Darshan Gajara – Freelance, Personal Branding and Side Projects – Whiteboard.fm #020

In this episode, we speak to Darshan Gajara. He is a Product Designer, Product Maker and has remote working experience of more than 3 years. He is currently working as a Senior Product Designer at GraphCMS in Berlin and is the Founder of Product Disrupt. #founder #producthunt

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❓⏰ Questions:

Your story

0:00 Introduction

02:45 How did you get started in design?

Freelancing and Remote Work

05:34  How did you make the transition from full-time work to full time freelancing?

08:14 What are the key differences between being a freelancer, working remotely, and being a consultant?

13:00 What are the responsibilities when working as a consultant? 

14:33 When should designers consider freelancing as a full-time option?

18:10 What do you feel about the current freelance space as compared to when you were starting off?

20:35 How do you feel Covid-19 is going to affect remote work?

Personal Branding

23:30 Do you feel that everyone should have a personal brand?

24:08 What is the purpose of a personal brand according to you?

25:48 What does a personal brand consist of?

27:02 What are the expectation vs realities of building a personal brand?

29:17 What was your approach in building your personal brand?

36:49 How can someone build their story and narrative?

40:47 Since “Mediums influence the message”, what kind of mediums do you feel are the best for aspirants to put worth their message?

Side Hustles

44:11 How was Product Disrupt created?

47:30 What is your criteria for featuring content on the Product Disrupt website and newsletters? 

52:23 What methods did you use for scaling up your projects and getting more reach?

55:30 What are some of the difficulties you faced while building and sustaining Product Disrupt?

59:10 How do you decide between working on new side hustles vs scaling up existing ones? 

01:02:26 How can beginners get over the fear of making their side projects public?

01:10:39 Can you tell us more about your book ‘How to crack the product design interview’ and when is it being made public?

Experiences and Learnings

01:17:12 In times when you’re feeling low, what do you do and what do you suggest your juniors should do?

01:20:32 What were your top 3 learnings from your design journey so far?

Sign off

01:24:29 What's something you wish you knew when you were starting off?

Product Disrupt: https://productdisrupt.com/

Darshan's website: https://darshangajara.com/

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