Interview With Dan Richard – Owner Of Pixel2Life

By: Michael Dunlop     Topics: Entrepreneur Interviews

 

A personal interview with the owner of one of the largest websites to date! Dan gives beginners some tips to getting started, and shows how he started his own career.

Name: Dan Richard

Web site: Pixel2life.com

Date: 05 September 2006

Please introduce yourself:

Hi, my name is Dan Richard and I am the owner and administrator of Pixel2life.com, a tutorial search engine catering to graphic designers, webmasters and programmers. I’m also a big goof.

 

Tell us about your main project, pixel2life.com

Well, P2L was a pet project I started late in 2003 that kind of got out of hand and ended up being one of the largest tutorial portals on the net. It was actually supposed to be a personal portfolio that would feature my artwork, portfolio and some tutorials on Corel stuff. As I surfed the net for various tutorials I needed through the design process of the site, I got annoyed at how I had to go to different tutorial portals for different subjects and I wondered why there wasn’t a one stop shop for webmasters that covered everything.

The idea to turn P2L into a tutorial engine was born.

That might help explain the name… you see, pixel2life was supposed to be my blog and portfolio, to everything about me, from pixels I design to my life… hence pixel2life. See, there’s a method to the madness. So I teamed up with a programming friend from Ottawa named Shao Xia and we created the first version of P2L, which looked like a gaming clan website. There were already quite a few tutorial sites out there for Photoshop, so I busted my butt promoting the site, and within a year or so, things were really picking up and it was starting to look quite promising. After 2 years, I had something significant, and even now we continue to grow quite a bit month to month… it’s by far my most successful project and I’m really proud of it. Thank god for the staff that help me out though, otherwise P2L would not be where it is today… those folks have saved my hide countless times.

How did you start off on the net?

I actually started Internet design before the Internet was even heard of by the general population… I had been a BBS owner for a few years (That’s Bulletin Board System for you youngsters) so I already had experience in developing community systems and just before the net became mainstream, Wildcat released a BBS system that used very crude HTMLish structure and that got me into the world of GIF and JPEG and HTML tags.

Before that, everything was just a series of colored ASCII characters. What you guys call ASCII art was we used for BBS systems. Anyhow, I used my former visual arts training and simply turned it into a digital medium and gradually built up my skills until I was able to produce something I felt I could actually sell. By 1996, I started doing some minor web design for money, and by 2000 I was freelancing almost full time. I also worked fulltime doing IT work, which paid much more than design, but I always wanted to get back into design as a my career. Finally in March 2006, I was able to make this dream come true and start running P2L and my other design work as my fulltime job. I’m having a great time now and I hope it lasts until I retire.

What was your first project?

I don’t even remember my first few projects anymore, but I do remember one of my first Flash websites, which ironically is still up to this very day. You can check it out at www.logicdesigns.com. Try not to laugh… most people had never even heard of Flash when I did this, and when it was first released, people were going nuts and thought it was so cool. Now it’s hilarious to me, but back then it was cutting edge 2Advanced kind of stuff! … I swear.

I’ve also built TONS of clan websites… I was a heavy gamer in the late 90s and early 2000 and was heavily involved with gaming sites and clans. Actually, one of the biggest team ladder sites on the net still uses a layout I made ages ago… www.teamwarfare.com. In fact, I think I’m still on the staff page of that site although I haven’t been active in years. Actually, 99% of the traffic on P2L back when I first started was from all my gaming buddies coming to check out the site.

What advice do you have for someone who is starting web design/ web development?

I do have a few tidbits of info that I think is both crucial to any type of designer but is usually only learned and utilized through experience. First off, be patient. There is only a TINY itty-bitty fraction of folks that create something that is an overnight sensation. Nothing drops in your lap and chances are you’re not a pro right out the gate. It will take years before you have enough experience and skills to design efficiently and in a professional manner. So be patient and it will all come together in the end.

Second, never EVER take criticism personally, even if it’s directed to you personally. And finally, design in your own style, not be a follower. Even I have trouble with this one… you tend to ask people for what they think and design accordingly. That’s bull and in the end, you won’t be happy. Just go with your instincts and you’ll develop a style all your own and you go from there.

What would you do differently?

I probably should have just started doing freelance fulltime instead of working fulltime AND doing freelance, but that’s easy to say without knowing how it would have turned out. In terms of how things ended up, I’m very pleased. I’ll just continue to raise the bar and hopefully the success continues.

Tools of the trade?

Corel Photopaint
Dreamweaver
Text pad
Character Map
Creativity
Rush Radio playing on Winamp

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Well I actually have no spare time lol! I am a fulltime stay at home Dad above all else. After that, I work on P2L usually when my wife is home with my daughter, or everyone is asleep and I can get some work done. In the small amount of idle time I do find, I spend it lifting at the gym. I’ve been weight lifting longer than I’ve been designing, so that will no doubt always be a part of me until I’m either dead or just too old and brittle lol.

What are your current Projects?

Well we’ve got some awesome add-ons to P2L that are in the works and another personal project from days gone by that I am very seriously considering resurrecting for a second run. We’ll see… Keep your eyes on my blog for scoops hehe.

Thanks for taking your time to take do a interview with us.

Pixel2Life: http://www.pixel2life.com

Dans Blog: http://www.danrichard.com

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