We were lucky to catch up with Angela Noble recently and have shared our conversation below.
Angela , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
This is a great question, and it’s one I am asked often. I have been able to earn a full-time living as a designer, but it was a slow process to get there. I was fortunate enough to be able to do freelance projects alongside working full-time to build my business slowly.
The year after I graduated from university, back in 2011, I was making about $40,000 working full time in an in-house marketing department. I really wanted to do more design and less marketing (which is ironic if you know anything about what I do now). So, I put an ad out on LinkedIn and started mentioning to friends and colleagues that I was doing freelance work on the side.
I landed my first project through that LinkedIn ad—a website for $500. My then boyfriend, now husband and business partner Cris, worked with me to get that project across the finish line (it turned out they wanted web development, not design!). Thus began Cris’ journey into learning web development and our journey as business partners.
That first year I earned $2,500 with freelance projects. Through word of mouth with connections of my colleagues, friends, and family, I increased my freelance revenue to $9,000 in 2012 and $18,000 by 2014. I began going to networking events in my local community. All the while, I was still working full-time.
By 2013, I was working remotely for an advertising agency on the East Coast while living on the West Coast. I would work from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and then meet with my freelance clients or go to networking events in the afternoons. Many of my clients had no idea that I had a full-time job.
Cris was working on more and more projects with me at night and during weekends, now a full-time software engineer himself. Five years later, by 2015, we had grown our revenue to $40,000. Mid-way through 2016, I felt secure enough with our revenue and client base to quit my full-time job. Noble Intent was born. I was no longer a freelance designer—I became a business owner.
Our dream was always for Cris to work alongside me full-time. We took a similar approach to slowly growing our revenue enough to allow him to quit his full-time job. Finally, mid-way through 2019, we had enough clients and projects in our pipeline to make it happen.
It took me 5 years to go full-time and another 3 years for Cris to rely fully on Noble Intent’s income. We chose this slower path of freelancing while working full-time so that neither of us were ever in the position of relying on the other’s income. Now, after 15 years of building our business, we’re earning about twice as much as we did when we had full-time jobs.
Our business was built slowly and through relationships—relationships built through hard work, privileges we were fortunate enough to have, and a little bit of luck. We call the way our business has grown our “relationship snowball” because as you keep working it gets bigger and bigger with the more people you meet and work with. From the beginning, I have tracked where every dollar we’ve earned has come from—every person in the snowball along the way.
Most of our revenue has come from key networking and professional groups, a handful of well-connected people, and former colleagues. Very few projects are a result of our super cool website, social media feed, or Google search. And we’ve never done cold emailing or advertising of any kind (other than our very first project from that LinkedIn ad!).
Knowing what I know now, I don’t think this process could have been sped up unless we did rely on someone’s full-time income or if we would have drastically reduced our living expenses. It would have been easier had we lived in a less expensive area, but it also would have been much harder if we had children or other dependents besides the two of us. We know this path to growing a business is not one everyone can take, and are so fortunate to have been able to grow this way.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I went to school for graphic design and have a major in visual communications and a minor in business. My husband and business partner Cris has a degree in process engineering and taught himself web development.
We empower business leaders to take control of their digital presence with websites their teams can manage confidently—and that convert visitors into leads.
Our results-focused solutions are built around business goals. We take a content-first approach to designing custom websites that communicate our clients’ unique messaging. All of our websites are custom-built on WordPress with accessibility at their core.
We also offer organic LinkedIn Company Page management, LinkedIn ads, and email marketing. We consistently outperform industry benchmarks and deliver brand awareness and marketing qualified leads for our clients.
As we close out 2025 and begin 2026, we’re excited to announce we have just launched our 100th website!
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
I talk about my expertise a ton on LinkedIn and in email marketing messages I send once each month.
Those two channels have been great ways to keep top-of-mind.
When we send our monthly email, we almost always get a reply from someone who we worked with in the past (or a one-time connection we don’t even remember) who years later replies to an email when they finally have a need we can help with.
The same is true on LinkedIn. I run into people at events who I connected with on LinkedIn and they’ve gotten to know and remember me because of my posts.
Don’t be scared to have a point of view and share what you’re up to!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
My goal is to be “the website person” in any group, and even more broadly in San Diego.
Showing up to every local event I can (where relevant people are attending), hosting an online meetup group for San Diego Creatives, posting on LinkedIn weekly, and sending an email message monthly are the key ways I get new projects.
95% of people in those moments either aren’t the right fit or don’t have a project right at that time, but it’s the repetition that lands that last 5% at least once a month for us.
Don’t expect to get a new project when you show up to an event once or twice, or post a few times on LinkedIn, or send an email out to your contacts. It’s the consistency of doing this over and over again that one time—when you reach the right person at the right time—you’ll land a project.
Finding the right events and the right groups has been key for our growth. At one point, a local group of mostly graphic designers was pivotal for us. At another point, a group of very small local businesses was a key referral source. As our business has evolved and people within various groups have changed, we continued to put in the effort to find more groups that connect us with more relevant people at our current business stage.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nobleintent.com
- Instagram: @noble.intent
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelanoble1/
Image Credits
Katie Gardner Photography