“Successful Success: Tata Boyko. This is an article from a series of interviews with graduates of the UX/UI Legend course. About the real path to success, the real life, problems and joys of designers.
Today we have the story of Tata Boyko on our blog. She went from learning web design to mentoring at WAYUP, working with an American UX/UI agency and plans about her own business. Read more about Tata's journey, achievements, and challenges along the way. Interviewer - Andrey Gavrilov.
About current affairs
- Tata, how are you doing? Where are you, what are you?
- I am in Odessa. Getting ready for my vacation to country “X”, a very cool country.
- Is it some far away or near country? Give me a hint.
- Far away, and you're very familiar with it.
- What it could be, I don't know. Don't tell anyone what faraway country I'm associated with. Good, nobody knows anything. Tata, let's put it this way: tell us in a nutshell how you characterize yourself now, what you do, what is your result at the moment in design, in your profession, in your career?
- I'm a designer, I won't say Junior or Middle, I just work in an agency, we don't have those categories. I work in an American agency and I get high because I am so lucky that I work very little. That's how our processes are structured.
- How little is very little?
- If you count working days, it could be a week a month.
- So it's part time?
- I don't even know what to call it. It's just that our processes are so organized that when a client comes to us, they give us two weeks to develop the site - I start as a designer, I usually spend three, maybe four days on design processes. I work in tandem with another designer, so it works out very quickly. And then the developer gets involved and we control it all and there is very little time to work: a few hours a day just to check if everything is good on the development of the site. The rest is my free time and I like it very much. There are opportunities for self-improvement.
- Do you have a rate or a project-based payment?
- The payment is project-based, very good.
- The kind of pay that is enough for you to live your life and not work anywhere else?
- Yes, yes, both save and live.
From training to success
- Look, that's why I asked you to tell us all this. Because it's important for us to understand who we're talking to right now. That is, you are a person who is engaged in web design, working in the agency constantly, but gets a salary by design and this money is enough to live, and to save. Let's now ask the question that everyone should be concerned about: how long has it been since you graduated from the course until now?
- A little over two years.
- And now for the most important question. It's probably the most difficult one. How have those two years gone?
- Let's note that I think most success stories have a bit of luck and I also have it. But let's not ignore the fact that without some actions I would not have come to this point at all.
I started working at a time when many of us had our lives changed. I, like many people, also lost my job. But at that time I had just finished my course.
At that time my plan was to finish my portfolio and look for a job in the company. But when everything happened, I didn't have time to look for something. And to be honest, I didn't have the energy either. I was lucky that my friend turned to me and he needed a website. And so I only took projects from my friend, I don't know how many projects we did: maybe four or five. At that time I basically had enough money to work a few days a week and not to look for anything else, because, frankly speaking, the moral state was not for searching. There was no goal at that time to earn as much as possible. There was a depression of some sort, and there was no need to chase earnings. Although, obviously, there was a need, but there was no energy for it, so I went the way I went.
After a few months or so, we got in touch and I started working as a project design mentor on Behance. In addition, I did some work for a friend of mine, and then I switched to full-fledged mentoring. At the same time I met a guy who worked on Upwork, he needed an assistant and I got some percentage of the projects and we also made designs together, I was learning something in parallel. It lasted about a year and a half, maybe a little less. Everything went slowly, some projects were done, but it was not this “successful success”.
Upwork: starting to work with an agency
There came a certain point when the projects from that guy were over, mentoring was not enough to live the way I was used to at that moment. I had to look for something urgently. I went to Upwork. I wanted to take on some freelance project, but something wasn't working. I sat down, sent requests, and then - this was my second “luck”. I get a response from the client I sent the job request to. He very quickly, day to day, needed to make animations of the site. This just answered me from my current agency. And they were not familiar with Figma at all, I was very surprised. But they needed animations, no one knew how to do it, it was urgent. And I really love this business, I'm a special animation.
I did my work, they liked it very much, and they started writing to me: “Do you have any free time to do another project?” Somehow, gradually, maybe a month or two, we were not working on a permanent basis. Since the end of summer we started to cooperate on a full-fledged basis, we started with an hourly rate, I was given some tasks for a week, and I did them. Since the New Year we have switched to two-week projects and project-based payment. That's basically the story. So I've probably been with the agency for about nine months now.
- You didn't look for a job at the agency from the beginning? Why did you want to go freelance?
- I guess it's more about my emotional state, I was lost at the time and I didn't know what to do at that moment.
- The agency is foreign, American. Is your English fluent?
- It's okay.
- Sometimes, thanks to this success, this picture, it seems that it's all a matter of chance. But it's always work. You have to have a love for the work, some enthusiasm, stamina. These are things that are not about your desire to make money, it's about something bigger. About your life, your perception of yourself, what you want to give to the world, what you're willing to give up to get what you dreamed of.
- I agree with you. Of course, we all want to live well, earn well. Most often we change our profession to earn more, to enjoy it, to like the schedule. Especially people go into freelancing thinking that now they will be in Bali by the pool making money working two hours a day. Yes, it can be, but it will not be immediately and sometimes you need to sacrifice something, a little patience, work. And only then you will definitely wait for your reward.
Agency or freelance
- Is freelancing for you the perfect place for fulfillment, or does working with an agency make you feel like that stability buoys you? Perhaps your desire to work freelance is atrophying?
- This is probably a moot point, because I don't feel to the point that I'm working for an agency because I have a pretty loose schedule. Most of the time I can work when I'm comfortable. There are things that I have to make sure I'm paired with another designer who's in the US, of course I adjust to his time zone. But more often than not, I work when I'm comfortable with it. And also there are months when there are a little bit more projects, there are months when there are a little bit less. So I don't feel like I'm in an agency to the end, I feel like a freelancer.
- So that's cool. It's such a part time experience for you that you can change any day if you feel like it or something changes. And that's how I feel about freelancing - your willingness to change whatever you want and whatever you can. Because if you've been in one place for a long time and you're happy with it, you grow attached to that place anyway and it's harder and harder to accept the idea that you're going to lose it and you're more scared every day. Your motivation then is different: not to develop, but to stay where you are, because it suits you and it's better to stay there by all means. That's why freelancing is like entrepreneurship for me: every day is a challenge and new perspectives.
What Tata's workday looks like
- You and I have now gotten to the topic of your schedule. We've talked about your two years, which have been thorny. And is it difficult to live in that rhythm at all, as a freelancer, as a remote worker?
- It's a little bit difficult if you have problems with organizing your time. I have them, so it can be difficult, especially when I was a freelancer myself, I had my own projects that I did whenever I wanted. And it was a little bit difficult to get organized.
- Why is it hard for you? Are you procrastinating?
- It happens to me that I sit down at the computer, I think I'm going to work, and then: oh, I wanted to buy something, I'm going to look, I'm going to look, I'm going to look, and then these things happen. Now at the agency, I have days when I have to work. It's not necessarily eight hours, but it's a little bit easier for me. And I have more free time on the contrary, because I don't spend time preparing for work. And in general I like it very much: I got up when I wanted to, went for a walk with my dog. Now it's sunny, warm, I can go for a walk, because I just wanted to, basically. It's cool to be a freelancer, you get paid money. But you need to be able to organize yourself - that's the most important advice.
- Did you have work experience before UX/UI? Can you compare?
- I worked for a while as a model in China, it was something a bit like freelancing. Then I came back to Ukraine and found a job in a clothing store. I worked there for a year and a half, there were almost no days off, I worked from 9am to 18. You do a lot, you don't earn much, you are on your feet all day, no one respects you, no one needs you. I don't want to go back there for sure.
- Earnings before design and after? How much more?
- Let's put it this way, not 10 times, but maybe 8 times more.
- So you work about half as much, but you make 8 times as much?
- Not two, three. A lot less. And I get paid in dollars.
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- And tell me about a fakap during your time at the agency?
- Luckily, I haven't had any, I have a very understanding team. If I don't understand something because of my English, they are there to help. Here in Odessa there are problems with the light or for some circumstances I can't be present at the call - everything is fine, everything is okay.
Meeting with reality: fears
- Such a question. You are coming out of a course, you have some kind of firmware from this course, an understanding of things, but no real experience. In general, you're scared, it's not clear whether your skills will be adapted to the tasks you'll have in an agency or freelancing. How did you feel it?
- Scared, of course. But I am such a person - I will do everything I can to make something work. It was very scary. I remember especially the moment when my friend gave me a project - to make a mobile application. I had done websites before, but not apps. I already wanted to give up, but I sorted it out, did everything and it seemed pretty good.
You have to go into your fears, because in any business you start, you won't know everything 100%. You don't have to say no, you just have to do, call, text everyone you know and strangers, read information, watch videos, take on things you're scared of. That's the only way you'll learn, especially in freelancing.
- I always say that the most difficult stage in a freelancer's life is at the beginning. It is the one that filters out 80% of people not based on their skills, but on their personality. And you don't need to be a genius for this - you need time and just don't give up.
“UX/UI Legend”
- Tell me, how has the UX/UI Legend course helped you?
- There will be an updated course now, I'm sure it will be 100 times better than it was, but both when I was on the course and when I was a mentor, I always told my students that the course is enough to get started - whether freelancing or working for an agency. It will only depend on your willingness to work on yourself. That's why I say with 100% confidence that the course is enough.
Everything I started with, everything I learned only on the course “UX/UI legend”. And I didn't even start with lendings. My first project was a site for searching tours: a large site, complex, with a cabinet, with some archives. But even this I was able to do at the very beginning and I only studied on the course “UX/UI legend”. Somewhere I also added persistence, watched other designers and this is such a combo that I was able to do something complicated even in the beginning.
Maybe six months ago I found a video in the archives of me crying. I purposely filmed during the course how I was crying, I couldn't do anything. I thought: I won't succeed, but maybe I will and then I will watch this video as it was. And that's what happened.
- That's a cool idea with the video! I started this tradition a few years ago: I keep a journal. Not every day, but once a week for sure, maybe two or three. The idea of this diary was at first just to somehow pour my thoughts onto paper, look at them and when they are somehow structured, it's easier to perceive my problems. Then I realized that I could make another book based on these thoughts. Because they describe the sine wave of your state - from “I'm nobody” to “I'm king of the world.” Because there will always be an upswing after a downswing. It's also such a therapeutic benefit, which is why I advise everyone to write down their thoughts and track them day by day.
I have another daily planner called “Diary of What Happens.” Every day in the morning I write down what the day and my life in general is going to be like. What I succeed, how strong I am, how persistent I am, how easily ideas, people, events come to me. It's like making water - your thoughts at the beginning of the day set the tone.
- That's a cool idea, I need to try it.
Plans
- Tata, what are your plans for development in your profession? Newcomers sometimes think there are three options: go freelance, go to an agency or go nowhere and give up. But I know there are millions of ways. Which one do you choose?
- At this stage, I'm comfortable staying with my agency. And since time allows me, I'm also developing my social networks, freelance exchanges, I want to get to the ideal of freelancing, and at the same time I also want to open my own agency, but that's a little later.
- Why did you come up with this idea? Do you want more money/more responsibility? Because everything looks cool right now.
- I'm an ambitious girl, a bit of a dictator, so I want to be in charge, to manage the process, I like it in general and it seems to be working out pretty well. And I want an even better life, because there are plans and desires for which I need more money.
Top tip from Tata
The point of this interview is to convey to people that things are a little bit simpler than they seem. It's not a magical world ruled by some other laws of other physics. It's all about life. And if you can't learn how things are done in one area, another area won't help you. Tata is a vivid example of what skills you need to pump in order to get to something. And that this path, this result, it may not be what you expect and that it will not happen in a week.
- Tata, what do you say last?
- To aspiring designers and students of “UX/UI legends” I wish success, I wish not to give up, not to put your hands down - everything depends only on you. And you rightly said that everyone has their own way and it's normal. Don't be equal to anyone, we are all unique, our paths are unique, and therefore yes: believe in yourself and everything will work out. Take responsibility for yourself in your own hands. No one is in charge of your life but you.
And the course is top-notch and I want to thank you, Andrew, for everything. For the course I took for the first time, for the fact that we know each other and you still continue to teach me something and support me.
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