Launch guide
How to launch your design business: the first 90 days
Define your practice, scope project phases, and build a disciplined studio operating rhythm.
Read the launch guideBack to Design
Business education for your next chapter
Design resource library
Practical material to adapt with your professional advisors, your local requirements and the business you actually want to run.
Copy and adapt
Four working templates
Replace every bracketed prompt. Review professional, privacy, advertising and platform requirements before using these drafts. Never add sensitive client details to a general contact record.
Initial inquiry response
Acknowledge the request and collect only enough context for a business next step.
Thank you for contacting [business]. To help us identify the next business step, please share project type, general location, desired timing, decision maker, and a broad budget range. Please do not include confidential or sensitive records. We will reply by [realistic date] with availability and the appropriate next step. This exchange does not establish an engagement.
Three-touch follow-up
Use only for appropriate, expected business follow-up; stop after a decline or opt-out.
Touch 1: Are you still interested in discussing [requested service]? I can clarify the business next step. Touch 2: Do you have any questions about the proposed scope, timing, or booking process? No decision is required today. Touch 3: I will close this follow-up for now. You are welcome to reconnect if your plans change; no reply is needed.
Business intake checklist
Administrative intake only, separate from technical or professional assessment.
For business setup, please confirm project contacts, billing recipient, communication preferences, and document exchange arrangements. Provide only information necessary for these arrangements. Do not send passwords, payment card details, health information, or sensitive records in this message. We will explain any appropriate separate process if additional information is needed.
Optional honest feedback request
Check platform and professional rules first. No incentives, filtering, or required private step.
If permitted by the relevant platform and professional rules, you may share honest feedback about project coordination and administrative communication. Any rating or perspective is welcome. Feedback is optional, with no incentive, and does not affect access to services. Please omit confidential or sensitive details. You may also send feedback privately; that is not a prerequisite for public feedback.
A realistic owner week
Your first week
Move the blocks around your professional obligations and existing commitments. The point is a repeatable rhythm, not a perfect calendar.
Monday
Prospecting and planning
- Proposal preparation
- Confirm this week’s delivery commitments and available capacity.
Tuesday
Delivery
- Project delivery
- Record agreed next steps and outstanding inputs.
Wednesday
Delivery and administration
- Project delivery
- Project administration
Thursday
Delivery and learning
- Project delivery
- Document workflow learning
Friday
Money and next-week review
- Milestone invoice review
- Review expected receipts, committed costs, and next week’s schedule.
Plain-English business terms
Business words nobody taught you
- Scope
- The agreed boundaries of a project, including included work and exclusions.
- Deliverable
- An agreed item your firm will provide.
- Milestone
- A planned checkpoint in the project workflow.
- Revision allowance
- The amount of revision effort assumed in the proposal.
- Change request
- A request to alter previously agreed work.
- Project phase
- A defined part of the project used for planning and tracking.
- Billable time
- Working time assigned to client work under your billing model.
- Overhead
- Business costs not assigned directly to one project.
- Receivable
- Money invoiced to a client that remains unpaid.
- Cash forecast
- An estimate of when money will enter and leave the business.
- Capacity
- The work your firm can take on with available time and resources.
- Write-off
- Recorded work or charges removed from expected billing.
Starting points, not endorsements.
Associations and official starting points
Learn without expensive detours
Three common first-year mistakes
1. Treating revisions as unlimited.
Instead: State revision assumptions and document agreed scope changes.
2. Counting all working hours as project capacity.
Instead: Reserve time for coordination, review, outreach, and administration.
3. Publishing project material without checking permissions.
Instead: Review client terms, attribution, and professional rules first.
Rookie Runway is general business education, not legal, tax, financial, medical or brokerage advice. Licensing and practice rules vary by state. Check with your board, broker or advisor. Business education only. Check state board, licensing and seal rules.