Ever dreamed of ditching the 9-to-5 grind for a life of adventure? Imagine waking up to a Thai sunrise, exploring the ancient wonders of Europe, or harvesting your own papayas in Central America. All while working just a few hours a day. Sounds like a fantasy? Not for designpreneur Tomas Laurinavicius.
At just 25, Tomas has built and sold two successful businesses. Now, he lives his dream, traveling the world and sharing his insights on lifestyle design and entrepreneurship. We caught up with Tomas to discuss his journey, his strategies, and how you can create a life that doesn't need a vacation.
Designing a Career You Love
BetterFeedback.ai: You've been globe-trotting for years, and you make it look easy. How did it all begin?
Tomas: I was working at a design agency in London, and I was completely uninspired. I needed a new challenge. I started a new design magazine, Despreneur, as a platform to teach myself about entrepreneurship. I wanted to understand how to make money while I slept.
I noticed more people traveling the world while building their businesses, and thought, "Why not me?". I decided to see if I could convince the London agency to let me work remotely a couple of days a week. Once I had some savings built up, a friend and I started our first world tour around Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia. I was hooked.
BetterFeedback.ai: Despreneur became a platform where people could learn design, tech, and business skills. How did you scale it to millions of readers?
Tomas: Despreneur was actually my fourth design blog, so I had some previous experience. The first blog I started while in high school in Lithuania. The problem with that is that even if I reach everyone in Lithuania who's interested in design, it's still not a very big market.
I switched to my broken English, and within a month or two, my traffic tripled. And then I sold it because I was young and wanted some pocket money.
The next year I started webdesignfan.com to focus on Photoshop tutorials, design resources, and trending techniques. I was able to hit 50,000 unique visitors every single month, which opened up some business partnership opportunities.
I also co-founded another startup called Refe where we sell mobile stock photos.
When I started Despreneur, I wanted to focus on creating recurring revenue – bringing people back instead of searching for new clients every single month.
I taught three main subjects with the Despreneur Academy: design, entrepreneurship, and technology. Master these subjects, and you can be a capable design entrepreneur. You'll be able to pitch a business plan, build a marketing strategy, design and even code the products.
Despreneur Academy first came to life in a Udemy course, so I could test the idea without building an external platform. The course did really well on launch day, and then the next day sales just dropped. So I had to figure out how to grow my audience.
Building an Audience with Authentic Connections
BetterFeedback.ai: What were your top strategies for scaling Despreneur?
Tomas: In the early days, growing a following on platforms like Twitter was easier. By publishing consistent, high-quality content, I quickly grew from 5,000 to 20,000 followers. But the real game-changer was outreach and relationship-building.
Instead of viewing other design bloggers as competitors, I reached out and proposed collaboration. We cross-promoted each other's content on niche websites, helping to boost traffic and visibility. Building an email list is also key.
Despreneur also had two weekly series. The first was Apps to Watch where I listed 10 apps that I thought were really valuable – nice design, serve a key purpose, ground-breaking functionality.
The other series was Startup of the Week. For this one, I interviewed key business people on how they started their business, developed their purpose, found their customers, and so on. This helped me to make friends in a lot of startups, and also let me share with their audiences.
When you have a bigger network then it's much easier to promote your work.
Finding Your "Hell Yes"
BetterFeedback.ai: Despreneur was successful, but you eventually moved on. How did you make that decision?
Tomas: I woke up one morning, and Despreneur didn't feel like Christmas anymore. It felt like a job. I tried to answer everything as honestly as possible, but the very first question was already the ultimate answer: it's not really hell yes, so it's automatically no.
I was juggling too many projects at once. And my interests had switched toward self-development, habits, psychology, and lifestyle design. So last year I decided to sell Despreneur.
Connecting with Influencers Through Shared Values
BetterFeedback.ai: You've interviewed many high achievers in your Habits and Routines of series. What's your secret to connecting with these people?
Tomas: My obsession with self-development started when I read Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book taught me the importance of building relationships by caring about topics that other people care about.
It takes time to dig deeper and find the values, causes, and topics that people care about.
I experimented with how to connect. At events, I shifted my focus from meeting everyone to making genuine connections with a few people. The point of connecting is providing value to others.
To interview top people, I realised that I also needed some credibility to interview top people. Getting published in Forbes was a huge door-opener that allowed me to connect with people at Apple and Uber and Airbnb, some of the biggest players in the tech scene. I also started a podcast interviewing designers at Adobe, The New York Times, and others.
Forbes made me realise that: focus more on providing value for Forbes instead of focusing how cool or experienced or knowledgeable you are.
Owning Your Life and Engineering Success
BetterFeedback.ai: What final advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those interested in lifestyle design?
Tomas: Take full ownership and responsibility for your life. Once you get into this mindset, you start to see the power of negative thinking. Constantly ask yourself, "Okay, what can go wrong?" and then plan for that scenario.
I also use reverse engineering thinking. I look at the goal and the obstacles, and if these obstacles are worth the end benefits, I make a very specific action plan.
Self-awareness is key in lifestyle design. If you're dreaming of freelancing and traveling the world, ask yourself why. Do you even enjoy uncertainty and discomfort? Are you willing to trade security for adventure?
Once you internalize the concept of owning everything and being responsible for your life and those around you, it makes you less vulnerable, and good things start to happen.