As a small business owner, I’ve had to bootstrap myself for over a decade. When you don’t have enough money to hire a consulting firm, or an agency or even other people, it’s on you and you alone to do what needs to be done.
A large part of my business career, as I’m sure many others is what to do when it comes to design? Whether that’s a website, logo, packaging - you name it. Every business no matter how large or small needs design work.
Now when it comes to design, I’ve been a fan of 99designs for years. It’s better than hiring a single person or agency because it gives you the widest array of art to choose from.
Basically, you select what kind of design you want, pick a prize and then designers around the world compete with each other to submit what they hope will be the winning design submission.
Pros:
- Relatively cheap for a mockup
- Wide array of artistic style
Cons:
- Most design submissions are crap
- Requires lots of time to manage a contest
How to maximize your design submissions
When you create a contest, 99designs allows you to invite other designers to your contest. I found out that I could send the same message to multiple different designers and get them to submit an entry to my contest.
Hey I was looking at your profile and I think you have some really amazing work. I recently launched a contest about redesigning our website for a support company. I'd be ecstatic if you'd be able to spend some time and submit a design for the contest.
Thanks for your time, I look forward to seeing your entry. :)
That’s it, just a simple message that increased the number of designers who submitted designs to my contest. You can do this by just having a recurring daily task or if you have an assistant just have them send the message to other designers on the platform.
