Chris Do is the CEO and Chief Strategist of Blind, as well as the Founder of The Futur. He is an Emmy Award-winning designer, strategist, and educator, where he oversees the creative and strategic direction of the company. Chris started his career based on his passion, Design. He worked at Epitaph Records as a designer and freelance designer at broadcast design firm, Cole & Weber, Seattle as an Art Director before forming Blind. Now, he is one of the richest graphic designers in the world, having made a fortune out of his career. Years later, he is building an agency that works with some of the biggest companies in the world. And after growing a successful agency, Chris Do is building something new: The Futur, the Art Center College of Design in Santa Monica, California, United States. It’s an educational platform to teach designers the art of running a business—and it’s taking off. His slogan is simple: “Loud introvert with a big mission: Teach 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.” He occasionally does webinars across the globe during pandemic period and sharing his passion. He empowers creatives through business strategy throughout our interview, and we’re excited to share his valuable insights. Here is what Chris answered to Pixellion’s questions.
I don’t see failure as a bad thing. “Failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of success.” Never waste a good failure. In failure are a complete set of instructions on how to succeed. What many people get wrong about failure is that they look at a singular event and focus on a very narrow timeline. If you take the macro versus the micro view, you’ll see that in a broader view, success and failure oscillate. From failure comes a lesson and as long as you apply what you learn forward, failure is a valuable teacher. If you let the fear of failure paralyze you from trying new things or taking some calculated risks, that is true failure.
I learned that humans are a lot more resilient and adaptable than we give ourselves credit for. I think the concept of remote work was an exotic idea that a few Silicon Valley companies could indulge in. But once this was the new normal, we discovered that people working remotely could be trusted, and were even more productive than before. I think Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson nailed it in their book “Remote”—Offices are distraction factories.
If we hire good people who are self-motivated, professional and are clear about objective, we don’t have to mange their time. This will allow them to work more autonomously, while giving them greater control and flexibility in how and when they work.
Prior to the pandemic our office had very flexible hours. People only came to work if they needed to be at work, which meant only our office manager and some people in production needed to be there. So when the call was made to go completely remote, the transition was seamless. People immediately moved to where it was most advantageous for them to live—closer to home, or where the quality of life was higher. – The one thing I would do differently would be to lease our space out earlier.
We held onto a 12k square foot building to basically house 2 people. Once leased, it freed up capital for us to invest in people (higher salaries, bonuses) and equipment. The second thing is I wouldn’t have invested in buying desks and chairs in preparation for in-person workshops. That obviously became a liability once we went into quarantine mode.
Peter Drucker said that a business has only one valid purpose to create a customer. Find a customer who is being ignored, or underserved and is urgently seeking a solution to make their pain go away. If you can identify this customer, build your business around them. There’s a simple exercise you can do to find this customer. First is to observe. What Tasks are they trying to accomplish in their work and life? Next, identify Gaps. These are the challenges or roadblocks that prevent the customer from achieving their goal. What is getting in the way of their success? The last step is brainstorming solutions. What Opportunities exist based on the given gaps?
Typical work day begins on social media. I spend 45-60 mins reading and responding to comments to get a feel for the general sentiment of our audience. This is useful for a few reasons. One, it drives engagement. It helps to be social on social media, so it should be less of a monologue and more of a dialogue. Second, in understanding the challenges and pain points of our audience, I’m able to generate ideas for future content.
Then, I move onto completing my “3 tasks for the day” which is determined by the highest priority/impactful things I can do as they relate to my mid to long term objectives.
I work in 90 min sprints, allowing myself to take breaks in between. I can go for a walk, watch some videos, or read something of interest. – Brainstorm with content team or collaborators on topics of interest. – I will schedule a live call/stream or go live on: Zoom, Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces…
A few times a week, I do 60 min, live coaching call with a client. These are one on one calls. I write notes and send to them afterwards.
Two times a week, I’m recording content for future distribution. These are typically podcast interviews. Some pre and post work is required to prepare for the interview and to supply my co-host/producer with the recorded files.
I try to minimize any “management” meetings unless they are to review progress, set milestones, or align the team.
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I do not believe in destiny. The chapters of your life have been written. How it ends is entirely up to you. You can manifest your own reality into existence if you have clear goals, stay focus, play the long game, and create value for others.
Branding is impression management. It is not something that lives outside of who you are and how you act. It is in alignment with your ethos, core values, and beliefs. Let’s say you want to be known for being a customer centric company but have bad customer service. If your employees are not empowered to serve in the best interests of the customer and the long term success of the company, then your brand will be one of poor service. I think many companies focus too much on marketing to build their brand when they should be spending more resources on customer service or customer care. If you do a good job, the customer tells one person. If you do a poor job, they tell ten people.
Without branding, everything is a commodity and competes on price. Is branding important? Only if you want to build an emotional relationship with your customer who will choose your product/service over a lower priced option.