I was never ambitious until…
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings” — Salvador Dali
I was bewildered by ambitious people for the longest time. I was born content; my goal was to enjoy life for the first 30 years of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I always did my best in school and work. I just didn’t have the specific goals that are required to be ambitious. I was happy with who I was and what I was achieving. I didn’t like high school so I did my best to get out of it as quickly as possible. Same goes for college and university. I wanted it to be over, so I did my best to get it over with. When I started working, I was happy learning and grew comfortable under the wings of my mentors. I moved between a few organizations over my career but it wasn’t due to ambition — it usually occurred because I exhausted the learning I could do at one shop (or one role) and moved for the new learning opportunities and challenges. I just wanted to do my job as well as I possibly could — not for advancement, for job security.
When it all changed
It all changed just before I decided to go freelance full-time. I was still working at a digital agency as an experience designer and found myself questioning why I was putting so much effort into projects that were chosen for me and didn’t seem to benefit society or real people in any meaningful way. In most cases we weren’t talking to users; in fact, when we had the opportunity to talk to users we outsourced the opportunity. I wanted a change and I knew I wasn’t going to get it with the shop I was currently working for.
Was I becoming ambitious?
I stopped worrying about job security because I was getting a lot of freelance requests; so I quit my day job. I threw myself into freelance 100% and chose projects that helped real people. I also turned down work that didn’t help people; this resulted in my learning of shops that helped people versus shops that didn’t. My relationships with shops that built products to help people improved over my freelance career and, conversely, my relationships with shops that were focused on sales, marketing, and manipulation faded away.
Was I becoming ambitious?
One of the organizations I was working as a freelancer for, was General Electric. It started as a usability testing engagement for their R&D division. They had a ton of requirements and questions they wanted to get answered through the usability test. I developed a methodology specifically tailored to the project and the way the organization worked. They fell in love with my method of conducting user research. After a few more projects, I was called into a senior leadership meeting where I was asked to join the GE team full-time. I declined.
Was I becoming ambitious?
After years of freelance work, I felt like I was stagnating. I was working with some of the smartest people in the industry, so I felt like I was still learning a ton but I still felt unfulfilled. I had this concept of a new business that would allow me to ‘fix’ all the things I found wrong with the user research and experience design industry. I fleshed out the concept into a business model, registered the name, bought the URL, and created a business vision. I passed the concept by the team at General Electric and they loved it. They wanted to my freelance contract and retain my new company, Hostile Sheep Research & Design. I agreed to have Hostile Sheep dedicated 100% to them.
Was I becoming ambitious?
For the first four years, Hostile Sheep worked exclusively for General Electric; building our team, our policies, our legal documentation, our processes, our methodologies; and validating that everything worked. We refined ourselves until we were a finely-tuned machine. Just when we started getting really comfortable, GE got a new CEO and restructured the organization in such a way that our contract was terminated. I can’t say anything bad about my experience with GE; they gave me opportunities I couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. They were a conduit to some of the most brilliant minds in product design; minds that fundamentally changed me. They left me with an amazing business I believed could really help people. Without GE, I needed to decide the future for Hostile Sheep. Could I find new clients? Did I have to return to freelance? Did I have to get a full-time position somewhere? I decided to re-tool Hostile Sheep to make it more versatile and not so specific to GE. Then I started marketing Hostile Sheep to everyone.
Was I becoming ambitious?
I worked harder than I ever have. I was leading every project myself; doing at least 30% of the project work myself. I was supported by my team of apprentices who all needed 1-on-1 time and a certain level of oversight. Additionally, I was doing all of business development, all of the project management, all of the operations optimization, all of the company policies and beliefs, all of the recruiting, and most of the business innovation. I attended dozens of conferences and industry events, I spoke at a few, I guest lectured and taught at a number of colleges and universities, I developed an elementary and secondary school curriculum that was tested at the TDSB, I wrote a ton of content for various publications, I met with dozens of organizations to present Hostile Sheep, I created a pattern-design master class, and I fostered relationships with 18 partners. Slowly but surely, I started getting new inquiries, I started getting requests for proposals, I started getting new business. Hostile Sheep grew from 1 client to 12 clients in the first year (after losing GE and re-tooling). And I was able to get us clients who wanted to help people; we got a client that wanted to help put an end to food deserts by delivering fresh produce around the country, we got another client that wanted to standardize the cancer treatment system by building a new information language used to communicate cancer guidelines, another client wanted to make higher education more accessible to millions, another client wanted to make the driving experience safer for those inside and outside of the car. I really felt like we were making a difference.
Was I becoming ambitious?
Hostile Sheep was entering year 5 since re-tooling, and we were poised for our best year ever then the pandemic hit. We had a ton of projects lined up and it was all thrown into chaos. Our business wen’t absolutely crazy; we lost 4 projects in one day then were briefed on 10 projects over the following two weeks. The ups and downs during 2020 were worse than any other year; I was brought to tears and celebrated more in 2020 than ever before. (Luckily, Kleenex and champaign are considered essential.) Turns out 2020 was our best year yet and allowed us to respond to pandemic by going 100% remote, getting rid of our office and moving to a shared workspace model, and giving back to our community. I was proud to be able to give over $20K to local charities and causes some of our select clients support. What’s in store for 2021? Well, we’re set to have another great year and I’m finally feeling like I have a bit more of a life (outside of work).
Am I ambitious? Well, that depends who you ask. I definitely think I’ve made progress toward becoming ambitious. I’m much more ambitious than I used to be. But, I’ve made friends since founding Hostile Sheep who ARE ambitious; without question. Some of the entrepreneurs I’ve met have made enormous bets on themselves and have taken enormous risks with investors money. Hostile Sheep has been around since 2012 (9 years) and we have a small shop with 5 employees with me still doing a lot of work on every project.
Some of my mentors and peers have moved from a 5 person shop to a 200 person shop in less time. Some have grown and been bought in less time. Some have grown from a small office to having a 10+ offices. I’m still suffering from being happy, too happy, doing what I’m doing. I don’t want to risk what I have to grow. I don’t want to stop working on every project. I don’t want to stop meeting industry leaders and product creators. I like choosing the projects I WANT to work on. We’re not all about money and I like that. I’m not sure how long it’ll take to open another office, but I can see it happening, it’s not just a pipe-dream.
I feel like I’ve changed. I feel like I’m ambitious.
Since starting Hostile Sheep I’ve had friends and colleagues literally walk away from me. Some have ghosted me, congratulating me on Hostile Sheep then turning away when I ask for advice or ask them to listen to my pitch. I had 90% of my freelance clients told me I was making a mistake by launching Hostile Sheep. Most of the agencies I helped while freelancing refused to even consider using Hostile Sheep. Some of my closest friends told me my business model was flawed and I should focus on making more money. It takes ambition to hear “NO” 100 times and still think “I know this will work.”
Today, I hear 5 yes’s for every no I hear. Somedays I still feel like an imposter but I just have to look at my filing cabinet full of the work we’ve done over the years to remind myself, I’m not bullshit. What I do is not bullshit. Lots of people think user research is bullshit, lots think experience design is bullshit — they haven’t worked with Hostile Sheep. Our work is legitimate, helpful, meaningful and something to be proud of.
I am ambitious.
