Tina Roth-Eisenberg aka Swiss Miss is an acclaimed graphic designer and entrepreneur. She’s the founder of several ventures including CreativeMornings, a to-do app called TeuxDeux, a designy temporary tattoo shop called Tattly and runs a co-working space called FRIENDS.
Today on the podcast,
- The beauty of starting something as a side project vs a business– you’re more willing to experiment, less afraid of failure
- Scratching your own itch. Tina says, “If I keep repeatedly complaining about something, I have to either fix it or let it go”
- We get into Tattly, how it came about, but also how her values & principals drive how she does business. Like requiring that their shipments require real stamps so that when they arrive, it feels like a friend sent it to you
Enjoy!
Confidence is impressive; enthusiasm is contagious.
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Tina’s episode was featured in the 30 Days of Genius series of Chase Jarvis Live on CreativeLive. If you like this, join 50,000+ people who are receiving one of these videos everyday.
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Some Questions I Ask:
- So you landed in New York, and had a job within twelve hours? [4:33]
- When you’re looking for someone to take a chance on, what do you look for? [5:18]
- Is being the best at one discipline limiting, and are we in a new chapter of dabbling in many disciplines? [8:12]
- How does your enthusiasm permeate through your work? [10:25]
- What’s the cocktail that you look for when hiring? [12:19]
- What’s the story behind you firing your clients? [13:40]
- How do you know you’re doing what you love? [16:16]
- A handful of fear based over-clarifying questions about doing a group wave. [20:00]
- Question from the audience: How do you find the discipline to focus on one thing at a time? [21:44]
- Do you have some sort of a system for staying focused? [23:30]
- What are some of your daily rituals and habits that keep you creative? [25:03]
- Do you have any productivity tools that you use? [25:48]
- Question for the audience: What do you do to stay excited and inspired? [28:00]
- Question from the internet: How much influence has Brooklyn had on your career? [31:48]
- Question from the internet: How do you differentiate a superpower from an interest? [33:30]
- Can you have multiple superpowers? [33:50]
- What is Studiomates? [34:20]
- How is firing your clients a viable business option? [36:10]
- Are having clients an all or nothing deal? [37:40]
- When did TeuxDeux come in relation to Tattly? [39:11]
- What is Tattly? [44:04]
- Question from the internet: How do you structure your partnerships with these quick little startups? [55:50]
- Question from the internet: How did you create that passive income around your blog? [56:56]
- Question from the internet: Have you noticed any Creative Mornings themes that infect the community the most? [58:23]
- How did you build Creative Mornings? [1:00:45]
- Is it competitive between the different chapters of Creative Mornings? [1:02:40]
- Where can we find you online? [1:03:20]
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- How Tina’s first boss predicted that once she moved to the U.S., she’d never leave. [3:00]
- Why having side projects are going to take you to your next great place in your career. [6:00]
- Tina’s aspirational goals. It doesn’t have anything to do with graphic design. [8:37]
- Why Tina’s superhero outfit needs to have confetti cannons. [9:10]
- Why enthusiasm trumps confidence when starting a movement. Enthusiasm is infectious! [11:38]
- How Tina let her quest for happiness guide her career. [15:00]
- Tina’s guide to parenting. [18:00]
- Why you should be using Tina’s to do app, teuxdeux, to stay organized. [25:55]
- How you know you’re on the right path. Advice from Steve Jobs: if you look at yourself in the mirror too many days in a row, you’re not happy, then you need to be doing something else. [28:55]
- Tina’s two suggestions for finding inspiration: be curious about life and surround yourself with interesting people. [30:11]
- If you have clients, watch the talk Michael Bierut did at Creative Mornings. [37:08]
- The secret to a creative life… passive income. [37:56]
- The ingredients and inspiration of the TeuxDeux app. One part frustration, two parts collaboration. [39:20]
- When you’re thinking about what entrepreneurial projects to pick up, start by scratching your own itch. [42:40]
- One of Tina’s rules for herself.. “If I keep complaining about something I either need to do something about it or let it go.” She chose to do something about awful temporary tattoos and it brought her product to the MoMA store. [45:13]
- Why there’s benefit to starting something as a side project, and not expecting it to be a business. [47:27]
- My type of prison tat. Neck tattoo of a … bird. [49:00]
- A few business principles Tina lives by to make the world a better place. [51:49]
- “I want to make things that I love for people that love it.” [52:30]
- How to say “kitchen cupboard” in Swiss German. [55:00]
- What the awesomeness of Creative Mornings is and how it’s grown. [58:44]
- How trust breeds magic. [1:01:40]
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