What LAUNCH actually produces
A real sample for Sarah Chã, a 34-year-old UX designer in Lisbon who wants to leave agency work and earn €5K/month within 18 months while keeping evenings with her kid.
Three businesses tailored to your answers
The free Discovery output shows you the fit, who each business serves, what makes it different, and a realistic earning range. The exact pricing, the month-by-month revenue math, your 48-hour validation test, and your first steps are built into the launch kit — you can see that depth in the Strategy section further down.
1. PortfolioPilot
Fit score
9 / 10 — your hiring-panel experience and your Substack audience line up almost perfectly with this buyer.
One-line description
A done-in-a-weekend UX portfolio rebuild service for designers who keep promising themselves they'll fix it but never do.
Why this fits YOU
You've spent 9 years critiquing portfolios in hiring panels and you have working knowledge of what gets people hired. Your Substack audience is exactly the buyer. Distilling complex flows into something simple is literally your superpower. And the service model fits 4-hour workdays because every engagement is bounded by a weekend.
The product
A 5-day async sprint: client uploads their current portfolio Monday, you ship a Figma rebuild + rewrite of 3 case studies by Friday. Plus a 30-minute Loom walkthrough explaining your changes.
Target customer
Mid-to-senior product designers (4–10 years experience) who are job-hunting passively and know their portfolio is the bottleneck. Lives on Twitter/LinkedIn and reads ADPList. Will pay €500–€1.5K to fix this without doing it themselves.
What makes this different
Most portfolio coaches do hour-by-hour reviews. You ship the actual rebuild. That's a 10x outcome difference for the buyer.
Realistic Year-1 range
A mid-five-figure range working your stated hours, with clear room to grow via productized add-ons. (Exact pricing, the month-by-month math, and your validation test come with the kit — see the Strategy below.)
2. The Calm Onboarding Co.
One-line description
Productized onboarding-flow audits for B2B SaaS companies losing trial users in the first 5 minutes.
Why this fits
UX heuristics + 9 years of SaaS exposure + you actually enjoy distilling chaos. SaaS companies pay far more than consumers and decisions are made by people who already buy tools.
Realistic Year-1 range
The strongest income ceiling of the three — B2B audit-and-retainer work compounds. (Exact pricing and projections are part of the kit.)
3. CareerStack for Designers
One-line description
A 6-week cohort-based course teaching design career navigation: portfolio, interviews, salary negotiation, level-jumping.
Why this fits
Leverages your Substack audience, lets you teach (which energizes you), and is asynchronous-friendly so you can deliver around your kid's schedule.
Realistic Year-1 range
Cohort income that scales with your audience, plus an evergreen self-paced version for passive upside. (The kit sizes the cohorts and prices them for you.)
Positioning
"The portfolio rebuild service for designers who already know what's wrong but can't ship the fix themselves."
You're not coaching them. You're not teaching them. You're shipping the artifact they've been failing to ship for months. That's the wedge.
Target customer deep-dive
Persona
Mid-senior product designer, 28—42, currently employed, looking to switch. Has 4–10 years of experience. Earns €55K–€110K. Lives in Berlin, London, Lisbon, Amsterdam, NYC, or Toronto. Designs 30–60% of their time, the rest is meetings.
Where they hang out
- Twitter/X: follows Tobias van Schneider, Femke van Schoonhoven, Jorge Torés
- LinkedIn: lurks in product design groups, doesn't post
- ADPList for free mentor sessions
- Designer News, Sidebar (newsletters they actually open)
- Read.cv profiles
Buying trigger
A specific moment of friction: rejected from a role they wanted, or a peer announces a job at a top company. They open their portfolio, cringe, close it, repeat for 6 weeks. Your offer must hit them in that 48-hour cringe window.
Competitive landscape
| Competitor | Model | Price | Why you win |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADPList mentors | 1:1 hour calls | Free | You ship; they advise |
| Bestfolios coaching | 4-week program | €1,200 | You're done in 5 days |
| Design Buddies | Community + reviews | $0–$200 | Outcome, not opinion |
| Random Fiverr | "Portfolio rebuild" | €200–€500 | UX-specific, senior eye |
Pricing strategy
| Tier | What's included | Launch | Mature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sprint | 1-weekend rebuild + 3 case studies + Loom | €590 | €890 |
| Sprint + Revision | Sprint + a follow-up revision a month later | €790 | €1,090 |
| Template Pack | Self-serve Figma file (asynchronous) | — | €79 |
Revenue projections
| Period | Conservative | Base | Optimistic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | €1,180 (2 launch sprints) | €1,770 | €2,950 |
| Month 3 | €2,670 | €4,450 | €6,230 |
| Month 6 | €3,560 | €5,340 | €8,010 |
| Month 12 | €4,450 (5 sprints) | €6,230 + templates | €9,790 + templates |
Base case hits your €5K/month minimum at Month 8 working < 20 hours/week. Optimistic case hits it at Month 4.
Go-to-market — first 90 days
Week 1–2: Validate
- Post the €200 trial offer on your Substack and Twitter. Cap at 5.
- Run all 5 sprints. Document everything. Get 5 video testimonials.
- Ship a 1-page Carrd. Pin the Substack post.
Week 3–6: Launch
- Twitter thread: "I rebuilt 5 portfolios in 5 weekends. Here's what 92% had in common." Tag each client (with permission).
- Open at launch pricing (€590), cap at 10 sprints, list visible counter.
- Substack issue: "Why I'm doing this and what it costs me."
- ADPList: offer 3 free reviews/week as discovery funnel.
Week 7–12: Optimize
- Raise to €890. The first 5 testimonials should make this defensible.
- Add "before / after" carousel to landing. (Three of these are the highest-converting asset you can ship.)
- Start a once-a-week newsletter: "1 portfolio insight + 1 fix from this week's sprint."
Tech stack
- Domain & site: Carrd Pro (€19/yr) on your own domain (Namecheap €12/yr)
- Scheduling: Cal.com free
- Payments: Stripe Payment Links (no monthly fee)
- Client delivery: Figma (free), Loom free, Notion free for client doc
- Email: Keep your Substack for now; migrate to Kit at 1,000 subs (€25/mo)
- Total month 1 cost: ~€31
Risk register
| Risk | Likelihood | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Sprint scope creep | High | Strict 5-day window, 3-case-study cap, written brief upfront |
| One bad public testimonial | Medium | Free revision policy; never sprint without a clear brief |
| Audience plateau at 340 subs | Medium | The 5 case studies become content fuel; cross-post to LinkedIn |
| You burn out | Medium | Cap at 5 sprints/month at full price; templates handle overflow |
Kill criteria
If after 90 days you haven't sold 6 sprints at launch pricing — pivot. The signal is people don't pay; they ask for "feedback only" instead. That means the wedge ("I ship the artifact") isn't strong enough and you're being treated as a coach.
Want one for yourself?
Sarah answered 12 quick questions to get here. Yours will be entirely personalized: different ideas, different strategy, your numbers, your audience, your industry.
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