well Webflow client or retainer client, enterprise client. So it's the challenge all over again and again. Yeah. And I myself have this challenge right now when I'm trying to get like a proper international client. And yeah, if we dissect this thing to little pieces, you are trying to do something that you have not yet done and you're trying to of course usually get paid for that thing.

1:51Janne Parri: So what I have learned this is something that I have learned through the episodes but also from my past is that of course the trust is the main part. So does the person you're selling your service for the first time trust you? Actually do they know that you are doing this for the first time and do they have a reason to go with you beyond the trust. So of course trust we can work on if you have past work maybe a bit different work but past work that you have done successfully that's one thing.

2:31Janne Parri: Then if you have projects, let's say dummy projects that you can show that okay, although I haven't had any paying clients, I do know how to do this. That's one thing. And then there's all the certifications and quotes and refer referrals of course that you can use. But if you have like the trust, there usually needs to be some sort of reason for the client to choose you.

2:59Janne Parri: Let's say I want to have a American Webflow client. So I have done multiple Webflow projects. I have done quite cool projects. My portfolio is filled. But of course there's competition and if you are a client in the Americas, why would you choose a person like me? There can of course be reasons. For example, I could be specialized in the field that you are on. Or you might want to do a site that is targeted to Finland where I'm right now at.

3:34Janne Parri: Of course, the easy one is the price. You could like lowball the offer, but I believe none of us wants to do that. And there might be some other reasons like I could be a friend of the client and yeah all sorts of thing things but you kind of have to like find found find a reason for that and this brings me to the other topic. I have interviewed designers, developers here and I think that usually they are somewhat specialized at least they are either clearly developers or designers.

4:17Janne Parri: Of course there's there are some that do both like I'm currently doing. I am actively thinking that should I go all into development? Some days I'm thinking the same thing with the design. But yeah, usually people tend to do one or the other. Of course, there might be some sort of survival ship bias to be to get recognition. You kind of have to pick your lane. But that's one thing.

4:50Janne Parri: One common trait among my guests is of course that they are good at their craft. But as I said, the craft might be quite narrow. So it might be like animations like with Maria design with Benten and Ethan. It might be developments like with Y and Samuel. So but on top of that the folks are usually quite good communicators both inside and outside. What do I mean by that?

5:22Janne Parri: So they are good with internal communications. I don't mean that with your thoughts. So I mean that if you have a team internal team in a company or in an agency you usually communicate well you communicate with within the project with the client. You keep the client happy and connected to the project. These people are usually good also communicating outside the project. And by that I mean like in social media they are usually quite heavy content creators.

5:55Janne Parri: Well heavy even like Twitter posts and LinkedIn text posts those can get quite much fraction in themselves but you need to kind of know the game kind of know what you are writing. So communication is often times the one skill that can multiply your other skills and some might even say that it is more important than the actual craft. Some designers, some Webflow folks might not be as talented as you, but if they are good communicators, they somehow find more success because of that.

6:34Janne Parri: Yeah. Another common thing with my guests have been that actually they have quite simple portfolios. Not by like effects. I mean that many of them like Ethan, Félix, Maria, Benten, they basically have like this one pager. Well, maybe it's one or two subpages, but the main thing is on a one page and there's of course multiple reasons for this. Firstly, it's way easier to produce and m maintain and usually everything can be shown on a one page and especially if you have like effects heavy animationheavy sites, you cannot do that through multiple pages.

7:19Janne Parri: But [clears throat] you might know that one pages are not great for search engine optimization. And I believe that freelancers are not like that big on SEO. They are usually big on referrals like Ethan and Benten mentioned that they have like good referral network and they have been actively and intentionally building those and when you're working alone well Benten has a studio or actually an agency and Ethan also has a studio so they are not specifically working alone but anyway like freelancers do not need that many clients so a good referral al network which might be just couple of good individuals can be a huge resource and I'm actually thinking that I might want to build something like this but my connections are quite limited to Finland of course well I have I have met all of these guests but I have not yet worked with them so it would be a big ask for me to ask, "Hey, why don't we do something together?" Well, of course, if I had a project and I would be paying them, that might be actually a good way to build the network.

8:43Janne Parri: Okay. there are a couple of things that I have noticed about the guests. Couple more things I would say. many of the guests are actively participating in the community and many of them have some sort of like community projects. So let's say Corey has the framework Mast. Maria is active on Fluxies Benten has the footer gallery Sebastian has nocode.lat, L-A-T, I mean so in a way they are contributing back to the community and they are active on in that and if we want to dissect that a little bit of course there are like the side projects like the footer galleries and frameworks that might not be like community focused, but they get the person, the author, the maker noticed.

9:40Janne Parri: And it's so cool or so easy to do an intro and just list that. Okay, he has done this and this and this and people if they are like things that people recognize, it's a easy way to do an introduction for me but for themselves too. So I'm a person at this company or I'm a freelancer and on top of that I have done this. So that gets you recognized and it's a good thing for the community also.

10:13Janne Parri: One thing that is clear to me that these people are always more like thinkers than just implementers. Even if one is a developer like sticks to the code, I feel that high-performing developers are also like thinkers. So they need to think about the architecture and how the app or website will evolve in the future, what the client needs and so on. So they are thinking of the bigger picture and I have been long thinking of this theory that technical implementation like the coding in the case of websites that is somewhat easy to outsource but the thinking behind a good website that is something that cannot be done by anybody.

11:05Janne Parri: Maybe the value lies more in the design and planning phase. Of course, ideas are easy, but you kind of have to back up the ideas with research, with concepting and so on. So, so I believe that design is something that cannot be like skipped when building websites. That might be obvious but nowadays when AI is doing everything and doing the heavy lifting for many of us people are talking that will AI replace developers will it replace designers.

11:43Janne Parri: I think that AI will do a lot of heavy lifting for us, but we still need to do a lot of that planning and bigger picture thing like AI is good at well doing the heavy lifting but we have to start and give the context and then finalize the thing. So if all goes well the AI will let us do just like the bigger picture thing maybe the strategy part and the human parts where we want to have the human connection.

12:25Janne Parri: So let's say we are building a website. The AI can like do some research as ground about the end user and we just provide the context. We provide that these are the requirements. The AI can do wireframes if we want to do those. It can start building the design in Figma. But we just act as some sort of art director. And when we step into the development, okay, AI can again do the heavy lifting, do the pages, maybe even the sections and we are there just to manage and see that it all works well and it is done by high standards.

13:08Janne Parri: Yeah, that would be cool. But again to emphasize if you're doing just the development part and not like using your brain just coding something asking for comments and doing the changes that is basically what AI already does. So we kind of have to be more pro proactive and be more out there think the bigger picture and that kind of gets us to what is the bigger picture of you specifically or me.

13:41Janne Parri: So the age-old specializing question actually my talk with Maria gave me a new way of looking at this. So maybe the special specialization should not be thought as a to-do list item that you have to do at the specific point. Maybe you should be more flexible with the specialization and see if one finds you. So aim your focus on the things that interest you that excite you and that way the decision can be like made for you.

14:20Janne Parri: Of course you kind of want to add some thought to it. So sometimes we are just not presented the opportunities for every specialization and we want to do something about it. But for many of us, we are already quite specialized. For me, example, well, Webflow is one thing and Finland is another thing. And those are actually fine. I love Webflow. I love Finland. I'm not going to change my nationality. But of course, there are things that I need to work on.

14:53Janne Parri: For example, I do not want to be limited by the borders of Finland. And maybe someday there might be something that happens to Webflow and I might need to change the platform. I can like I can like productively aim to get clients out outside of finish borders and maybe I focus on certain types of workflow projects and the Finnishness will be there. It's part of my personal brand and I want to make it work so that it does not limit me.

15:25Janne Parri: It just emphasizes me if you will. Just before this recording, I had a meeting with a potential client and well, it was kind of this sales meeting that they wanted to see me and see my work and talk about the potential project. And of course, they asked that by me if I have five Webflow developers or designers why I should pick you, Yan.

15:54Janne Parri: And yeah that is a good question and I wish I had more clear answer. I basically answered that I have a lot of experience. I do like good work meaning quality work. I design with a good eye and I develop with a clear and organized structure. But on top of that I find it hard to hard to like articulate what makes me special. The one thing that might make me special is that I'm very patient.

16:26Janne Parri: So if there is a client that wants to do a couple of revisions, leaves a lot of comments, that is fine by me. And I think that is actually better. Of course, I will say if there is like make the logo bigger and it's already taking 50% of the viewport. So I might say that yeah, that's not a good idea. But anyway, that might be my like unique selling proposition.

16:57Janne Parri: Is it is it that I don't know but I'll have to work on that. And part of the specialization is of course the positioning and in this world we are working very specialized roles. So weblo in itself is quite narrow specialization. But when we are on a global level, there's plenty of us. And if of course there's plenty of work out there, but we kind of need to find our own little part of the world.

17:33Janne Parri: Okay. Okay. The one thing that I realized in these episodes that my problem with the Finnish borders and my goal to get more international clients is basically a problem that my guests do not share. Like many of them were like born global. they were a part of some sort of English speaking community and they just started getting projects all over the English speaking world and yeah I'm kind of envious about that but I cannot change my past and I like also like my past so my problem is that I'm from Finland my old site is in Finnish I have a little English site that I need to update and Now I'm kind of trying to get more inter international clients at the same time while maintaining the Finnish clients.

18:26Janne Parri: Well, I love the Finnish clients. I do not ever want to stop doing websites for Finns. There's there are some cool people in here and some cool projects, but of course I want to broaden the scope. Yeah, it's challenging. It's mainly because of my lack of time that I haven't updated the site. That is like the first step. Well, maybe the podcast, this podcast is the first step and being like the big bigger part of the community, not bigger like just being a part of the English speaking community, getting out there.

19:06Janne Parri: In the past, I got quite a few clients from Finnish search results and that serves me still to this day. But now I believe when going to the English speaking market the competition in the search engine field is on another level and then there's AI overviews and all sorts of things. So I believe I kind of have to carve out a new channel or new way of getting clients and of course social media is a part of that and I'm trying to trying to be more active there too.

19:41Janne Parri: But I would love to hear if there is someone out there that has the same problem that they are kind of somehow organically defined to a specific location and you want to like break that mold do projects around bigger area and nowadays with the internet that is of course possible but you just have to have to find the clients. Yeah, I'm just thinking that how am I going to do this so that I do not turn my back to the Finnish clients that have supported me.

20:17Janne Parri: And of course, there are still clients coming in from the old site. Well, actually, I have two sides. So, I have my Finnish site and my English site separately. So, I will probably update the English one and then see what I will do with the Finnish one because for the longest time I didn't want to change the Finnish site because it is performing still quite well in the search results. So, that is almost a barrier for me right now.

20:49Janne Parri: And there's a there's a bunch of sites like subpages, landing pages on that site. So I cannot just like update the first page because I want to do a quite big visual change. Yeah. Okay. There's at least one more topic. So if you if your business is going well, you get clients and so on. So where are you like growing or what direction are you growing to as a web designer or developer?

21:23Janne Parri: So, of course, the first thing is to do the work like full-time and eventually if you get to that point, you are you're starting to think what is like the next step. Firstly, there is this like comparison employee versus freelancer. So are you employee in some agency let's say which can be quite awesome depending of course on the agency and many of us like me or freelancers that can be totally cool too.

21:56Janne Parri: Of course the employees get to focus they do not need to think about sales or things like management or accounting or anything like that but the freelancers get to decide what they work. they are kind of their own bosses and yeah of course there are types of people some choose the employee route because it suits them better times I feel that oh I wish I could be a employee but then again all the freedom that I have received from freelancing it would be hard for me to change back to being an employee and freelancing when one gets freelancing working.

22:41Janne Parri: That is again, as I said, totally awesome. You get the freedom and all the projects that you do, they feel like your own. I could do like the same sorts of projects in an agency, but it kind of feels that there's a middleman there. So, the motivation to work is different, although the work can be totally same. But yeah, I'm not judging either one of this. I'm a freelancer but I constantly think that okay what is the next step?

23:12Janne Parri: How can I like progress on my career if I do not want to change my employment status which brings us to the freelancing versus agency comparison. Of course the agency thing is a somewhat natural progression. You get a lot of inquiries, a lot of leads with an agency. You get to grow your revenue. You build something bigger than yourself. You get employees and you get multiple projects going on the same time.

23:46Janne Parri: And yeah, if you just want to build a big company, that's the way to go. But if you do some soularching, you might find that okay, building a bigger company in itself might not be your goal. When you build an agency, of course, your role as the CEO, CEO or whatever will change from being a freelancer, you are managing people. You're doing the sales and all sorts of things. You might not be working in Figma or Webflow anymore.

24:18Janne Parri: And that might be your goal. the big company might be the thing you want to do, but you just need to be clear that is something that you want to do, not something that everyone else seems somehow valuable. And yeah, but if you are a freelancer, you can still grow. You can try to grow the quality of your projects and clients. So get it get yourself into bigger projects. That's quite natural progression when you when you improve your work when you get referrals and so on.

24:57Janne Parri: But of course you are just one person. So at some point you kind of have to be a part of the team but that does not mean that you have to build the team yourself. You can be a part of let's say some agency team that outsources a part of the project. Quite many agencies like to do that because they might not have like enough work for a permanent employee and that way you kind of get best of both worlds. So if you like to do the actual thing the let's say design work or development work you get to be a part of a team and you get the freedom.

25:37Janne Parri: This is actually something that I thought when I was talking to Benten because Benten explained how their team works. They have four person team in Noon. I thought that it would be awesome to be a part of some sort of project that is bigger like just yourself. I have been a part of projects like that. They usually involve something like branding or some other aspect of the project. I would love to be a part of a team that does just the website and there would be multiple people in that website team.

26:13Janne Parri: Yeah. Then there's of course something between being a freelancer and an agency. Many people like build studios if you may. For the longest time I thought that studio is just another name for an agency. But I believe people think that it's more like a small boutique well group of people if you may. Many studios might just have the entrepreneur and couple of trusted contractors and they just want to differentiate the studio entity from their personal brand and try to like well appear bigger than just one person.

26:53Janne Parri: And often times the studio is where to go if you kind of do not want to build a full-blown agency, but you kind of want to target bigger projects like the actual clients. You need more people on your projects. Studios are cool. And of course, there's multiple ways you can like just have a one person running it and contractors. You might build a group, some sort of community around the studio or even call it some sort of group.

27:25Janne Parri: This probably a good term for that. Like creative people that do things together and that is like the entity. But of course, there's still more paths. If we think of a web designer or web developer, those are like the usual stuff with client work. If we zoom out a bit, there's of course the content creator path. Not by any means easy, but there is the content creator path. You can be a teacher educator, which pairs quite well with the content creator.

28:01Janne Parri: Some people end up managing like communities again usually relating to content or teaching or both. But there are people like in big companies like Webflow and Zapier and all the other companies that their full-time job is to manage the community. It might be like partner community. It might be the general community around the around the tool and usually those folks too are users of that tool. They have the past that they have been they have been the users and now they have progressed to a point that they are like doing the community stuff.

28:43Janne Parri: Then there's all sorts of things like template builders and you could build your own digital products and all sorts of things but many times those things are a way to escape the client's work. So if you do not like the client's work, you might have bad clients or you might be selling yourself short. I mean that you should raise your prices so that you do not resent the work that you are getting. And yeah, that's it.

29:12Janne Parri: Digital product or community, some sort of template can be total totally viable extra income earning assets. But yeah, there's a bunch of ways to grow as a web designer or developer. I'm telling this to myself constantly. Just like think what you really want to do and try not to think what other people are doing or what the society values because the value is often times money.

29:44Janne Parri: And yeah, of course you need money to some points, but if you base your every decision on money, you might end up in a weird place where you hate your work. Okay, I want to spend a little time talking about the future of this podcast. So, if you have listened to this point, you have probably listened to some episodes before this. And I'm very grateful for you to giving me your precious time. It is totally awesome that you are listening to this.

30:15Janne Parri: And my goal right now is to keep my consistency going. You might have noticed that I have been quite consistently uploading an episode every Monday for a couple of weeks and I want to keep that going. I have a bunch of great guests already scheduled and I work on a weekly cadence, but I will have a Christmas break because you have to take a break every now and then and Christmas is awesome obviously.

30:52Janne Parri: But I am also planning to update my brand. You have probably seen that well all the thumbnails and my site is a bit all over the place and yeah I want to update it make it more consistent and make it cool. I have been planning that for a while. I have made some progression with that but it takes a lot of work but I wish that it will be ready before 2026.

31:23Janne Parri: So maybe before Christmas hopefully or then I might do a launch at the start of the new year. But again, I want to thank you for being already here at the start of this podcast journey. And yeah, if you have any feedback, any suggestions, just leave them in the comments. But for now, I will let you get back to your other things. And hopefully you will hear from me next week or maybe even before that. That's all.