How Design Pickle Bootstrapped Its Way to $2 Million Revenue

Russ Perry is the founder of Design Pickle, a productized service that offers unlimited graphic design support for your day-to-day business needs for a flat monthly fee.

Design Pickle launched in January 2015. And in just two years, it's grown it into a business with 45 full-time staff and $160K on monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

Russ was running a creative agency but wasn't entirely happy with what he was doing. He thought that the agency business model was dysfunctional and he wanted to run a more predictable business. But he didn't have a clue what that business was going to be.

He made a list of what he wanted in his life, both personally and professionally. And he also started to get clear about what type of business he didn't want to build. And then he sat back and waited for inspiration, while he did consulting on the side to help pay the bills.

And a few weeks later, he had his ‘aha' moment. And it was a very simple idea. He decided to launch a design agency and used a ‘productized consulting' model — very similar to how pricing for a SaaS product works.

In 2 years, he's gone from zero to $160,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). That's almost $2M annual run rate (ARR). And he now has a team of 45 full-time employees.

It's an inspiring story, and he's an energetic and entertaining guy. I hope you enjoy this interview.