The Solo Designer Making $200K/month with AI

Hey, I’m Shane.

Welcome to Design for Builders, a newsletter for founders, operators, and builders who want to improve their design skills and create better products.

This is a special edition of the newsletter, and I’m writing this based on a conversation I had with Jonah Salita. He’s a guy who:

- Uses AI for design in ways you've never considered

- Rejects the idea of having a portfolio

- Designs directly in clients' Figma files

- Makes more money in a month than most do in a year

Let’s get into it.

1. The backstory: from advertising intern to solo operator

Jonah didn’t set out to be a designer.

He started off wanting to work at a big ad agency. When he was finally offered an internship at Fallon (after being rejected for being too young), it felt like a win.

Until he realized the agency world wasn’t for him. He didn’t want to be boxed in as just a designer or copywriter.

So he left. Freelanced. Lived in Hong Kong. Took photos across 9 countries. Helped build a mental health startup.

Then became the Head of Product at Superpower, a longevity company, where he worked across brand, product, website, culture, and team.

By the time he left, he wasn’t looking for another job. He was looking to bet on himself fully.

We talked about that mindset shift a lot. It’s something I relate to. You go from being "a part of the team" to being responsible for everything end-to-end. Especially when it comes to balancing doing sales vs actually designing:

“If you're a very small shop or a single shop, then every action is either compounding or decaying and every decision moves you closer to your goals or adds hidden drag. And that's tough too, because if sales is oxygen, but you also have to deliver work, you have to figure out how to balance them at the same time.”

Jonah’s not romantic about it, either. He’s just very clear on what kind of business he wants to run.

2. The business model: solo, high-trust, no scale, high profits!

“Founders want a co-creator, not a contractor.”

Jonah is super intentional about how he wants to run his business and life.

He doesn’t talk about “having a design studio”. He doesn’t hide behind an agency brand or a team. He’s intentionally solo, and no full-time hires. He doesn’t even keep a portfolio. Being straightforward about his brand helps him build trust quickly.

He also has a clear revenue goal is clear: $10M in personal revenue, with 80% profit margins, and he wants to do it his way, even though it means he might be making nothing some months, and he’s fine with that.

He only works with a few clients a year, and they’re almost always high-intent intros from his network.

So, how does he bring in the revenue? High-value clients who pay tens of thousands of dollars for a quick full-scale brand and strategy package.

Unlimited revisions. With his taste and suggestions being a main factor, clients don’t want to see 3 options; they want to see 1 that he thinks will perform the best, and then revise it 50 times until it is a perfect fit.

I’ve seen his Figma files and wholly shit he is testing 100 different color, type and brand imagery combinations until it just clicks. It’s the method that made Superpower’s brand so fantastic.

He mainly works with venture-backed founders who are looking for a creative partner who will help them shoot for the moon rather than play it safe.

That's what makes him special. His ability to be so self-aware of his strengths and find the people who value them most.

As he said in this chat: “Fortune favors the connected.”

3. Do you even need a portfolio?

Jonah doesn’t have one. In fact

“Not having a portfolio can actually be a strength.”

His thinking is that trust closes faster than visuals. If a high-intent intro lands well, a clean portfolio might actually slow momentum, especially if the prospective client fixates on the one project that doesn’t speak to them.

I personally had a different experience. With Turbo, I’ve put more work out in the open on Twitter, on our site, and it’s created a surface area for conversations we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. At a recent design event, someone I’d never met told me they were a fan of our work. That only happens when people can see it.

So maybe the real answer is: it depends on what you’re optimizing for.

If your clients all come through referrals, maybe a portfolio slows you down. If you’re trying to grow past your network, having one helps.

I personally think having a portfolio is still beneficial, BUT you have to be super intentional about crafting it.

Either way, Jonah’s approach is intentional. No portfolio means fewer assumptions. It forces the conversation to start with him, and not with a deck.

4. Jonah’s AI workflow

When I asked Jonah how he used AI, I expected a few clever prompts. Instead, I got a full-on system.

Jonah’s workflow starts after the sale. He doesn’t use AI to automate outreach or cold DMs. It only kicks in once a client is onboard and he’s deep in the work.

Here’s how it goes:

• Clients fill out a detailed Typeform with brand goals, inspirations, and internal thinking

• Jonah takes that and feeds it into a custom-trained GPT project, tuned to his own editorial voice

• That GPT instance helps generate a brand strategy and positioning doc but only after Jonah’s added his own instinctive notes up top, to steer the direction

• From there, he uses AI to help write tone-of-voice guides, blurbs for moodboards, landing page outlines, and foundational copy

He even gives clients access to the same GPT workspace, so they can keep generating content in the voice and structure he set.

What stood out to me is how everything is still human-centered. He’s using AI as a small layer on top of his own taste, thinking, and judgment

On the visual side, Jonah uses Midjourney for concept exploration and apps like Flora to help him move faster from moodboard to mockup without falling into generic templates.

6. Taste over templates

Jonah doesn’t claim to be the best logo or icon designer. But he has conviction and knows when to push an original concept, and AI can’t help with that.

The real groundbreaking concept Jonah had for clients usually comes from just going out in the real world and trusting your first intuition.

He had tons of cases where he’d create a first draft, do thousands of iterations, and in the end, the client will pick the first idea that came to his mind.

where he’d create this first drafts often win. And he doesn’t shy away from sharing work-in-progress.

“I try to deliver work that's unfinished constantly, which is a lot of designers don't do. I will literally design in their Figma on purpose.”

This really resonated with me. At Turbo, we show work early too. But Jonah takes it further. He’ll design directly in the client’s Figma file, with no preamble. It’s bold, but it builds trust. Clients feel part of the process, not downstream from it.

That level of visibility only works if you’re absolutely confident in your direction. I don’t think not all designers can do what Jonah does.

7. If it all disappeared tomorrow…

I asked Jonah: if you lost all your clients, and had no portfolio, how would you make $20K in 30 days?

“I’d sell something. Doesn’t even have to be mine. Just give me 10% commission and I’ll go.”

He sees sales the same way he sees design: find the gap, help someone cross it.

There’s something about that mindset that’s hard to fake. Jonah doesn’t see himself as a freelancer. He sees himself as a business. And that way of thinking is what makes the whole thing work.

Final thoughts

Jonah’s setup isn’t for everyone. It’s lean. It’s high-trust. It’s not scalable in the traditional sense.

But it works because he knows what he’s optimizing for.

Not growth. Not headcount. Not likes.

Just great work, done well, for the right people.

— Shane