Episodes
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Rachel Gogel (she/her) is a Parisian creative director, speaker, mentor, and educator. She runs her own consultancy as a fractional design executive. She’s led major brand initiatives at GQ, The New York Times, Meta, Godfrey Dadich, Airbnb, and Dropbox.
As a solopreneur, Rachel has been launching editorial publications from scratch, leading org design efforts, designing TV show pitch decks, and building brand systems for global media and entertainment companies.
Rachel teaches in the Master’s of Interaction Design program at the California College of the Arts (CCA) and runs the Women in Leadership & Design (WILD) initiative as Chair and AIGA SF Board Member.
She has been recognized by Inc. as one of 2016’s “30 under 30 Movers and Shakers” and by Forbes as one of 2015’s “30 under 30" in media.
In this episode, we talk about the moments in time you decide you go on on your own, why the term “fractional” resonated with Rachel, why relationships are the best way to get clients, the benefits of tracking your time, how to speak at conferences, and insights on building your personal brand.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelgogel/
rachelgogel.com
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John Paul Alcala is a Fractional Solutions Architect and Chief Technology Officer who has managed over PHP 2 Billion of cloud budget in the Philippines. Recently, he was a Partner Solutions Architect for ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Before that, he was an Associate Vice President, Head of Infrastructure and Special Projects at GCash.
A builder at heart, he is passionate about making people’s lives simpler with technology and has been helping customers solve some of the most challenging problems for over 20 years.
When not assisting customers, JP can be found at home, either sipping a good cup of coffee, tinkering with IoT projects, or building crazy contraptions in Minecraft.
In this episode, we talk about pillars that make a great software architect; solutions architecture pitfalls in startup vs corporate environments; obsessing over what the customer needs; and how to solve problems through listening.
JP's LinkedIn
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David Fallarme is the VP of Marketing at Owner.com. At the time of recording, he was a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer and Marketing Advisor for Series A and B startups.
He's built and led marketing teams at companies big and small, from public companies like HubSpot and Electronic Arts to venture-backed startups like On Deck, ReferralCandy, and App Annie.
David has seen versions of the "growth movie" a few times, having driven growth & acquisition for products with millions of users, leading regional marketing teams, and working with founders at growth-stage startups.
In this episode, we talk about growth marketing advice for Series A and B founders; playing games of mastery and learning; what it takes to be a fractional CMO and marketer; and how to really build community.
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(00:00) Trailer
(00:19) Fractional Intro
(01:30) David’s introduction
(03:04) What Fractional marketers get wrong
(04:59) Equation of Career Progression
(05:27) Playing the game as a Fractional CMO
(06:33) Working on mastery and learning
(09:15) 6 games you can play in your life
(11:39) Introspection and choosing your path
(13:48) Shifting to a business mindset in marketing
(15:44) Working as VP marketing at SpotDraft
(16:55) Common mistakes in marketing strategy
(18:44) Learning from similar business models
(19:44) Navigating changes on On Deck
(22:31) Building marketing communities in APAC
(25:57) Pain points as a Fractional CMO
(27:06) David’s tech stack
(27:29) Crafting service menus for clients
(31:25) Final advice for fractional marketers
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Andrei Gonzales, is a multi-disciplinary design mentor, human-centered design evangelist, and current Senior Manager for Service and Experience Design for Deloitte Digital Canberra.
He has 20 years of professional experience in the digital industry across design, consulting, and digital innovation.
He held roles as an Experience Architect, Manager, and Designer at Salesforce, Fjord, BCG Digital Ventures, and the billion dollar start-up: InVision App.
In this episode, we talk about building trust with clients as a consultant, using workshops for workshops to uncover client dynamics, pricing your work, and treating every bid as a high risk assumption.
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Joshua Arvin Lat is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of NuWorks Interactive Labs, Inc. He is also an AWS Machine Learning Hero and he has been an international speaker on machine learning, engineering, security, and management.
He’s the author of three books — “Machine Learning with Amazon SageMaker Cookbook," "Machine Learning Engineering on AWS," and "Building and Automating Penetration Testing Labs in the Cloud." He’s also an AI Hive leader on Swarm.
In this episode, we talk about how he got to write multiple books, leading as a CTO in large organizations, and how to execute digital and AI transformations with technology.
(00:00) Trailer
(00:16) Fractional Intro
(01:04) Arvs Introduction
(02:16) Books written
(03:39) Writing journey for Sagemaker
(07:40) Machine learning engineering on AWS
(11:49) AI and security
(17:42) Leading as a CTO
(19:05) Utilizing tech to solve real business requirements
(20:35) Using Sagemaker for custom AI solutions
(21:45) Adapting to the AI Landscape
(22:24) Prioritizing initiatives across problem areas
(24:02) Using AI the right way
(25:02) Listening and Understanding The Problem
(27:59) What to focus on and specialize on as a CTO
(29:53) Giving a buffer to solve challenges yourself
(32:34) Hive leader advice
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Tim Santos is the Director of Product for AI Cloud Solutions at Graphcore, He leads the product strategy and vision for enabling developers, plus AI & ML software organisations to build and deploy cutting-edge AI models in production. Tim also leads the AI Hive on Swarm. With over 13 years of experience in data science, AI, and MLOps, Tim has a strong background and passion for delivering impactful and scalable AI products and services that solve real-world problems and create value for customers and stakeholders.
In this episode, we talk about understanding your business problem before building AI solutions, turning to the open source community for help, and building teams in the lens of the data science triangle.
(00:00) Trailer
(00:22) Fractional Intro
(01:38) Tim's Introduction
(02:56) Considerations for using AI as a founder and corporate innovator
(04:41) Starting with the problem
(05:31) Finding pain points
(06:15) Following the hype
(07:06) Foundational models
(7:39) Executive buy-in and experiments
(08:39) Building success stories with small wins
(09:49) Doing research when you're new
(10:27) The open source community
(11:11) Why get help from community
(12:01) Examples and use cases in healthcare
(13:07) Getting strategists and advisers
(13:48) Building teams with the data science triangle
(15:18) Hiring AI consultancy teams
(16:50) Final advice for founders and corporate innovators
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Grace Walker is an independent web designer and Webflow developer building marketing sites that are visually stunning and technically sound. She has launched over 90 marketing sites in Webflow and has become a client favorite not only for her designs, but also her organization and project management. Her deep understanding of Webflow allows her to create custom solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of each of her clients, and her commitment to delivering high-quality work has earned her a reputation as a trusted and reliable designer and developer.
00:00 - Set goals and be patient
01:03 - Who is Grace?
02:14 - Grace's journey as a fractional worker
03:39 - Choosing the quality of your clients
04:50 - What she looks for in clients
06:42 - Grace's favorite client
08:10 - How to evaluate the impact of your work
11:57 - Alexis' positive feedback
13:56 - Finding the right tools
15:29 - "Every new project I do is the best"
17:34 - Personal taste + Industry appropriate
18:20 - Tips for increasing income
20:20 - PATIENCE (our fave part!)
22:14 - Working hard vs. Burning out
25:07 - Grace's hobbies :)
28:20 - Can working less be a goal?
30:18 - Webflow vs. Framer
32:26 - Designers that mentored Grace
34:34 - Grace's advice to fractional workersIn this episode, we talk about what Grace looks for in clients, the thinking behind her projects, setting income goals and breaking them down to get there, Webflow vs Framer, being patient in your fractional career, and so much more.
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Matthias Cordes is a Web Designer and Webflow Developer. He runs his own freelance business and creates high converting websites for fast growing technology startups. Matthias had his first freelance “gig” as a designer after highschool and while traveling around Australia and Bali. After graduating with a degree in Creative Technology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, he pursued his passion by working on his agency full-time. Now, he supports tech companies as a team of one, with a specialty in Webflow development.
In this episode, we talk about becoming a specialist in Webflow design and development, building trust and reputation as a freelancer, writing his case studies together with a copywriter, his design collaboration process with clients, ChatGPT for web development tasks, and so much more.
00:00 - LinkedIn videos
01:48 - Going freelance straight out of university
02:45 - Deciding to build a freelance career
05:17 - Client RED FLAGS
08:45 - Becoming a Webflow professional partner
11:41 - Results > Credentials
13:02 - Recent project + cool tricks
15:48 - Why his case studies are so good
18:15 - Basecamp for managing projects
22:00 - What clients did Mattias start with?
24:10 - "find a real job at a real company"
25:43 - The agency he started
28:11 - Professional video set up
29:48 - Video marketing for his freelance practice
31:41 - Web development vs. web design projects
34:54 - cheese with holes
36:14 - Switching from Sketch to Figma
38:00 - The adrenaline from collaboration
39:11 - What do you do when you get stuck?
40:17 - Using ChatGPT to build websites
42:21 - Coding as a non-coder
43:45 - Matthias' piece of advice
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Lex Roman empowers early stage solopreneurs to find their clients without playing Google and Instagram’s games. A former Silicon Valley growth designer turned small biz growth marketer, Lex has been crafting winning conversion strategies for companies like Nissan, Macys, Gusto and The Black Tux since 2010. She popularized the term “growth design” and built a community of over 2k practitioners that’s still expanding called Growth Designers. Her work has been featured in MarTech, Monocle, KCRW, the LA Design Festival, the LA Times and Good Makers and she’s spoken at conferences around the world.
Now, she’s on a mission to help solopreneurs get seen and get sales without being beholden to big tech. With her company Super Easy Digital, Lex supports small business owners with her signature marketing experimentation program Growthtrackers. Check out Lex’s referral toolkit!
In this episode of Fractional, we talk about applying growth design to fractional work, capturing high quality leads, creating valuable referral systems, and building a trusted network whether online or offline.
00:00 This makes your business weaker
02:10 Who is Lex?
02:49 What is a growth designer?
04:10 Are all designers growth designers?
05:00 What most designers struggle with
06:25 How Lex got passionate for small business owners
08:17 Lex's evolution
11:10 The difference with small business owners
12:33 How Lex found her own leads
15:44 Upwork is exploitative
18:24 What worked best for Lex that aligns with her values?
19:37 How do you build good business relationships?
22:07 Why Lex is a referral queen
23:45 Amber!!!!!!!
24:40 Friends of Super Easy
25:55 The biggest blocker for fractional talent
26:50 So what's the solution?
29:02 The other solution
29:58 Lex and community networking
33:50 How Lex applied her own advice
35:30 Networking is not a quantity game
37:20 Used car salesman tactics
38:55 Lex's advice for fractional workers
Swarm just released the the referrals leaderboard! Check out our thoughts about healthy competition.
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Sergio Pereira has been a Software Engineer and CTO for 13 years. Sergio has built tech products for several fast growing startups, such as Bulk MRO, StudentFinance and Candidly. For the last 7 years, Sergio has managed fully remote teams, either full time or working as a Fractional CTO. He is also a public speaker on remote work and managing tech teams, having spoken at major tech conferences and being an instructor at O’Reilly, Udemy and Gumroad.
We talk about what it takes to be a fractional CTO, how Sergio navigates chaos while building diverse engineering teams, the benefits of being a content creator, and his view on how to get jobs as a fractional engineer.
Swarm just released the Amber store! Learn more about our vision of the future of work.
00:00 Starting out is very challenging
00:30 Who is Sergio?
02:40 It was never his dream to go fractional
03:45 How Sergio started out
04:40 What does it mean to be a Fractional CTO?
05:50 Why clients hire fractional over full-time
07:25 What clients ask Sergio
08:50 What kind of chaos does Sergio prefer?
11:25 It gets fun once you're over the hump
12:35 How to build a great team (fave part)
14:33 Sergio started hiring remote very early
16:20 What he learned after interviewing 1000+
19:25 How he manages diverse workforces
21:05 Why Sergio believes in written communication
22:27 Sergio's Remote Work Academy
24:41 Don't settle for the office!
26:50 How remote work will change the world
27:24 How Sergio manages Remote Work Academy
28:18 How Sergio became a content creator
31:45 Why Sergio wants to stay a content creator
32:25 Serendipity just by showing up online
33:00 How Sergio gets clients through Twitter
34:15 Sergio's advice for fractional workers
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Karthik Puvvada, often called 'KP', is the founder & CEO of Build In Public Fellowship. It's an online program and community to help founders and creators put themselves out there and build in public fearlessly. He also runs a SaaS startup “LeaderBird” which helps people be more consistent on Twitter by gamifying the journey. He previously ran programs at Day One (funded by Gary Vee) and On Deck.
You can find his writing here, check out his podcast and follow him on Twitter here.
We talk about the how’s and why’s of building in public, how to increase your luck surface area, becoming a top Hunter on Product Hunt, finding your authentic content niche, and creating value while having fun.
Swarm just released the Amber store! Learn more about our vision of the future of work.
00:00 Share as you go01:56 What is build in public?03:35 The risk of not building in public04:45 Building community05:50 People will ignore you07:23 A healthy perspective to have09:11 It's not just a patience game, but...10:22 The game is about having fun10:39 It's not about going viral, but...11:52 How to feel free to create12:25 Track OUTPUT, not OUTCOME15:11 How Alexis focused on output (not outcome)16:00 I feel like I'm some nobody17:05 It's about consistently being you18:08 The COURAGE muscle is more important19:00 The downside of building in public23:25 You can't think from a transactional perspective24:43 Why KP is a top hunter on ProductHunt27:05 How to get hunted by KP28:11 How does KP choose a niche?30:04 What provides real value to my audience?32:00 No-code vs. AI34:00 Advice for fractional workers38:56 Where can people find KP?
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Frances To is an Independent Designer who specializes in creating bespoke websites, digital products, and interactive stories on Webflow. Since the start of Frances’s independent design practice, her work has been recognized by Awwwards, CSS Design Awards, Typewolf, and Buried Signals.
We talk about Frost Condensed Sans, a typeface made by the Frost Design team, which Frances is part of; the benefits of being a multidisciplinary designer; learning the language and domain expertise of your clients; the power of introspection; and why scratching your itch matters for your fractional career.
You can also watch this episode on YouTube! :)
This podcast is brought to you by Swarm — social network for top tech freelancers looking for fractional work. Follow us for new Fractional episodes on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook!
00:00 - Why not make it yourselves? 00:26 - What is Fractional?03:08 - The only two tools Frances uses03:50 - It’s easier to build in no-code if…04:30 - Why Frances went fractional05:13 - The good thing about being a fractional designer5:50 - How Frost chief creative JP de Guzman and Frances designed the typeface06:31 - Are typography courses actually helpful?06:57 - Can self-taught designers make anything good?07:39 - The one software she used to design a font08:50 - Why small details can make a big difference10:10 - How to get obsessed with your craft10:54 - Is it better to be a multidisciplinary designer?12:06 - Understanding your client’s domain expertise13:13 - How to become more multi-dimensional as a builder14:45 - Is it good to stalk your client?15:38 - Top advice for cultivating unbridled curiosity16:45 - How to become more self-aware18:28 - The advantages of writing and blogging19:46 - Generating proof for your skills20:20 - Frances’ biggest piece of advice -
Angela Salud Chua is the founder of Toffeenut Design Studio, an independent collectives studio based in the Philippines. She has been designing products with tech leaders for over a decade, helping with ideation and strategy, and building award-winning products that scale.
We talk about fostering relationships and referrals, defending design decisions as a female Asian senior designer in Western teams, why doing unsolicited redesigns make sense, creating a fun mix of projects as a fractional worker, choosing a non-work-centric life, tips for new freelancers, and so much more.
0:00 Introductions 2:15 Journey into working independently 7:57 Product-led growth9:52 Being an Asian woman in Western teams11:53 Articulating design decisions16:03 Work boundaries19:47 Challenges as a designer21:47 Advice for early-stage designers27:35 Curating a non work-centric life29:31 Advice for fractional workers
This podcast is brought to you by Swarm — social network for top tech freelancers looking for fractional work. Follow us for new Fractional episodes on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook!
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Dan Mall is a husband, dad, teacher, creative director, designer, founder, and entrepreneur from Philly. He runs Design System University, where he creates, collects, and curates curriculum, content, and community to help enterprise teams design at scale. Previously, Dan ran design system consultancy SuperFriendly for over a decade. Dan writes about design systems, process, and leadership and other issues on his site danmall.com, in his weekly newsletter, and on Twitter and Instagram.
We talk about Dan’s network-based model for Superfriendly, creating leveling and growth paths for freelancers, intentionality behind your freelance work lifestyle, his top two tips for new freelancers, figuring out what he wants as he continues his fractional journey, the commodification of designers in the advent of AI, figuring out your value, and a lot more.
This podcast is brought to you by Swarm — social network for top tech freelancers looking for fractional work. Follow us for new Fractional episodes on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook!
00:00 - “Work happens to you” vs. Intentionality
00:30 - What is Fractional?
00:52 - Who is Dan Mall?
01:21 - Topics Overview
01:57 - Dan introduces himself
02:50 - What is SuperFriendly?
03:59 - Dan’s superpower: Being a connector of people
04:40 - Daily networking habit
05:30 - I believe freelancers can simultaneously…
06:20 - The dichotomy of freelancing vs. working in a team
07:45 - Aligning incentives
08:38 - Matching opportunities to what people are good at
09:25 - How did Dan get where he is? What were his beliefs?
11:37 - Mental health as a 9-5 freelancer???
12:50 - The general zeitgeist = reaction mode
13:25 - I want the power dynamic to be in favor of the service provider
15:40 - I would rather ____ than sacrifice time with family
16:34 - How do you get to a position of privilege as a freelancer?
17:33 - One great thing anyone can do at any stage in their career
18:06 - No one can invalidate your journey
18:58 - Creating runway in order to do what I really want to do
20:47 - Shutting down SuperFriendly
22:49 - Dan’s new thing: Design System University
23:41 - Different people learn in different ways
24:41 - The Frequency Illusion Effect
26:00 - What are ways I can teach people in a more accessible way?
26:51 - What are you learning about yourself?
27:29 - 95% intrinsic motivation, 5% extrinsic motivation
28:00 - Wallpapers for my phone that say, “Are you having fun?”
29:14 - If you can’t even answer what you want…
29:46 - Facing your own reality
30:16 - Will AI replace our jobs?
30:48 - How AI works into design systems
31:30 - Craft vs. Commodity
32:55 - The hope despite commoditization
33:22 - ChatGPT lies
34:24 - ChatGPT is a remix machine
36:23 - Before you take away a job, figure out the replacement first
38:03 - AI will design for us. What do we do then?
39:06 - I’m seeking fun
39:36 - Message to freelancers and independent workers
40:13 - You’re not cheaper as a freelancer. You’re more valuable.
41:29 - Your value is so much more than “cheaper”
