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AMA: Hi, I'm Andrew Wilkinson, Publisher of Designer News and Founder of MetaLab. Ask me anything.

8 years ago from Andrew Wilkinson, Publisher of Designer News

  • Michael AleoMichael Aleo, 8 years ago

    For a while Metalab killed off the "design investment" part of the site, but it has made a reappearance since. You told me via Twitter or email or something at some point that it wasn't a winner for you, as we were thinking about doing something similar. What changed? Slack?

    5 points
    • Aubrey JohnsonAubrey Johnson, 8 years ago

      Curious about this as well. Did you get some equity in Slack for your work or just the cash?

      0 points
    • Andrew WilkinsonAndrew Wilkinson, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

      We found that we got a ton of people emailing us saying stuff like "Hey I have a billion dollar idea: how about you do all the work and build it, and I'll give you 5% of it?". Now we just make cash investments in companies we love, and occasionally some of them are our clients.

      I'd way rather write a check than do work for equity. Way simpler. I've found that when you do design work in exchange for equity, people feel like they can lean on you for free work forever.

      7 points
      • Michael AleoMichael Aleo, 8 years ago

        Oh wow, so it's not a design investment anymore. That's some baller shit. Thanks for the reply!

        1 point