Advice by Rob Giampietro to designers getting ready to start their own studio:

1. An untended garden quickly becomes a field: plant what you want to grow.

2. Have partners, but don’t do the same things: make sure you both do something you enjoy.

3. Hire people for what they can teach you, not for what you can teach them.

4. Everyone should be able to take criticism: creative trust is built on critical honesty.

5. Design is only one part of the puzzle: savor the discussion, development, debate, and dissemination of your work just as much as the making of it.

6. Goals may be arbitrary, but not having them will be maddening when there’s no one else to tell you if you’re doing a good job: set 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year goals at the outset.

7. When you take your favorite clients out to lunch, it’s a good time to propose what you’d like to do together next.

8. Knowing more designers doesn’t necessarily translate into having good clients: spend your development time wisely.

9. Be known for something: it helps.

10. You will never work harder than when you’re building something: find balance. Sometimes the best way to solve a creative problem is to take a vacation or read a book.

(via Swiss-Miss)