Dan Mall

What they show

A homepage with a plain promise, 'I help designers make more money and get their flowers,' and content organized into four categories: The Business of Design (pricing, profitability), Design Leadership (team management, decision-making, culture), Process & Craft, and Personal. Testimonials come from leaders at Meta, The New York Times, Google and Stripe, and the newsletter is cited at 70,000+ readers. The framing throughout is lived experience: he says he's made more than he imagined while working 40 to 50 hours a week and putting family first.

Why it works at this level

After running an agency (SuperFriendly) for years, Dan's site doesn't show the agency's work; it shows what the agency taught him, sorted into the questions designers actually ask. The four-category structure is a good model for any founder whose value is now advice: it turns a career into a curriculum. The tone is unusually specific about money and hours, which is exactly what makes it credible to designers considering the same path. The newsletter number and the testimonial roster do the authority work so the copy can stay plain.

What to steal

Sort your writing by the question the reader is asking, not by date. Be concrete about the things people are too polite to ask (money, hours, tradeoffs); it's what distinguishes advice from inspiration. Let a subscriber count and a few named testimonials carry the credibility.

What I'd change

One thing I'd push on. Every site here is good; this is the note I'd send the author.

SuperFriendly's work and clients, the evidence for the advice, are hard to find on the site. A single 'what I built' page would let skeptical readers check the source of the lessons.