Agency work vs product work: a designer’s confessions

I started Moze way back in “distant” 2012. Over the years, we’ve focused on developing web and mobile software, working with entrepreneurs and growing companies to build their digital products, create their brand identities, and design their websites.

In the summer of 2023, we decided to start building our own product: Hellotime. We focused on a problem we knew inside out: scheduling agency staff on projects—it’s perfect for anyone who deals with clients daily and needs to keep track of the team’s workload, who’s doing what, how long they’re doing it, and when it needs to be done by.

After a year spent working on our product, I can finally share some reflections on some surprising truths I’ve learned, experienced from the dual perspective of a designer and an agency owner. Let’s dive into it below:

1. Put simply, you are the worst client you could ever have
2. Quit Figma
3. Research is dead, long live research!
4. Blaming others is no longer my alibi
5. Marketing and I are cool now
Bonus-keep-having-fun
In summary

1. Put simply, you are the worst client you could ever have

Anyone who’s worked in an agency gets it—you might grumble about clients and their demands. But when you’re working on your own thing, you find out you’re actually the toughest client you have. I’m all over the place: super picky and detail-oriented, yet sometimes lazy and messy. My team sees the whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act. You end up realizing you do all the stuff you found annoying in clients, maybe even worse.

Like, I’m the guy who shows up two minutes before we launch a new feature—while the developer’s all set to deploy—and I ask to tweak the opacity of a block from 0.06 to 0.08. The look on his face says it all. It’s a real eye-opener, makes you see clients and challenges in a new light.

Lesson number one: always stay patient, even if the requests from clients or other stakeholders seem random and last-minute.

2. Quit Figma

We designers tend to be detail-oriented and precise, always aiming to create the best software and the most comprehensive solutions for our users; sometimes, we get carried away and load our proposals with features and complexity.

However, when you’re working on your own project, you realize this approach just doesn’t cut it. You have to face reality: the challenges, the budget, the limited time, and above all, the unknowns. You can’t be sure if what you’ve envisioned will truly serve your users. My advice is to “step out of Figma,” which means not becoming a slave to any one tool, but rather staying connected to reality, to the real demands of budget and technical feasibility—working in a lean and iterative way, and ironically trying to do the bare minimum.

The designer’s perspective shifts: don’t design the most complete solution, but what is really needed. Stay in Figma just long enough to show something to users and see if it has value.

I admit: Hellotime is in beta, and I still get annoyed when I log in and find disabled inputs or that changing your password requires sending us an email. But you realize that some details, in a product starting from scratch, are secondary compared to the big foundational product hypotheses.

Lesson number two: don’t try to create the most complete and complex solution, but focus on what really matters.

3. Research is dead, long live research!

Fortunately, User Research practices have become an integral part of design, and you’re no longer seen as an alien if you suggest them to a client or in a company. Everyone understands that research is essential for understanding people’s needs and requirements. However, the old saying holds true: research is not a product, but a process. By this, I mean that research activity isn’t something you can do just once; it’s not a one-off task within a project: do a bit of research at the start, some validation later on, then present a nice final report.

For me, this approach doesn’t work.

The real change came when we adopted a more pragmatic, direct, and impactful approach, where research is a constant in design. Every day we talk with our users, understand their needs and problems, to better identify our Ideal Customer Profile. For example, we try to understand why those who do not use the product encountered problems and what led them to not choose our solution, identifying the essential Jobs for the software adoption.

Lesson number three: run research activities frequently and consistently. Less reporting and more substance!

4. Blaming others is no longer my alibi

It’s a classic move: blaming someone else. “But the client didn’t give me the content, the SEO agency is late with the analysis, the developer didn’t do this, my colleague didn’t do that.” It’s a psychological technique to keep peace of mind. However, when you’re working on your own thing, you realize that this isn’t possible. All the problems, the complexity, everything that comes up needs to be managed, and you have to do it the best you can. You can’t blame anyone else.

The only way to do well is to have people you trust, with whom you can collaborate, based on trust, where every team member has their own responsibility. It’s important to define roles within a team, roles that need to be clear right from the start, even when you’re starting up or launching a new product.

Lesson number four: define roles, but be ready to roll up your sleeves and lend a hand.

5. Marketing and I are cool now

I’ll be honest, I got into product design to steer clear of the marketing world. I was never a fan of the busy marketing offices, crunching numbers, analyzing data, and figuring out how to sell a product. I kept my distance, cautiously. But working on my own product, I’ve realized just how central marketing is. No digital product can exist without it, because it’s what brings your product to the people, helps you understand who they are, their needs, and so on.

For instance, when my team now hits me up with: “Could you whip up a quick image for our latest blog post?” I used to groan internally and put it off till late Friday evening.

Now, I jump on it immediately, and honestly, I’m all smiles. It’s surprising because I see that everything you do, from the biggest task to that last-minute image, helps keep the wheels turning, pushing things forward, making it all come alive.

Lesson number five: even those areas like marketing, which might seem murky and far-off to a designer, are actually crucial to a product’s success.

Bonus: keep having fun

It sounds cliché, but it’s essential. We need to have fun and do what we love, and the only way to do that is by creating something beautiful and positive that has an impact and value for our users. Most importantly, the relationships with the people you work with are at the heart of everything. The real value lies in the relationships you build.

In summary

In the end, I’ve almost come to make peace with myself, between my consultant self and my startup self. Working on our own product has allowed me to learn many things that have improved, and are still improving, my relationships with my clients, my team, and the projects I handle as a consultant. Today, I feel like I’m better, both as a designer working for Moze’s clients and as a designer working on our own product, Hellotime.