We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dexter Washington. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dexter below.

Alright, Dexter thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I really wanted to talk about this question because there’s a lot of chatter about having a job vs being a business owner. I don’t see it as it being an occupation vs occupation, I see it as myself vs my financial situation and securing different routes to success.

As of right now, I juggle both a design leadership role and being a founder at my own design studio even though I don’t really have to. I’ve seen both perspectives of stakeholder needs and submitting pitches. Being able to understand both sides of the equation can help me apply lessons learned to one or the other. Doing this is helping me move through corporate quickly.

I’m always thinking of the future, being a studio founder is great but what if I wanted to move on tomorrow? What’s my exit strategy? I can sell, then what? I need something on the other side being in my late twenties still. I also get bored quickly, I need new challenges, and sometimes one or the other will motivate me to try different things.

Ultimately I think having a job can be great if you plan on carving out a long career in a specific field. I had an idea of what role I wanted, what I expected in terms of culture and operations, etc. so knowing these things as a business owner helped me look at processes in a different light and how they effect the people working within it. It determines a lot; workload, culture, hierarchy, communications, etc.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

In short, Crafted Studios is a design and development studio serving as creative partners for companies within a few different sectors. Sectors such as Technology, SaaS, Finance, and Creative. Webflow is our bread and butter and we’re one of the many great small studios recognized for our work with the platform by Webflow themselves. Winning Pro Partner of the Year in 2022 and being nominated for Pro Partner of the Year again in 2023. Along with opportunities I couldn’t attend this year, nonetheless super blessed for being thought of, it means a lot and thank you to the Webflow team and community.

We solve the problem of implementing design and development operations that scale for companies of all sizes. Organizations that use platforms that require a large budget and large team to manage website systems (such as AEM/Adobe Experience Manager or even WordPress) would come to us to help them simplify web management operations using platforms like Webflow or if not that, building platforms and websites in an efficient way with easy to use technology stacks in mind.

It’s not all about budget, sometimes organizations just don’t have UX/UI resources who can advocate for design on their side, implement design systems, give advice and guidance on interactivity and how they could really transform their website experience. This is where we also come in, handling migrations, redesigns, fresh first time designs, and many more scenarios that can come up when making a huge digital overhaul. We also design brands as well, giving us the advantage of being a full in house design studio.

I got into the design space sort of by accident. I think I’ve always had a good eye and taste to create things, and with my experience in advertising / marketing working within agencies – it felt like a good fit. I’ve learned to lean on what comes easiest to be and create my own lane. Crafted Studios has taken me places I’ve never thought I’d be at. Invited to special events, had opportunities to see my face being displayed in Times Square even though I couldn’t make it as stated above, win awards, share my story via editorials, etc. It’s been a life changing process and one that I’ve constantly have to change my life to keep growing and evolving as a person, designer, and entrepreneur.

To be quite honest, I don’t know what has made the brand so impactful, but I’m happy to know I/we have had this effect. It’s honestly just crazy to think about. As I’m typing this, it gets me excited knowing that we’re not even close to being done. I think this is what I’m most proud of even if I can’t quantify it. To know that we do great work for clients so they can feel confident when talking about what they do online feels good.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’m the King of transformations, I will never hold back my need to start over, pivot, or take a break. I’m constantly evolving through what I learn and need to start fresh whenever I reach a point where I think I’ve outgrown a phase in business, which happens often. At least for now it happens often, Crafted is still fairly new as a company and it’s just now getting comfortable with change.

That said, this year I actually had to make.a huge pivot in my life to full time entrepreneur to managing a business and a full time job + a coaching venture on the side of all of this. Reason being is that I wanted the option to change whenever I decide that I don’t want to run businesses of any kind, anymore, or at least not for a few seasons of life. I set out to build a career in design because of this, and because I’m getting older and will be married soon. I imagine I don’t want to spend my time running an agency into my mid to late 30s, by then I want to do more things that free up my time. I know I can have both, but I would like to stay a small company and be heavily involved in it. It’s almost time to build a family and really settle down into what I want my life to look like in 10 years.

2023 was a slow year early on also, which wasn’t my initial motive to find a job, but it did help keep things steady during a time where I couldn’t afford too much risk. Things picked back up in August and are ending on a really good note.

This is a big pivot for me and a milestone also. Last time I had a job was in 2020 (3 yrs ago) and last job I had I wasn’t making much. This is a milestone in the respect, I have a leadership position as a designer, I think that’s pretty cool and a lot has changed in a short amount of time. If I wasn’t open to change this wouldn’t have happened.

At the end of the day, it’s not me vs a job it’s me vs freedom at all costs and however that comes in different phases of my life I’m open to it. I know that whatever I decide to do, I will be successful and I have enough proof to claim that without the fear of that not being true. I would say that if you’re stuck, facing adversity, or just flat out want change – it’s something that is healthy to embrace and feel confident knowing that through work and commitment you can change your situation.

Everything I’m doing now is a stepping stone.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn was holding on to money so tightly. I grew up with nothing, so whenever money did come my way growing up I’d hold on to it and “save it”. I put save it in quote marks because I wasn’t really saving, I was hoarding. There’s a huge difference in my opinion. When you save you have a plan, when you don’t you just collect out of the sake of collecting and in my case it was the fear of that same amount not coming back to me.

This also showed up my first year of business. Every dollar earned I held on to it and struggled to let go of it to reinvest back into the business by hiring help, marketing, upgrading systems, etc. But hey, the bank account was looking great I guess – I guess that’s what I valued more at that time, what looked good.

The more I settled in to my own power and gained confidence in what we were offering on a consistent basis I felt like I could spend money and make it back. That’s when I experienced growth in the 2nd year. I’m grateful for that realization. You know, digging through a lot of bad money habits from when you were broke isn’t easy and sometimes they show themselves later in life. Some of those I still struggle with till this day, I mean I’m not too far removed but with time things will settle. A good accountant and tax person trumps all, they’re the ones who are going to make sure priorities are at least taken care of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.craftedstudios.co/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dexter-washington-a219bb182/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/home