In 2008, I started a blog and decided to design it myself. My daughters were young, and I found connection and community through sharing our stories online. Those were the early days, and so I found my online home at Blogspot. Before long, others were asking me to design their sites too. I dove into all things blog design, started taking on projects when I was ready, and then I officially launched as a business in 2010.

Then I started hearing about WordPress. I migrated my own site to the free version, WordPress.com, and while it was better in many ways than Blogspot, I was frustrated by the limitations. I took a deep dive into learning self-hosted WordPress, and over time, I transitioned to working exclusively on self-hosted WordPress sites.

My business was known as Insight Blog Design back then. But when some of my clients started self-publishing their books, I added on book cover design and formatting services as well. At that point, my husband, Phil, began helping with the graphic design side of things. The Insight Blog Design name no longer fit, as we were doing much more than just blog design. When one of our clients, Sarah Mae, told us she was going to be featured on ProBlogger for the original version of her book, 31 Days to Clean (which we had designed), I scrambled to rebrand things quickly to better reflect the services we offered. Within just a few days we became Design by Insight. I wanted something linked with the old “Insight” name, but it seemed like almost every similar name was already taken. So we settled.

Over the years, I realized that many people found the name confusing. In conversation, I often had to repeat it. Obviously that’s not great. I began contemplating a branding change, using my own name. Even though Phil was working on a lot of the designs at that point, our clients still communicated almost exclusively with me, and I was the face of the business. We began to see our clients’ needs change as well. Less clients needed book design work and graphics, and more wanted just website design, which is very much my wheelhouse. Phil started focusing more and more on our children’s book series, The Growly Books and other work. So I decided to rebrand as Erin Ulrich Creative.

It still felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing, so I waited. I registered the erinulrichcreative.com domain and signed up for a new Instagram account with that handle. Then 2020 came with all its craziness, and it didn’t feel like the right time to make a major branding shift. But behind the scenes I was working to restructure my processes and refine my focus.

Sometimes you reach a point in business where you either have to expand (hire more employees) or work smarter (become more efficient). I knew that I would rather work directly with my clients than shift to more of an administrator role managing additional staff. I also didn’t want Design by Insight to be seen as an agency. I preferred the solopreneur route.

The missing piece fell into place when I decided to pivot and offer VIP Days. The very nature of a traditional website project lends itself to delay and scope creep. If one project is delayed, it can create a snowball effect that results in frustration for everyone. VIP Days eliminate all of that.

VIP Days check all the boxes for what I want my business to be, including:

In December 2022, Design by Insight became Erin Ulrich Creative, and I began officially offering VIP Days to all clients. I am excited about what the future holds!

If you have any questions about this transition or want to know more about VIP Days, let’s chat!