Architecture, And: Henry Gao is Empowering Creatives with Digital Tools

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast where we find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. I'm your host, Evelyn Lee, an architect who spans tech as an angel investor, startup advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast is your gateway to think differently about the role architects play within our global community. Hello, disruptors. Welcome to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted. Today we're joined by Henry Gao, a designer turned digital educator and entrepreneur who's redefining what it means to leverage an architectural background in the creator economy. Henry's journey has taken him from the hand drawn sketches of China's historic buildings to launching his own courses and brand draw with Gao. His work is driven by the belief that digital drawing can be a powerful tool for architects and designers to communicate ideas, develop concepts, and even unlock new revenue streams beyond the traditional practice.

A In this episode, Henry shares how his early experiences drawing buildings on location with his parents and his architectural education in Canada and the U.S. and his dissatisfaction with conventional firm life led him to discover the potential of iPad sketching and content creation. We'll hear how he transitioned from side hustles in photography and Etsy to a thriving online business that supports a growing community of architects and designers worldwide. Henry's story is about recognizing your creative strengths, building on them, and not being afraid to pivot when the traditional path doesn't fit. He's part of a growing wave of architects turning to digital platforms to share knowledge, build businesses, and reimagine what it means to practice design in the 21st century. Stick around as we explore how Henry's work bridges architecture, creativity and entrepreneurship and why he believes teaching is a powerful form of service. Henry, thank you for joining us here on Practice Disrupted today. We're so happy to have you.

B Pleasure to be on here and thanks so much for inviting me here.

A I feel like this might be an unusual medium for you because I'm used to seeing so much of your face and you on YouTube. So our listeners will just be hearing your voice on the Practice Disrupted side.

B Okay. Well, it's not unusual for me because I'm like gotten used to looking at a camera out of instead of people. So I'm really used to looking at just this blank into the, you know, blank universe into the lens of my camera.

A So Henry, let's start off with your career journey. Because you started off in architecture, what was your initial interest in architecture?

B Well, you know, my dad wanted to be an architect. Himself. And I think the political climate, like, in China at the time, for some reason he didn't become an architect. So, like, he really wanted me to be one out of everything else. Like out of, you know, your Asian parents usually wanting to be like, engineer, lawyer, or a doctor.

A Doctor, yes.

B And unfortunately for him or for me, he wanted me to kind of like, pursue something that he didn't get a chance to do when he was younger. So he always just like, groomed me from very beginning to drawing. And, you know, from the age of like 10 to like 18, I've just been drawing buildings. Like, my parents would take me to these beautiful, significant sites in. In China. You know, I would. Back. Back then I had this big sketchbook.

B You know, I don't know if you know what they look like. It's like big sketchbook. You carry it around on your back. And then I bring a little. Little stool. And then you would just like, park in front of a historic kind of a place. And then I would just sketch for hours. And this is.

B This is with, like, other students and with a teacher. So we travel to these places in China, and I would just go there for days, sometimes weeks, just to be immersed in this urban sketching. So I feel like that was always being really ingrained into my DNA and just going into drawing and architecture just seemed really natural to me because I've been growing up being immersed in this urban environment or built environment.

A Do you look at those back at those times with nostalgia then? Just because you initially said, like, I was kind of groomed to be a.

B Part of this profession, I look at my drawing nostalgically, probably more so because these were drawings that they weren't formally trained. So, like, now that I'm trained in drawing perspectives, proportion, and I have a lot better, I guess, practice on the composition or just how to draw like an architect. These earlier drawings, when I was a kid, they were very. They were very loose, you know, they were kids drawings, but they had tremendous amount of details in them. So I have to send you some of the sketches early from before. But they were. They were architecture drawings without any sort of formal practice. And.

B But you could tell, like, even at the time, like, I was really focused and into drawing just buildings, and now I draw completely different. It's like black and white contrast.

A Well, I mean, I imagine things grow and evolve over time too.

B Let's just put it that I've gotten better at drawing over time. Yeah. So that initially got. Got me into studying architecture in Canada, and then I also pursued my Graduate studies at Cornell, which now I think about it, it's unnecessary in terms of the expense mostly. If I had to do it again, I might have gone doing something else. But also, had I not do that, I probably won't be where I am today.

A What was the impetus for going to Cornell then for your master's when you at the time, was it to get an accredited degree?

B I have to blame it on my parents again, because they also, out of all things, wanted me to pursue work in the, in the US because, you know, to them they thought there's more opportunities here in the US you probably get paid more. There's, you know, the level of education, if you got into a good school is also worth it in their eye. Like they value a piece of diploma. So that's not, that's not uncommon. Right. So they just wanted me to have more degrees or have higher trainings just to set me up for success. And also because I'm like, I'm the only child, so there's, there's no backup plan. Right.

B So this, everything is, everything is invested in me, which is, which is good. And really, really thankful.

A As a first generation Chinese American too, I definitely feel some of, some of that. Right. But it's interesting to hear that he placed such a high value on architecture because I don't feel like my parents ever placed that high value on, on that degree.

B I think part of that is they were kind of ignorant about the life of an architect. I think they had this romantic version of, oh, being an architect is very noble. Like most people. Like most people who don't know architects body think, oh, architecture. It sounds like fun. Probably get paid a lot of money to do it. You draw all day. You know, this is like you're doing, you're living up the Dre dream.

B Like how I met your mother, Ted Mosby. Right. And then it's nothing like that. So. And it's hard to explain it to them, actually. Like, I don't think I've tried to explain it to them, but they've just gotten to trust me with my decisions. They weren't angry that I pivoted in my career. They're not disappointed.

B So it's, it's actually like I have a good relationship with my parents because I think they just, they let me do my own thing.

A So you worked in a firm. You worked in a few firms for a while, both in New York, and then you ended up here in California.

B Yeah. So if I had to count all the internships, experience and the firms I worked for it's a handful. Like I feel like I'm lucky in that way. I've gotten to see a range of different practice environment, the people to really understand what it's like to work as an architect. So between graduate school and my undergrad, I work in Europe, Amsterdam, four year. I've gotten to see how Europeans work, their sense of life and culture in office. And I've gotten to see how people work on the east coast, in Toronto, New York and then I've gotten to know how firms operate on the west coast. Like I had an internship at EHDD in San Francisco and that was probably the moment I realized California might be better fit for me.

B And before that I've always been pretty committed to New York being that's where things are happening like design wise. But after coming here for internship, I really felt like, oh, I think there's a little bit more to design and to work. So that's why I'm here. That's why I think this, this culture of balance between work life is more valued here than other places that I've been to.

A So you found your way to California. You enjoy being out here. You decided that this is the place for you. When did you decide to take up digital drawing a little bit more and when did that path happen for you?

B That didn't happen, right, right off the bat. That didn't happen for a while, I would say. I went to work for a corporate firm for about a year and a half before I realized I feel really stifled in this environment. It wasn't really, I didn't really get to be creative in the way that I thought I would be. So I went to work for a smaller office which is where I've developed these other skill sets like digital drawing. But I've always just had a itch to do other things both in terms of like how much money, how much more money can I make? Because getting paid $62,000 a year in 2015 was pretty, pretty low and I wasn't going to cut it for, I think even for a young person, like I had to live very frugally. My rent was $800 a month. So I had side hustles, you know, if you call it during the time that I worked there.

B And the side hustles actually added up to about the same at the end of the year to working a full time job. So you know, I had this choice, I think I, I could keep doing what I'm doing right now or I could just do something, try something else while I'VE had this extra income that wasn't really expecting to maybe keep me afloat for the period when I'm trying to figure this out. So this is when I negotiated, like a reduced hour with this new office to just give me the white space to really kind of explore and experiment on other things in life. So I had other interests. Like, I had interest in running a Etsy shop. I had interest in photography. But back to the digital hand drawing was I had a lot of pain points when I was working for this smaller office. Even though I could draw really well and I was really proficient in hand drawing, there were silly mistakes like the swing of the door direction or just the number of stairs I've added in a sketch.

B Just, it was hard to correct these things without having to, like, redraw, rescan. So a lot of my drawings, my boss at the time, she was calling them, you're designing theoretical spaces because the scale is not right, the stairs is not right. And I attributed to that, attributed those mistakes to just the tools I was working with, because the scale ruler is pretty prone to mistakes. Like, just move a tiny inch and you're like, off by a foot or two. Right. There were things that I could have easily corrected, but took me much longer to correct them. So these sketches that often look nice on paper, they didn't pan out when I was transcribing them into computer, and I couldn't bring it into presentations because there were things that were just off. So this is the time where I think Wacom tablet was still, like, pretty popular at the time in 20, 2016.

B This is like almost when the first iPad and Apple pencil came out. So that was something I tried. And eventually, you know, I discovered the Apple pencil, which I used, and really started to develop a new workflow for myself initially just to solve my own struggles. And I realized there were just so much more things that, you know, an architect or a designer can capitalize on this tool. So, yeah, that's how I kind of, you know, I had a problem. I think like most entrepreneurs, you. You have or you recognize a problem or you had a problem. So, you know, once you solve it, do you want to share your solution? Does someone ask for those solutions from you? So that's.

B That's kind of like the beginning of digital drawing for me was just, you know, I was trying to solve my own problem and no one else was really sharing a solution at the time. There were, like, videos on YouTube of some artists uploading, like, a very long time lapse, but there wasn't any instructional videos. And I think part of it is like, the iPad was new, the apps were new, Everyone hasn't really gotten to use this new tool or they were just really satisfied with the tools that we've been using for like hundreds of years, which was, you know, pen, pencil, and trace paper. Right.

A I did want to go backwards a little bit because you talked about wanting to run an Etsy shop. So I think, I mean, the interesting thing is a lot of people I see on online forums are like, oh, I want to go and do a side hustle. But their response to doing a side hustle, frankly, is more architectural work, usually when people are talking about doing side hustles. So talk to us a little bit about the type of side hustles that you did do and try and why you started them and then why you also stopped them before you kind of found your way to architectural drawing.

B Oh, good question. You know, it wasn't like intentional that I, you know, I knew I wanted to do something. It was more like I had this skill set from previous internships where when I left, I could see people reaching out to me. They were asking, hey, can you do a rendering or illustration for us? We're going to contract you out as a freelancer at 1099. So I did. And what's funny was at the time, I had no idea how to charge for these things. So I'm like, okay, if I'm making $25 on my day job, I'll charge 50, right? That should be good. And then I literally realized I was still undervaluing my service.

B So there was some learning curve into how to charge in terms of like, for your value. So I did the 3D visualization, like the rendering part for the first two years out of school because I was just getting asked by, by the old firms that I had interned for and that somehow that when I looked at my end of the year tax and it surprised me, like, wow, I. I made almost nearly as much as my full time job first year out of school, which was, which was actually a lot of money for, for me to, to think about. And that really seeded other ideas in me. It's like, hey, if I could do this, maybe there's other skills that I can leverage to, to create a more passive way to bring some income. And truthfully, like, nothing is passive. There's always active work involved. But you know, when I started an Etsy shop, I knew I saw someone selling like gold foil art at one of these, like, conventions, like fairs, right.

B And they were like clip arts and they were selling it for $20 a pop and they were literally like a clip art. Someone put a gold foil on and then framed it and then they were selling like hotcakes. And I had the idea of just like, hey, I do these beautiful like landscape drawings from very early on and I've done them throughout my life. Can I maybe test that out and see if some of these things, if I put it online, will people buy it? So it's like a very small experiment, like very low entry to barrier. I created an account over a weekend and I figured out how to do this thing from watching a bunch of YouTube videos. So my startup cost was like less than a hundred dollars. And long story short, people loved it. People wanted to buy more of them.

B So I continued to create drawings of different cities, different countries. And I patched them in a way where it's like very appealing. You know, these are places that someone may have visited, they can buy a drawing put in their home and it's a, it's a very unique piece of art than like a clip art of, of the same place.

A I just want to say like, I still think you are approaching things in a very entrepreneurial way though that I don't hear a lot of architects talk about. When they say I need to make extra income and they're usually like, I'm going to do what I do at my work somewhere else. And they don't think about like passive incomes and they don't go to the local art fair where I, where I feel like a lot of architects go to a local craft fair and then see what somebody else is doing and say I can do that. So is where do you think this art entrepreneurial spirit came from for you?

B Yeah, you know, I have no idea. Like I, I, I don't have entrepreneurs in my family. I didn't grow up thinking I would be an entrepreneur. Like I've always had since like go to school and then move up the corporate ladder. Like I actually thought for the longest time that at some point I'll be one of those guys in like Asia Pacific. I'm going to be leading a group of architecture firm or like a large.

A A large firm principal or something.

B Right, right. That's always been in my, in my vision and I don't know what happened. It's just like when I started to work, maybe it was a firm I was working for, I wasn't inspired anymore to, to move up the ladder and to be the person that I maybe could be if I just waited 20 years, which is a long time, right? 20 years. I wasn't inspired to be the person that I admire in the firm and I just didn't see my life like that. Like, I admire the people that I work with a lot. I just couldn't imagine myself there. And then at some point when I was working for this smaller studio, I noticed the photographers that I was going on these photo shoots with, they weren't really capturing the essence of the project, like the way that I would shoot something I think because I'm more in tune with the project and there were things that were missing. So I thought, oh, you know what? Some of the skill sets I've learned before, like from rendering days, like the way you compose the image or you treat, how to storytell like these, these photographers, they weren't doing a good job and I was pretty confident that I could do a good job at it.

B But I need to learn the skill set. So this got me started in looking at where can I acquire this skill set in the quickest and fastest way. So. And then there's, there's a guy who was teaching architectural photography and he was teaching actually high end photographers to, to both how to shoot the thing, how to use the equipment and most importantly how to like post process. And many of these things I felt like, oh, I, I definitely have these overlapping skillset that I can easily learn the hardware and these other skill sets I've acquired over time can really come into play. So, so I did. My employer was super supportive. She actually paid for the courses that I ended up taking out in like with company time.

B And then she let me practice with a few of the company projects. And then, and then now I am the photographer for her, for her work. Now that I don't work for her, I'm beginning to shoot a lot of her projects because I feel like I could do a better job than most people out there. I'm not saying I'm the best photographer, but I feel like on certain projects I could really do that. So all these things I feel like are little dots leading me to what I'm doing now, which is more content. So the skills that I had as freelancer, to running an online shop which require a lot of customer service, and to using photo equipments, these were kind of ingredients to make content in a way where, you know, I had to produce, write scripts, edit the video, storytelling, these are all like ingredients that I somehow gather along the way. And I'm still, I'm still learning a lot more today.

A It's interesting to figure out. Especially I feel like people that have gone away from architecture, I just like enjoy learning how to. They've stitched together their careers and like you said, I feel like it's a little bit of this is a little bit of that and it's all kind of come, come together to, to where it is.

B Yeah, I don't think I would have gotten here if I didn't have all these other side things. If you call them.

A Do you do any more of those side things anymore? And then tell us about what you're doing. Mostly full time.

B So I do still have my Etsy shop, but I don't, I don't run it myself. I actually, I've hired someone to take care of the day to day operation, like sending all the orders, responding to customer service because it's, it's pretty like I've developed like a, like sop, which is something that I learned while doing all this.

A Could you tell our listeners what an SOP is?

B Sure. SOP is a standard operating procedure. Right. And almost every large office have, have this. But almost most of the things that I do can be standardized. So if you can outline me away with video or words, you can really just give it to somebody else, train them how to do it. So what I've started to understand, once I started to understand this concept, it really freed up my own time because I no longer needed to be involved in every single part of my, my life, my business. So even though the Etsy thing may not take me more than like two to three hours in a week to run it, but you don't understand like the mental space that's kind of, that is required just to think about it.

B So once that's out of my mind, it's really, I don't think about it anymore. And it's just to me that's purely passive now that I have gotten to teach it to somebody else. And it's, there's enough inventory in a, in, in the warehouse where I don't need to be constantly producing new artwork. So that's, that's the passive component to it. Like now it's passive, but for the first two years it wasn't passive. Like I was drawing almost every weekend producing something I can add to the shop because people were searching for it, they were asking, it's like, do you have, you know, do you have this hometown that I grew up in? So it did take a long time to just to get there.

A I feel like, yeah, so you're doing that and you're doing the photography still.

B The photography that I still do, I think it's really. I don't do it as much, probably a couple of times a year. And it's nice to still kind of go into someone's house. So I do mostly residential photography and it's nice to spend a day with a client in their house to be able to kind of enjoy the house. Recently I actually shot a home that I designed and the client, and we were pretty close enough where they said they were going to be out of town during Christmas and she invited us to stay over at their house, like the four of us with two babies. And we did. And it was the first time to actually live in a place that I've worked on and realize the mistakes I've made, like small mistakes, but you don't get to see those things once you leave the house. Right.

B You don't see how the house has aged over like a two year period of time. And there were small lessons to be learned for sure. Like I wouldn't pick certain faucet because they were peeling off after like a year.

A I, I feel, I feel like there's a little like bit of been there, done that for all of us that have built projects and were able to revisit. So tell us a little bit about then what your primary source of income is.

B Yeah, so nowadays I. My primary source of income is mostly the course creation, taking on people doing a training program a couple of times in a year. A lot of it is passive, but there is active components like publishing content and customer support, student support and coaching, private coaching. So these are the things that I'm doing on a weekly basis, which is actually really enjoyable. This is, this is much more meaningful to me as a creative person. And I joke about this a lot, you know, like all these, all these experiences, all the schooling, you know, led me to this place and it's just, I feel much more fulfilled as a designer because, you know, there's a word called ikigai, right, In Japanese. And it's like the way I understand it is, you know, you do something that you love, something you're good at, something, something the world needs and something you can get paid for. So I think for me, when I, when I had what I was good at, what I was getting paid for, I was kind of missing, you know, what does the world really need from me and what do I really love to do.

B And so now I feel like I have more of a balanced relationship between these four circle and ingredients. Even though, you know, even though it's not quite there yet, but I am doing something I love, which is teaching and serving people. And, you know, I think people actually need this stuff. People need to learn how to draw better, just in general, so there's a need for it. This is something that I can get paid for. And even though I'm not the best person at drawing, I'm good enough to teach some of this stuff to others. So that is. That's kind of like what we realized.

B Okay, this is. This is a good place to be, and I just need to figure out some of these smaller kind of components.

A Enjoying the show? Join a community of fellow disruptors at practiceofarchitecture.com forward slash community. Your membership helps support the production of this podcast, Practice disrupted and funds the creation of more resources for all of you looking forward to growing together. Join us today@practiceofarchitecture.com community. So the interesting thing is, and this model happens a lot, I think, outside of architecture, where there's this creator, right, who is then also their content and what they create creates a base audience that then purchases courses or they want to work with you, so they find various different points to work with you in with your draw. With Gao, do you define yourself as a creator?

B Yeah, truthfully, I'm not really sure what that. What that means. I think just. Just to me, like, from my experience, creating stuff is just like my way of serving people, of. Of teaching. So, you know, when I started, I've learned like, there's two camps of creators, right? There's like, are you entertaining or are you educating? I am definitely not entertaining. Not that funny. Can I be a decent person to educate? I think there's a better chance of me teaching something that's useful, instructional, and in a didactic way.

B So I chose the latter. Right. And I think that's the part where it resonates with my upbringing, being in all these classes and being led by good people. So another thing that I heard from a business coach is like, you know, you are probably most powerfully positioned to help someone that you once were, like five, 10 years ago, however many that years. So for me, five years ago or seven, eight years ago, I was in a place where I wanted to figure it out how to overcome these challenges with traditional way of working. And now I can teach me my sleep. I really wanted to help someone that was in my shoe back then. So that's.

B I'm creating content and serving and helping these small group of people right now. So that's what it means to me. To be a creator, it's just to. No, it's like another word for teacher or someone who wants to serve others.

A I think there's so many different types of creators in the world, and then there's this whole business marketing aspect of this new creator that's come into this space that didn't necessarily even exist five, ten years ago.

B Yeah, the creator, like the creator economy is like a real thing. Right. It's like, it's huge. It's very. It's very booming. I'm definitely not an influencer in any stretch.

A I mean, you definitely have the numbers to be a micro influencer. And some people would argue that that's even more powerful than a general influencer.

B Yeah, you're right. I could really push people in a certain way, but just like, I don't see myself kind of being sponsored by someone and then, you know, put out a something that's not on brand.

A Would you turn away Apple, though?

B I mean, come on, I'm really a ambassador for Apple in just the things that I teach. They don't need to recruit me to really endorse their products.

A But I think that's the altruistic side of the micro influencer, right? Is that you're. You're just. You're partnering with products that you already.

B Use, that you already use, that you really believe in. Right. At the end of the day, I think my relationship with my followers or subscribers, that's more important to me than being sponsored by someone who maybe could pay you a lot of money. That level of depth is really hard to create. And if you do, I don't want to destroy my reputation being a sponsor to someone or something that may not even be there, you know, a couple years from now. But I do talk heavily about the tools that I am using, but I'm not getting paid to do it.

A I do feel when we were talking earlier, because we have this little creator group going now, you kind of did talk about the evolution though, of Draw with Gao and how you've actually changed how you're packaging things or what you're selling. Can you talk to us about that transformation and that the necessary pivots you've made in your own business structure to get to where you are now.

B Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's a pretty good story. I feel like when I was starting out, it was really hard to find mentorships. Like, mentorships are like, everyone kind of like feel like they need a mentor, but good mentors are really hard to find. Right. Like, if they're really Good, then why would they want to mentor you? So instead I sought after paid mentorship. So this is, you know, a lot easier. Just initially I paid for a, a training program by, by my friend now, Eric Reinholz, who runs the 30 by 40 design workshop.

B Right. And he's pretty big in the YouTube world. I got to know his, I guess one of his products called Architect and Entrepreneur course, right. It's like it's this all in one program where you can just take it on your own. And he will kind of like teach you what worked for him over the years as someone who is a practicing architect, also as a entrepreneur who sells digital courses and products. So he was the one who initially introduced me to selling something online. And initially he just encouraged me to, hey, can you maybe instead of putting things on gumroad where someone may just like tip you $5 or $2, sometimes $10 if they're really generous, can you just put, market it in a way where can you just position a way of value and just to sell it? Right. So it was hard for me to digest that information just because, you know, I wasn't trained that way and it just, I didn't have the capacity to, to see the world in any other way.

B But I, I listened to him. So I decided to sell some of the templates that I have now. Actually the, the, the ones that I used to charge for, for 15, $20. I just give them out for free now, but I used to charge them for that little amount. And that's how I got started with like a low ticket kind of a product that someone find useful. They don't have to spend the 20, 30 hours developing it for themselves. Like I created this, I can help you just download it. So that was the really beginning of a digital product.

B And then later when I had enough interest, enough eyeballs on my YouTube page, enough people on my email list, that's when I wanted to experiment with can I sell like a coaching experience. So initially this was a eight week training program for like a live training program for an app called procreate in 2022. And at the time I had no experience teaching something online. And now I'm looking at it. I really lowballed myself with what I provided in those eight weeks. But you know what? It was learning experience. So I had, I remember specifically to this day because it was the first time I had 65 students that signed up and I made $12,000 in that launch, which, which, okay, it's not like, it's not like life changing money but it was life changing. Money, it's not pennies.

B Okay. It's not life changing. Right. But it validated like this belief or this business model that I've just been heard at that time. So that opened the door initially. So the second time I ran the program, I did something similar and I quadrupled the result the next year. So these are just very tiny things that I had to try out for myself before. I kind of believe it because it's really hard to believe someone else that tells you, hey, you could sell like a thousand dollar course to someone and they will buy it without, without flinching.

B It was really hard for me to just to visualize I could do that.

A I mean, I struggle from that and I struggle with the fact that architects like. I keep telling myself in my head that architects don't want to spend any money on anything too.

B Yeah, yeah. I think designers in general, we have a hard time asking for money. Right. I think that's definitely, that's definitely me now. I still have a hard time asking for money. I just have a thicker skin now. But that was what I had to do initially to really get myself outta the door. And then that turned into a, like an evergreen product that I sold between a hundred to $200 to someone that could buy it every day without really having the direct access that they can take the course throughout the year.

B And this is something that they can just do it on their own time. So that was like the next step. So now I'm actually pivoting into a direction where I realized to truly serve someone even better, they need more access to me in forms of private coaching, group calls, weekly office hours. Because there's so many things that it's hard to figure out on your own. You really need someone to just like walk you through it. So it's pivoted again in terms of price point and the level of service. So now I saw a $500 and a $1,000 course. And the $1,000 course definitely comes with all the perks that you don't get in the $500 tier.

B Like all the personal touch points that you get with me. And honestly, my best students always come from the higher tier, which was hard for me to imagine too. So just from a business point, like, there was so many learning things I had to train my own belief system to overcome. And I don't think this is the end of that right now. But that's where the business is right now.

A Yeah. But I think even in that short amount of time, I think Architects always say that we should get paid more, that we should value ourselves. But it's just interesting to hear at the scale of what you're delivering as opposed to a big architecture project, the number of different iterations that you made on both the product and kind of how you priced it out to get to where you, you are. Which is easier when you're working with a digital project, but it's still something that we don't play around enough with. Granted, there's greater risk when you're having to pay a whole firm or a whole office.

B Yeah, yeah. Most of your listeners are probably in the shoe of like a traditional architect. Right. So the, the model that, you know, we grew up kind of learning from our predecessors is kind of ingrained in us, and it's not working out so well, I think, for most people. And the one thing that I learned from Eric by taking his course is that he really was able to diversify his income doing something that he loved to do, which was design. But he didn't have to take on 10 clients in order to make the money that he needed. He could take on one to two clients a year and make up the rest of the money and way more in the, in the other source of more passive nature, service and products. That's what really inspired me to take on this journey.

B Even though I don't do any design work right now. Like, I, I purely just do digital products and courses and services and teaching. So that has really be the main thing. Even though I, I wish I could do like a project or two, you know, a year later on.

A Oh, that was going to be my next question. Do you miss architecture at all?

B Yeah, I miss certain part of it, certain parts of the design. Mostly in the design phase and the construction phase. Like, I, I'm not very good, not very passionate about the in between phases. The CDs.

A You're waiting for AI to take over CDs before you go back to.

B I'm waiting for someone else to do that, but. So I miss those process and the times I get to work with clients, but it's not something that I would be doing myself if I had to do it. Like, I would really want to find someone who would want to do it together, like a good friend or someone that had those skill sets that's complementary, obviously.

A It was interesting to talk about you wanting to go find a mentor and then you essentially paid for mentorship, which I think is the equivalent of, you know, even getting a business coach. If you're like a firm leader and paying for mentorship. Where do you go nowadays? Do you find yourselves immersed in business books or on YouTube? How do you keep refining your skills?

B Fortunately, there are just so much good free stuff, like just completely for free online. Like, I think if you had the time to learn everything you need, it's mostly free. Like you can buy a few books or two out there. But most of the things I've gotten a lot of values were just like listening to podcasts, I think. Pat Flynn's podcast, have you heard of him?

A He has an architecture background too.

B Yeah, he's an architecture back. So I've listened to a lot of his podcasts and the people that were on his interviews. So surprisingly, you can learn a lot for free. But now I feel like I'm at a fortunate place where I actually can afford like a, like a quote unquote coach. Right at the time when I spend $300 with Eric, I'm like, what? That's $600,000 a year if you do that for 40 hours a week. Right. It was very naive of me to think, to think like that. No one works 40 hours a week coaching someone, but.

B But now I'm shelling out money in the tens of thousands of dollars to. To have someone coach me directly to actually implement some of the things that I need to do. So it's not just like learn. There's learning the principles and the framework and then it's very different to know how to implement it or execute it right effectively. So you can have a good strategy, but if you have poor implementation, it really defeats the strategy that you had in the beginning. So I feel very fortunate that I feel like I could hire someone who is a little bit more expensive and actually know what they're doing, as opposed to me reading or consuming a lot of free materials and distilling down the things that I need.

A So what's next for draw with Gao?

B Draw with Gao. Well, the YouTube channel is going to keep going with the very similar kind of content that I'm creating now. I'm still serving mostly designers, architects, interior designers, landscape architects. And I feel like there's like way more people I haven't been able to reach yet. So I am hopefully going to do that for the next three to five years. And at some point, you know, when I feel like I've figured out the business part of this, like what I can really, I'm confident enough to teach someone. I would love to be sharing more of the behind the scene content on my stories and hopefully help someone out. Exactly in the same shoe as I am today, like five years from now.

B So, like, I'm struggling with the business part, the operational part. And unfortunately enough, I have this, like, creative kind of a backlog or experience that's kind of carrying me over for the next three to five years that I don't need to. I don't feel like I need to put as much craft, as much improvement on the craft, but I do need to catch up on the business side of this business.

A What do you say for other young architects who are interested in going into this space creating and or teaching? What's your advice to them?

B If I had to do it again, I would just build a personal brand earlier. Like, if I was. If I was in my early 20s, I would start. Start sharing the things that I know, even small, as something that, you know, most people would know. But if you can just help, if you're just like 10% more or knowledgeable, then the person after you that's. You're teaching them the 10% of the stuff to get them to where you are. So I think everyone has something to. That they can help someone with.

B And, you know, it's small as starting a posting Instagram, Instagram reel or something like that or whatever format that they want to do is just start helping people. I think you're gonna have. I think someone's gonna experience a lot of growth in doing that and just in serving other people. I think that's the most important thing that I feel like I would keep doing and something that I wish I'd done earlier. So instead of like posting pictures of just pretty pictures, like, actually do something.

A That'S helpful, it has been interesting. My Instagram reels and my TikTok algorithm has been featuring more, honestly, students, architecture students that are creating like life of an architecture student. So it's been interesting to see how the incoming generation is leveraging and dealing with digital technology, but also telling the world about what it's like to be in their shoes.

B Yeah, yeah, I think that's really great. Like, I was on the cusp of that myself. So, like, having these tools that, you know, actually students coming out of school right now, they're so equipped with, you know, not just the digital tools, but like the design tools. You know, if you think of an architecture education, like you're. You're trained into storytelling, graphic design. Some people are doing video editing in school now. So there's like massive amount of tools that you. You have at your disposal compared to like a computer science major.

B Right? You have so Much creative tools that you can really leverage and tap into to go beyond just the. The day to day design work.

A Lastly, what keeps you motivated?

B Putting food on the table, to be honest.

A That's fair. That's honest.

B That's an honest response. Honestly. Putting Happy feet, family of four. So that keeps me motivated enough. But I constantly go back to the four W's. Have you heard of that before?

A No, I haven't.

B I can't remember where I picked this up. I think it was definitely a book and I just can't remember the author. So the four W's he calls it are, you know, the where, the when, and the who and the what.

A The what.

B Right. So if you can define that as early as possible. And these could change too. You kind of have like a, like a guiding compass with every decision that you're about to make. Are they aligned to these four areas or four criterias? So I'll just tell you like maybe a little bit about my four whys because it's really quick. So my what is what I'm doing right now is teaching drawing, digital drawing. My when is I really want to just work whenever I want. I want to have flexibility of doing which, you know, in the day, when do I want to work? Do I want to work in the morning, Do I want to work in the afternoon or evening? Or how much vacation days do I get a year, how do I plan my year around? And where is I want to be location independent.

B Right. I work primarily from home. I could theoretically work anywhere else. That's really important to me. And the who, the who the people are my, my architects, interior designers and landscape architects. These are the people that I love to work with. So these are my four W's. And I keep thinking back, I keep thinking about it whenever I'm about to make a major decision.

B Like, does this align with the W's that. That I have?

A Hi Disruptors. Thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practiceofarchitecture.com podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, our speakers, and other disruptors in our community@practiceofarchitecture.com community. Our social media handle is practiceofarch. That's practice of architect RCH. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.