Live Interview with Tiago Miranda of Give a Damn Studio - Different Hunger

alright what's up everybody I'm here with my great friend Thiago Thiago and I we connected a few months back he I think you found different hunger through some Facebook ads and we started working together and he has an amazing story he's a really genuine guy that has a big heart and he's been able to integrate that into

his agency in a very cool way which we'll talk about shortly but yeah he's he's been able to you know he's felt the pain of the freelancer agency trap that so many of us have felt but he's also managed to overcome a lot of those challenges and I wanted to bring him on to share his story today

to provide some wisdom and guidance and Thiago thank you for for joining me awesome awesome great to be yeah dude so general let's rewind a little bit I mean tell us a little bit about your background who you are and then what you do sure I'm a designer and long story short I always used design problems that

made more sense for me and for the world so that's basically initially I focused on people you know designing and health insurance for low-income families in Colombia too you know this education for its people and little by little I started migrating into the until realm and I was freelancing started I was doing that on and off but

in 2018 right at the beginning I started designing an app for startups in for a Portuguese startup where I'm from and they it was a crowd lending platform so it's pretty cool if you guys want to see the design you can also go there and and check it out anyway so yeah working with startups and then I

realize my time it's finite I only have a certain amount of hours in my lifetime how do I like how can I be the most effective because I want to contribute as much as I can and the way is create a structure around this idea how give a damn is born give a damn is is is a

studio desire and in growth studio and what we're doing it is helping out those impact startups to you know make more revenue and by making more revenue they're able to hack create more impact in the world awesome man yeah and you know it's really great that you know you're able to be working on passion projects and you

know really enjoying your work and you know I know also part of that is sometimes you know we have to figure out business-wise all right how do we actually make ends meet how do we make sure income is coming in you know how do we set up a business that allows us to have that freedom right so

so why don't you just tell us a little bit about you know where you were at a few months back and you know what some of the challenges were that you're facing as you know a freelancer or a budding agency owner yeah share I'm going to say up front that I don't have any mortgage so I don't

and and any student like unfortunately most of the US students do so you know take that in consideration now that said my mindset has always been I mean like if you want to do something like doing what this side gig culture so I've I dove in completely to the freelance and struggling financially I always be employed by

other people and always had like good salaries so I grateful going through varsity like I realized that also those rough times were being motivation to only empathize with Nami problems but as well like feeling that I I want to like what do I want to accomplish when I was freelancing I felt like I was a lot in

indan needy greedy is that how you say details and I really wanted to focus more on the business side and I knew that that was that was what I had to do if I wanted to create that impact right and that's when I came across you guys and you spoke to me everything from hunger was was putting

out their education was really spot-on I was in a way maybe even unconsciously like feeling you guys were articulating so that that was definitely a relief in a way when I saw you guys and I I don't know if you remember Matt but I was all over the place like on all so so yeah yeah totally and

yeah I mean what what do you feel like was you know you said maybe we spoke to like some unconscious beliefs yeah to tell us a little bit tell me a little bit about what you meant by that I'm curious yeah so very much I always get it wrong just for the sake of of playing I'm gonna

try it I'll I always felt that you work to live and not live to work so so I think I got it right this time yeah yeah Oh audio went out hmm check mic check I'll give ya sorry I can't hear your deal man you can't hear me no oh yeah yeah for some reason yeah I'll we're

on our graph then I mean I muted my sound I don't know yeah just uh trying to figure out what's the thing I can do with my life and definitely that one is surfing I want to be and that's what makes me feel good you know very clearly articulated one to a lot of I also have like

balance and I'm and I think you are too and we all this community are they like to give everything to and that's even more the case it's even more needed to have like to create that space where you can you have like peace of mind can you know other means like arts and literature and and to grow

as a human being and and in the end in a better way so time a very important factor awesome awesome well yeah I mean totally you said it right like it's all about being conscious about how we're working in order to create a better life instead of just you know blindly working and blindly growing and blindly chasing

status without really asking why right so you know let's I mean can you tell us a little bit about you know your journey getting started because I know it wasn't one of those like overnight successes right it definitely took some work and you know we talked a little bit throughout that time where you know you're a little

bit you know worried and stressed and worried about money and all those things which is totally normal but yeah just tell us a little bit about how things were when you're getting started and just talk us through that journey a little bit yeah I appreciate you asking that because sometimes it does feel like it's easy and and

the reality is that you know I mean sometimes people get it right the first time which was not my case so Edie first we wouldn't I say we is I have also a co-founder this whole process his name is Brandon he's amazing human being in words on everything that we do so that's I'm very grateful for that

also for having like an accountability partner in a way I think that that was very helpful I know myself and I know at the beginning it wasn't easy I think because of that as well because I was pepp alone and and yeah the the main main and the main struggle was that we were not focusing narrowing enough

the the audience the target we were basically going for big back startups as a whole group and obviously there's impacts in every time sector you know from construction to to plastic waste management yeah with with some research and like one of the things that were effective in our pivoting was found was was conversations that we were those

startups and even like investors and and reading there's a resources that's amazing it's called the project drawdown I don't know with it it's it's super good it's basic research project scale and they mapped out like what evidence to contribute to fight climate catastrophic like to how do we go into reduced emissions and and so yeah combining all

of that information we realize they were focusing on first one specific niche and that's that's attack protect so food tech impact startups that are transforming you know food like meat they're doing plant-based stuff and also like you technologies around a culture as well yep awesome okay got it so so yeah I mean tell us you know like

what your dad looked like when you were targeting and trying to generate calls and interest and clients with a very wide non focused approach you know you told me you're offerin like you're you know you're saying you're doing systems you're doing design you're doing lead gen for this wide market right so what you know what what did

your day look like then versus what does it look like now now that you have you know you've got some traction and talk us through that sort of transition like reaching anybody that was in the impact field so there was a lot of messaging so you know now with perspective it makes a lot of sense you know

this you're basically standing out messages communications that necessarily resonate with the person that you're reaching out to so yeah I would say earning time I'm not saying like wasted time it's a learning time that was [Music] structured campaigns with specific communication keywords buzzwords that that resume people that were reaching out to so it I would say it's

much more strategic it's because we've been able to automate it automated part of the outreach and again through that through our own realize like no this is like we're doing something feels like let's sell that to Leeds and that's what we started doing so so yeah we're we're doing this is ongoing right so we're still learning success

I don't think like success earning the success is the learnings and and yeah we're doing Legion for for those AG tech and yep any questions yeah totally so so yeah I saw I remember right we you jump on one of the group calls and you know you were pretty perplexed you know you're kind of like alright I'm

doing a lot of work but I'm not really getting results or seeing results and then I talked to you a few weeks later and you're like boom I got two new clients you know 2k plus monthly retainers that was that was shortly after you know we talked about narrowing down the offer and the focus and that sort

of thing but yeah I mean for listening they're like oh god I've you know I've been working so hard for so long I'm not seeing any results and like that's a very common freelance agency position to be in but I mean what do you attribute and look I mean you're working with how many clients now two or

three monthly retainers right yeah we now we're back into line because of something that we were talking about good the client not being like not doing that qualifying process right and so we're at one and now you go ahead question yeah yeah so I mean that 0 to 1 0 to 2 0 to 3 like 3 to

4 4 to 5 right like it's just stacking one after another but tell us you know what do you attribute that seemingly overnight or over week success to where you go from a few months or weeks of not seeing results to getting validation that what you're doing is actually starting to generate results right two things I would

say the first would be network like your connections around you and then clarity on what you're you're offering them so yeah when we went forward with when we went forward it was pretty clearly like what we were that we were doing so that helped a lot on like the onboarding and you know I have to say I

was pretty good to be working with close in away friends because test out and fine-tune your process so that was that was great too but yeah I do it does feel like now it's it's less it's much harder to like stack up the clients once you got that be offering right yeah totally awesome well yeah I mean

now you know you you have had a few clients you've set up a new offer right so I guess you learned the lead gen strategies implemented those results for yourself and then we're like hey let me offer this to businesses right because that's another thing they have no idea about right so yeah I mean what's what's kind

of like your your roadmap and focus right now for the next few months would be focusing in three different niches and testing out which one like basically you know offering the same thing although with with a different keywords and Asians and seeing which of those niches picks up better and once that happens I see I see a

lot happening like it kind of goes together like opportunities come with with those right yeah uh-huh got it okay so testing out a few issues are you gonna test one at a time or all at once three in the going to each one of us is is choosing one of those soon we're gonna keep testing them at

once okay gotcha okay cool and and yeah I mean what would you say to anybody that you know was where you're at like a few months ago what sort of advice would you share apart from talking to you I mean hey I don't know I would say I would say yeah it's pretty classic bro just try to

find some like a company that you lead that you really like can you you're generally interested in try to identify that niche see like others in that space that you like to work with and and then approach them and find out like what they need and probably you know everybody needs sales right everybody needs to sell so

so yeah in a way I do think that like helping them create more sales is you know maybe the company you're interested in helping something very specific and different and and then you can like focus on that right yeah yeah so just you know be genuine help add value and you know make an offer say look alright

if you want to grow from here to here and you're doing this I think if you do it this way this can boost your sales or help you grow faster or whatever it may be yeah you know you're proof that going from selling just designed to growth and I've done that myself and you know we recommend everybody

do that because even if you are selling design you can still sell growth and ROI but if you're only selling design then you're in a very red ocean lots of competition people are just going to find somebody cheaper than you but if you can strategically leverage your skill set in order to generate a return for the company

then like you're always gonna have a business you're always gonna have clients so you know your stories proof of that but that's just a reminder for anyone listening because you know I started as a freelance web designer and I saw that you know I saw that in reality right it was like not everybody needs a website but

everybody needs to grow their company right everybody needs leads everybody needs sales so yeah that's just a reminder for anyone listening so yeah Thiago I if anybody wants to follow along or connect with you maybe ask you some questions how can we connect with you Facebook is here and I'm in the group's email yeah go give a

damn studio.com and yeah I'm pretty easy to get ahold also LinkedIn I'm probably although I'm I am conscious of how I use social media and all of them awesome man well yeah and we can link to your agency or a given em studio comm or what was that yep sweet well yes you know great to have you

on and I look forward to seeing you know how things over the next few months and thanks for sharing your stories and wisdom with us and yeah I look forward to following the journey so thank you Thiago and for anyone listening if you enjoyed this go ahead subscribe comment below any questions that you have for Jia go

about 3 Lansing design impact startups drop any questions that you have and if you enjoyed it share with a friend drop us a like all that good stuff so thank you guys for tuning in and catch you later yes