Khoi Vinh looks back at the design studio he co-founded ten years ago and the lessons he learned in the process. These are valuable insights for any designer looking to strike out on their own, but I especially enjoyed this last bit of wisdom:

Even then, what I had already learned running that business was that saying “no,” was incredibly important, that turning down bad clients and bad projects — the ones that were outside of our expertise, outside of our budget, outside of the kind of work that would make us happy — was the only way to avoid the trap of working long and hard on miserable projects. This doesn’t just go for ‘established’ studios; due to the time, effort and opportunity cost of saying yes to bad projects, I believe it’s also a surefire way to make sure young studios never get to say yes to good projects. In the services business, sometimes “no” is the most powerful, effective and beneficial tool that you have.