Everyday Empires: Saron Yitbarek of Not a Designer
A non-designer who designs, Saron is sharing what she learns and building a venture along the way
Welcome back to Everyday Empires, your weekly interview series spotlighting everyday founders. Today, we're sharing the story of Saron Yitbarek and her venture, Not a Designer.
Saron recently redesigned The Storygraph, an upstart competitor to Goodreads. You’d never know it, but her background is actually in engineering, not design. As a non-designer who designs, she just launched Not a Designer, which is already helping thousands learn to design. Follow her @saronyitbarek on X.
Hi Saron, thanks for being on Everyday Empires! To kick us off, can you give us an elevator pitch for Not a Designer?
Not A Designer offers design bites for devs. Design is a super powerful skill to have, but most developers don't know how to design and find it intimidating. We're making design accessible so developers can build better, and more beautiful, products.
Where’d the idea come from and what motivated you to move forward with it?
I've always loved design and had to do a lot of it for different product ideas over the years, but I've never been trained as a designer. This is my way of leveling up and sharing what I learn as I learn it.
How’d you find your first subscribers? Where has growth come from since?
I have a personal newsletter of about 500 people where I give occasional, personal and professional updates. My first 100 subscribers came from that newsletter. The rest came mostly from Twitter, I have a decent following there, and people sharing the newsletter. I had a great spike over the new year where over 1K subscribed and that was from one popular person sharing it on Twitter and on Mastodon!
Do you have a vision for Not a Designer? Is there an ideal outcome you’re working toward?
I want this to be a revenue-generating side hustle. I'd love to have a combination of sponsors, courses, maybe even a book one day! If I can help developers get more comfortable with design and also make money from it, that would be amazing.
It seems like you have your hands in a few ventures. What does a typical day look like for you?
A mess lol. Most of my days are working on my startup, evenings are for my incredible daughter, and nights are for Not A Designer. Throughout the week, I also do my best to incorporate self care, which includes therapy and exercising. I feel like I'm still figuring out a good system for getting it all done but I'm doing my best!
I saw you’re launching Big Cash Money 2024 (love the name!), a free support and accountability group for entrepreneurs. Can you tell us more about that and why you’re launching it?
Sure! At the end of last year, I decided that I wanted to take my speaking career and Not A Designer more seriously. I wanted to increase my personal revenue from different streams of income and realized that there are actually a ton of other people doing the same thing -- many of them were friends! I'm hoping to build a tool for people like me and wanted a way to both help folks reach their goals and also get to know them better, so I came up with Big Cash Money 2024. It's a small group of just 35 people and applications close Jan 12, so get yours in!
Editor’s note: I love what Saron is doing with Big Cash Money 2024. I started Everyday Empires with a mission to inspire folks to start a business of their own. BCM2024 is directly aligned with that goal, as the purpose of the group is to help folks with a side hustle or business make significant progress toward their revenue goals this year.
It’s also worth noting that BCM2024 is totally free. Saron breaks down how she’s able to do this (and why) over on bigcashmoney2024.com.
What’s the best piece of advice you could give to someone who might want to launch their own newsletter this year?
There's no silver bullet for growth. The good thing is, there are tons of things to try and you can attempt it as many times as you'd like, and it takes a lot of attempts! Don't be afraid to put yourself out there, always be talking about your newsletter, and always be marketing. You never know what retweet moves the needle.
Before we wrap, is there anything about your journey we haven’t covered that you’d like readers to know?
I'm bipolar and I'm pretty open about my mental health. I take medication and go to therapy and they help a ton, but the bad days suck and the manic days are super annoying. No matter how good things look on the outside, you never really know what someone's really going through. I'm very grateful to have things under control most days, but sometimes it's overwhelming and I just have to get through it. I think the more open and honest we are about our mental health journeys, the less alone people suffering will feel, so I try to be open about mine. If you're struggling, I hope you know that you're not alone ♥️
Lastly, where should readers follow you if they want to keep up with you?
The best place to follow me is my twitter: @saronyitbarek. And if you have any design topics you'd like me to cover, my DMs are open!
That’s a wrap
A massive shoutout to Saron for sharing a glimpse into her journey! If you enjoyed this issue of Everyday Empires please click the “like” button below.
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Until next week,