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The Solo Studio | Ep 02
FREE WORKSHOP: Design Your Lookbook
Join us this Tuesday for a free workshop, Design Your Lookbook, taught by Stephanie Owens:
https://makerdivision.myflodesk.com/lookbook
This episode is brought to you by Maker Division, our community for creatives building real businesses around their craft.
https://makerdivision.com
Ben Burns and Stephanie Owens kick off a conversation they've been circling for a while: the solo studio. The idea is simple. You put your craft at the center and build a handful of income streams around it, client work, products, licensing, teaching, events, sponsorships, so you get to keep making the work you actually care about.
This one's a little rambly on purpose. Ben and Steph are both running their own solo studios right now and figuring this out in real time, so you're getting two creatives thinking out loud, changing their minds, and pulling from recent examples in their own careers. If you've ever felt like your personal work matters less than your client work, this episode is for you.
You'll hear us get into:
- Why your "personal work" is really studio work, and why that reframe changes everything
- The income streams that support a craft instead of replacing it
- Why client work is a one-time payout and studio work compounds
- How nearly every good opportunity comes from sharing the work and staying open
- Why focus, one project at a time, makes or breaks the whole thing
Chapters
- (00:00) The solo studio, defined
- (01:55) Why client services is the easiest first stream
- (04:27) Reframing personal work as studio work
- (06:15) One-time payouts vs. work that compounds
- (08:15) Studios we admire and steal from
- (10:05) Why sharing the work attracts the opportunities
- (12:27) Show what you make, not just what you think
- (14:23) Ben's "client work desert" and staying in the game
- (15:35) Hobbies vs. craft: protecting the joy
- (20:31) Stop stacking services, dig deeper into one
- (22:02) Not wanting employees and the shadow artist trap
- (24:00) Inside Ben's studio: design, Maker Division, Watson, speaking, Circle
- (27:44) Inside Steph's studio: physical work and her rock-song cocktail project
- (33:16) Focus: why "one at a time" matters
- (35:08) Getting comfortable with content when you make what you love
- (39:48) Make cool stuff, show people, share the journey, stay open
- (40:49) How the Adobe and Show It opportunities actually happened
- (50:27) Stop measuring everything by ROI
- (51:08) Meaningful work, meaningful money
Mentioned in this episode
Matthew Encina, Young Jerks, House Industries, Hoodzpah, DKNG, Invisible Creatures, Aaron Draplin, Chris Misterak and Show It, Adobe, Circle, Domestica, and Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way (the shadow artist idea).
View all episodes
By Ben Burns & Stephanie OwensFREE WORKSHOP: Design Your Lookbook
Join us this Tuesday for a free workshop, Design Your Lookbook, taught by Stephanie Owens:
https://makerdivision.myflodesk.com/lookbook
This episode is brought to you by Maker Division, our community for creatives building real businesses around their craft.
https://makerdivision.com
Ben Burns and Stephanie Owens kick off a conversation they've been circling for a while: the solo studio. The idea is simple. You put your craft at the center and build a handful of income streams around it, client work, products, licensing, teaching, events, sponsorships, so you get to keep making the work you actually care about.
This one's a little rambly on purpose. Ben and Steph are both running their own solo studios right now and figuring this out in real time, so you're getting two creatives thinking out loud, changing their minds, and pulling from recent examples in their own careers. If you've ever felt like your personal work matters less than your client work, this episode is for you.
You'll hear us get into:
- Why your "personal work" is really studio work, and why that reframe changes everything
- The income streams that support a craft instead of replacing it
- Why client work is a one-time payout and studio work compounds
- How nearly every good opportunity comes from sharing the work and staying open
- Why focus, one project at a time, makes or breaks the whole thing
Chapters
- (00:00) The solo studio, defined
- (01:55) Why client services is the easiest first stream
- (04:27) Reframing personal work as studio work
- (06:15) One-time payouts vs. work that compounds
- (08:15) Studios we admire and steal from
- (10:05) Why sharing the work attracts the opportunities
- (12:27) Show what you make, not just what you think
- (14:23) Ben's "client work desert" and staying in the game
- (15:35) Hobbies vs. craft: protecting the joy
- (20:31) Stop stacking services, dig deeper into one
- (22:02) Not wanting employees and the shadow artist trap
- (24:00) Inside Ben's studio: design, Maker Division, Watson, speaking, Circle
- (27:44) Inside Steph's studio: physical work and her rock-song cocktail project
- (33:16) Focus: why "one at a time" matters
- (35:08) Getting comfortable with content when you make what you love
- (39:48) Make cool stuff, show people, share the journey, stay open
- (40:49) How the Adobe and Show It opportunities actually happened
- (50:27) Stop measuring everything by ROI
- (51:08) Meaningful work, meaningful money
Mentioned in this episode
Matthew Encina, Young Jerks, House Industries, Hoodzpah, DKNG, Invisible Creatures, Aaron Draplin, Chris Misterak and Show It, Adobe, Circle, Domestica, and Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way (the shadow artist idea).