Scaling Communities with Preet Singh of DesignX
Episode 1
Preet Singh is the founder of DesignX, the fastest growing UX & Design community in North America and Europe.
DesignX hosts meetups, a large-scale conference, and has a robust Slack group where thousands of designers share, learn and grow together.
In this episode Preet and Marsha chat about building online and offline communities, Preet’s journey of immigrating to Canada, and building a new life and community from scratch.
Listen to the episode:
Connect with Preet:
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Learn more about DesignX:
Website | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
A huge thank you to Origins Media Haus for producing this podcast. You can find them at:
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Connect with Marsha:
LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Website
Episode Transcript:
Preet Singh 0:00
I'm setting setting up the foundation. I'm not an alcoholic, but I had a small bottle of Patron in my bag. I don't know where it came from!
Marsha Druker 0:14
You're listening to Create Community, and I'm your host, Marsha Druker. On this podcast, we're exploring the human side of community. I'm chatting with some amazing community builders to define what community truly means. Joining me today is Preet Singh.
Preet is the founder of DesignX, which is the fastest growing UX and design community in North America and Europe.
DesignX hosts meetups, a large scale conference, and has a robust slack group where thousands of designers share, learn and grow together. In this episode, we chat about building online and offline communities, Preet's journey of immigrating to Canada and building a new life and community from scratch. Let's jump right into it.
Marsha Druker 1:02
Preet, welcome to the very first episode of the Creative Community podcast. Now, before we get to DesignX, I really want to get a better understanding of your early journey and how you actually became a community builder. So let's start from the very beginning. What was your childhood and upbringing like?
Preet Singh 1:20
First of all, thank you so much, Marsha, for having me on your first podcast episode. So for my journey part, I grew up in India. I spent the first 25 years of my life there. I grew up in a normal middle class Indian family in the north of India. The main thing for Indian parents usually, and my parents were no different, is education. So, that was a big focus growing up.
I went to engineering school because the three options you have as a brown kid are: you go to engineering school, you go to medical medical school, or you go to law school. Coincidentally, that's also the place where my community building journey started. So I do not regret you know, having my parents force forcing me to go to engineering school now that I look back and connect the dots.
Marsha Druker 2:04
That sounds like a really good way to start your career, build discipline, and really learn how to think. How did you first start your career? What was your first job out of school?
Preet Singh 2:15
So while I was still in engineering school, you know, I was always interested in everything except for engineering. So I was dabbling into graphic design visual design. I started learning WordPress and started making websites for some local businesses, lawyers and trying to do some freelance projects. My first official full time job was at a major IP outsourcing firm called Infosys. So you know, they are one of the biggest outsourcing companies in India that make a lot of like big software for banks and other places. I left that job in three months and came back to my hometown and told my parents that that's not what I want to do and I didn't have a job and so I was out of job for like six to eight months but trying to figure out what I wanted to next.
Marsha Druker 3:00
How did you end up pivoting from that experience and really finding what you're passionate about and getting into some side projects?
Preet Singh 3:07
I think we were always told that you should be really focused in your life. And you should always have clarity on what that next milestone what the next next goal is. And that was something that I struggled with a lot. So when I was in the IT company, I knew that I didn't want to do that. So when I told my parents, I'm leaving the job, they were like, what do you want to do? What's the next step? And I was like, I don't know. And it was really hard to convince them that I'm gonna leave this thing because I this is surely something I don't want to do, which is the engineering IT company stuff. But I do want to have the time to figure out what the next step is like. So that pivot part was not as seamless as switching from option A to option B. But it was like you're leaving option A and you have no idea what other options are out there. So I came back to my hometown. I worked with my dad for some time, which was really tough because we have a lot of like a clashes that didn't work out well.
Marsha Druker 4:01
What were you working on with your dad?
Preet Singh 4:03
So my dad owned and used to run a radio studio, back home in India. So I used to do like audio editing. for him. I was managing and building his website. And both of us being creative people, you know, either you get along really well, or you just try to push out idea on each other. And so I think we were the latter. So it didn't work out that well. So amicably. We were like, maybe it's good not to work together. So we can still sit down pleasantly at the dinner table.
Marsha Druker 4:30
So when you were in India, when did your passion for design start coming about? What were the things that you got involved in that brought that out in you?
Preet Singh 4:39
Yeah, so when I was still in engineering school, that's when I started as a small initiative, which was about going along with a few other engineering classmates of mine, to a slum area near our engineering college, and we would like play, teach, spend time with some of the slum kids there. So I know in this part of the world it's considered a really cool thing that when you're in college you go to like, you know, the developing countries, you volunteer, you spend time and do some something good for the world. In India, it's just another facet of your life.
Preet Singh 5:12
So every day when I would go to the engineering school, I would see those slum areas and, you know, it's just like, you're used to it so much that you don't think about it. So I was trying to make it. I don't know if cool is the right word, but I was trying to make it like a cool thing for young students like myself to go and spend time and help out folks in the slum areas. And that's where, because of that initiative, I really got into design as a tool to communicate that message.
Preet Singh 5:41
So the first poster I designed for like a clothing drive we did - it was a Microsoft Word. But it was just like, I realized that if you know your communications were well designed, more youngsters felt more inclined because all the nonprofit's in India that we're trying to get the youths attention were still very archaic in the design and communications. style. So that was kind of the first foray into Visual Design.
Marsha Druker 6:03 So it sounds like like you were experimenting or testing things out. But it was really like you were reaching the audience in a way that was meaningful to them. And you were able to do so through design. So I'm really curious, what was it that ended up bringing you to Toronto, Canada, you have such an interesting journey of how that came to be. Do you want to tell me a little bit more?
Preet Singh 6:26
Yeah, absolutely. So finished engineering school, tried to find what I was looking for. I was really passionate about the social issues in India and again, solving the problem of how do you make young folks care about the social issues, and that's when I merged my love for design and social issues together, and I started a T-shirt startup, and the designs on the T-shirts were based on the social issues in India. We have a lot of issues. So there were a lot of T-shirt designs and, you know, not short of collections.
Preet Singh 6:54
And that's when actually I met my now wife. She's from Germany. She was traveling India. She was doing an internship in my city. And a lot of these expats are international, not students, but international young workers used to come to my store to buy t shirts as a memorabilia thing, right? Like a cool memorabilia thing about India for India. That's how we met. We dated for about eight months, I was still running the T- shirts startup - she even helped me a little bit with that part.
Preet Singh 7:24
And then, you know, we knew that this is not going to work out if we stay in India, because India was very different for her culturally. Germany's very different for me because of being a visible minority. It's not that diverse. The language of course, for sure, yeah. And neither of us had been to Canada. But after eight months of dating, we randomly picked Toronto and we were like, let's move to Canada. Maybe it'll work out. And that's what we did.
Marsha Druker 7:48
Yeah, I was going to say that's like, that's a big risk that you took in like and every meaning of the word... with your professional life, with your relationship - that could by a lot of standards be seen as a way of moving really fast. But, I guess sometimes you just know and when you found the right person, and you know, it's the right step for you, and in all areas of your life. And I'm so glad that you did it and that you're here. So fast forward...You guys are in Toronto. You're trying to establish yourself here in terms of your career. What were those initial years like and how did you get started here?
Preet Singh 8:20
You know, you look back with very fond memories, but being really objective about it, they were quite hard. Both of us were getting used to each other and living together and there are big cultural differences there. It was tough working out those kinks between our personal relationship. Financially I was back to ground zero, I literally I sold my cherished motorbike, my Xbox, my guitar, everything to you know to get the money to start the new life here. I remember because I moved to Canada in December, I would walk to my college on Lake Shore, you know, I would walk four or five kilometres just to save that $3 token
Marsha Druker 8:58
It makes a huge difference. I remember that as well, when my family and I immigrated here, there are so many ways that you have to cut costs, but it really helps you build gratitude.
Preet Singh 9:07
Yeah, so majority of the first few years, were not having many friends. You're building your social life from scratch, not having much money. Building economic life from scratch. And then of course, because you've just moved in together with a person that you met eight months ago, then you're figuring out your personal emotional side as well. So it was a lot of building from scratch on many levels.
Marsha Druker 9:29
What was your first job like in Toronto? How did you go about finding it? And how has your career evolved in Toronto?
Preet Singh 9:38
Yeah, so one thing that's been constant about me is I can't stand still. I know hustle has a very negative connotation, especially on Twitter these days. So I don't know if I'm supposed to use that. But I do, inside like deep inside, I think I am just a hustler. Or you know, it's that mindset of just survival mode always like trying to figure out. Preet Singh 9:58 So when I was still studying College, when I moved there, I was taking a lot of freelance projects because I knew that either I could work for $10 in our demo audience what my classmates were doing, or I could design websites for $10 an hour. And so I had no qualms in being the cheap designer, but I was like, at least I'm doing stuff in my domain.
Preet Singh 10:16
So I built like a lot of websites for plumbers, for gardeners, like all kinds of like tradesmen... because they were like, "I have $300, can you make me a website", I was like, "sure, that covers my rent for you know, a week". So I did a lot of those kind of jobs. But that helped me understand the professional and cultural differences between India and Canada. So I knew that here it's a lot more about building trust. And it's not just about you know, being the cheapest provider or the kind of work you do, right. It's a lot more about those personal relationships and showing your personality and those things.
Preet Singh 10:52
So even for my first full time job when I was out in the market. The first few weeks I spent applying to jobs. Applications never heard back from anyone. And that's when I was like, okay, the same approach as all the other thousand students that are right now looking for a job with the exact same profile as mine, it's not going to work. So actually what I did was I ended up designing an infographic resume. I took all my experience and my experience was like all across: went to engineering school, ran and built communities in India, did business development for educational institutions, did design, did marketing.
Preet Singh 11:28 My professors are like, you have to focus your resume if you're applying for a marketing job, just include marketing experience, if you're applying for design job, just include design, but I was like, that's not me. I'm the whole sum of all these experiences.
Preet Singh 11:41
So I designed an infographic that showed everything I'd done in a visual manner. So while on a Word document that might seem very messy to you, and an infographic it just looks cool and you know, easy to connect the dots. And that resume I shared on Facebook and it kind of went viral in a small way!
Preet Singh 12:00
And some VC firm in Montreal ended up finding it. And they then approached their startups in Toronto. And then I call got a call next day from two or three HR people at two or three different startups. And they were like, "oh, we're hiring a designer, we saw your resume - would you like to come in"? And that's how I ended up getting my first job.
Marsha Druker 12:21
That's incredible, especially as a new Canadian or as a new immigrant, you really have to find a way to stand out to, to land that first Canadian work experience. That's really cool how you did that.
Marsha Druker 12:37
I want to shift gears here a little bit to chat about DesignX and the amazing magnetic community that you've built. We've known each other for the last two and a half years and we've really been building our communities side by side. We started, I think, like three days apart from each other. What was your vision or what was the reason that you created DesignX? And tell us a little bit more about what DesignX is.
Preet Singh 13:04
Absolutely. So when I started DesignX, there was definitely no big vision, to be honest, that it's going to be this massive community that it is now. When I started it, I had a nice decent job at an agency that I adored when I moved to Canada, and I was pretty fulfilled in my 9-5 thing. I did see a void in the community, that as a designer, there was no authentic design community, there were design events, but there was no community that I could go meet other designers that I could discuss my challenges and my confusions with.
Preet Singh 13:38
That's kind of been always my approach that I usually see a void and then I want to do something to fix that void. That was the same pattern I did with the social community back in India. And when I saw the same thing happening in designer, I was like, okay, let me see what I can do. So I started a Slack group. And then with the Slack group, I was like, you know what, like, the Slack group is getting some momentum. Let's just get people to meet each other in person, let's put together first event.
Preet Singh 14:01 And when we put together our first event, it ended up being a sold out event with some really amazing speakers agreeing to be part of the event. That just gave me the confidence that okay, there's something here. I definitely did not see it coming or planned for it. A lot of learnings came subconsciously from all the community building stuff that I had done earlier. So that's why maybe we did some things right from the get go...which I maybe downplay now.
Marsha Druker 14:28
I find your journey so interesting. Before this, you've never really done events. You've never done that type of community building. And you just had this vision for a side project that you wanted to test out and it really has grown over the years. What do you think it was that gave you that push to actually go and try doing an event when you've never done one before?
Preet Singh 14:51
Yeah, I think there were a few things. On the personal angle... of course, you know, when you do events, and especially if you're hosting it, it amps up your own personal brand in the city. So I had been networking quite a bit. As a newcomer, I just enjoy meeting people and going to other events. And while that was still good, there were a few things that would always tick me off a lot.
Preet Singh 15:11 I would go to a lot of tech events, you know, they see a brown person, they're like, "oh, where do you work?" I would say at this agency, they're like, "Oh, so you're a developer". I'm like, "what, like, why? Why did you assume that?" And that didn't happen once. Literally, it would happen 90% of the time because they're like, brown person Indian works in tech, must be a developer. And that really, like pissed me off! So, one thing I was like, why do you think that you know, I couldn't be a designer or some other profession. That was one thing.
Preet Singh 15:38 The second thing was whenever you would go to tech events in Toronto, all they would talk about is developers, AI, engineering. And design is not something that was much talked about in Toronto, even in the tech startup scene. So the other goal was how do you elevate the role of design in the tech ecosystem? That was kind of the more holistic overarching goal for the community, and the personal goal was just how do I associate my personal brand with design more? So those are some of the triggers that I was like okay, let's go ahead and do the event.
Preet Singh 16:09 I was really scared when I put together the event that had these three design leaders... like the head of design at Scotiabank, Wealthsimple, Cossette. They were sitting on the panel, and I had to go moderate the panel!
Marsha Druker 16:22 Have you ever moderated a panel?
Preet Singh 16:24
No! And I'm like, why did I make it a panel discussion? I should have just made it a speaker series. They would do their thing I would be like "Thank you so much, thank you to sponsors" and go! Now I have to sit here and ask smart questions and sound smart like I know my stuff.
Preet Singh 16:39
So I'm not kidding you...Just before I went onstage, (and I am setting setting up the foundation... I'm not an alcoholic). But I had a small bottle of Patron in my bag. I don't know where it came from. Like literally before I went on stage, I was like, F--- that. So I totally shot down tequila, and I went on stage. I was like people are here, they're facing the stage, it's going to happen now. So I'm just going to go for it. And then it all happened really well. And then as a ritual I would carry a bottle of Patron (you know, the small, $10 tequila) for the first three events until I forgot to buy it for the fourth one. And then I was like, wait, I don't need it anymore.
Marsha Druker 17:18
That's amazing. I like I feel like I've had a similar journey with hosting my own events. I was so nervous and really shy the first few events. I really prefer to be behind the scenes. But you realize that when you're in front of that audience, and if you do it month over month or however often you're going up there, you're not going to get worse you're only going to get better. I love your story. For me, I would always make sure to have a beer or glass of wine as well, but I like that... a little bit more hard core.
Marsha Druker 17:49
So from those initial events and those initial stages of building your community as a Slack group and having the online component. How has your community grown and evolved over the years?
Preet Singh 18:00
Yeah, that's grown quite a bit. So again, you know, even though the community when it started, I did not envision that it's going to grow so much. I'm also someone that when I see growth happening, you know, my engineering mind steps in and I start to figure out the processes and workflows to then really go ambitious and scale it. So year one, we focused on Toronto and year one was like, okay, we have to be the biggest community and the best design community in Toronto. So I was really bullish on that, and it did happen to quite some extent.
Preet Singh 18:29
And then year two, we were clear that okay, now we need to venture outside of Toronto, and experiment with a few new geographies. So next year, we ventured into Vancouver, New York, and a few other offshoot events in some other cities. And then I started to see that okay, the problem that we was trying to solve in Toronto exists in all the major tech cities, like design communities are fragmented, there are no strong design communities. And then literally, it was about building the workflows, building the processes, building a strong team, and then trying to replicate the magic in different cities, of course, with their own cultural nuance.
Preet Singh 19:04
So right now, we have a chapter in Amsterdam, I did events in London last year, the New York chapter has grown quite strong. We're starting to get a lot of requests from other cities.... like someone from Sydney reached out to start a chapter, someone from Austin reached out to start a chapter. So definitely the goal is now to build on our geographic expansion, while also organizing some bigger conferences.
Marsha Druker 19:27
What were some of the challenges that you faced along the way? I know you've been through quite a few pivots. What did that journey look like from deciding to actually go full time on it? And what were some of the biggest obstacles that you've had to overcome and still deal with now?
Preet Singh 19:40
I think the obstacles are many fold. So there are obstacles on just the community as a business model, right? Like how do you make a sustainable community and that was always at the back of my mind, that whatever I'm creating, I don't want it to be a one year side project or a two year side projects. How do I make it sustainable? So I've been working a lot on that. And how do you lower the dependency on sponsorships? Because as you also know, sponsorships can be high one year and next year totally disappear.
Marsha Druker 20:08
Yeah, it could fluctuate so much.
Preet Singh 20:10
Exactly. So that's why we started doing conferences so that we have some bigger sources of income that can help make the community efforts more sustainable. Then there are challenges on the people level, like that's a really critical thing to build. When you start a community, it's all a volunteer effort. But then, of course, you are the one on stage, you are the one that's getting all the credit. Why are those 15 volunteers volunteering their time, so that your personal brand can be built more, or your community can be built more? So I was also really mindful of that because I used to volunteer a lot for other communities.
Preet Singh 20:44
Now I'm trying to actually build a more reliable full time team because now we have a little bit of resources that we can invest back in the community. And then of course, you know, there are also challenges around what exactly are we building? Because just like every community builder, I'm sure you have the same question at times.
Marsha Druker 21:01
Yeah, there's so much opportunity with community building. You can literally take it in a million different directions. And especially for you when you have such an amazing community, both online and offline, how do you really cater it? And how do you choose what to focus on? It's so top of mind for community.
Marsha Druker 21:23
When you came to Toronto, you really had to start from scratch when it came to building your professional network, but more so, your personal network...really establishing yourself in a new city and establishing this new relationship. What was that like?
Preet Singh 21:35
It was definitely not an easy start. I was not trying to build the personal community for the sake of it. But I was genuinely trying to find like minded-people right here in a new place. All your 25 year old friendships are back home and you don't know many people here or how do you start. So I started doing the mechanical things...which is to go out and just meet people, right? I find it super awkward. I'm not the most extroverted person, but I would just force myself to do it. So I would go to meetups, you know, sit there by myself and just like watch the talks and be like, okay, I have to talk to at least one person or two people, right? So I tried doing that alone.
Preet Singh 22:14
I always found it easier to network or build that personal community if it was related to something I was working on. You know, I'm not that good at small talk..like "Oh, what's the movie you watched?" Or, you know, "did you watch the last night's game?", because I am a little bit of a workaholic. So I really find it natural and easy to just talk about work and the challenges or even help the other person with my experience.
Marsha Druker 22:37
That's how you find common ground. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Preet Singh 22:41
Yeah. So once I realized that, I really focused on that. Because my personal life was getting too work focused, I really attribute a lot of my personal network and friends to my wife. So when people would invite us over for things, I would always be like, "maybe I should just stay home and work" and she's like, "No, no, no," We are going for this dinner. We said yes. Or we are going for that games night. We are going to watch a movie with those six people. And then I started saying "yes". And to be honest, a lot of our friends right now a lot of that social circle, is because of Nora and that she pushed me and she was like, "no, we committed that we are going out for drinks, so we are." If it was left to me, I'd be still at home working.
Marsha Druker 23:19
That's amazing that you have her to balance you out. You need to find time to put the laptop down and really build that community and have people to celebrate your wins with. I'm so glad that she's there to push you in that direction.
Marsha Druker 23:34
When it comes to making new friends do you feel like you're intentional about it? How do you choose your people who you hang out with?
Preet Singh 23:42
Yeah, I certainly was not much intentional earlier in my years, and then of course, in I read a lot of books that said, you were defined by the six people you know.
Marsha Druker 23:51
Yeah, you're the average of the five people that you hang out with the most...I really do believe that.
Preet Singh 23:57
I've tried to be more mindful, but I find it really hard because I'm a very emotion driven person. So I just either I feel like hanging out with someone or I don't. Sometimes I've had really good people in my network because of DesignX or because of other things. But I'm like, "Oh, this person is a VC, I should, you know, build that relationship." But then I'm like, "No, I just don't like hanging on to that person". And also, I'm very selective. Maybe it's because I'm growing old. I don't want to talk to like 20 people. So I'd rather just have those four or five people in my network that I chat with.
Marsha Druker 24:33
Quality over quantity.
Marsha Druker 24:35
How do you maintain your community back home? Or do you still maintain it?
Preet Singh 24:40
I would say I've been pretty good at keeping in touch with that community with my friends circle there. Like I'm usually the one that still calls my friends, like every month or so. But I'll give them a call and try and stay updated on what's happening in their life. I also secretly try and convince them to move to Canada. And I'm like, "yeah, you should maybe try moving to Canada, it's really nice here". But yes, I try and keep in touch with a lot of my relatives and friends back home.
Marsha Druker 25:05
It's really exciting that your parents have recently moved to Toronto to join you and Nora here. And I know your family life is evolving. Do you want to chat a little bit about that? Preet Singh 25:16 Yeah. As I'm sitting here recording the podcast with you, we are, two and a half weeks away from having our first kid! That's scary and exciting. I don't know what to expect there. But let's see. I'm, of course, really excited about it. My parents just moved here, finally. We've been trying to have them move here since quite some time. So that's really exciting. A lot of things happening on the family front.
Marsha Druker 25:44
I'm sure that's going to be an exciting way to build new communities for yourself and find more like-minded people who are interested in the same thing, but also maybe experiencing parenthood for the first time or are just going through similar things.
Preet Singh 26:00
Yeah, that's actually funny you said that because I've been joining a lot of parent groups on Facebook and learning about the different strollers you need and different type of devices you need to buy for kids.
Marsha Druker 26:13 Yeah, it's a different world!
Marsha Druker 26:16
So my last question for you is, what does community mean to you?
Preet Singh 26:20
I don't have like a good smart sounding textbook definition of what community means to me. But again, going on the emotive side of myself, I would just say it's like a sense of belonging. And that's the reason I started DesignX because I went to design events, but I never felt like I am amongst my community. So that sense of belonging is something I really strive for, even at our events and our online community. And even in general, anything that I call a community, it's like, you just feel naturally a part of it. There are no strong mechanics or on-boarding needed to make you feel at home.
Marsha Druker 26:56
I couldn't agree with that more. I feel like that sums that up perfectly. When it comes to your professional community and your personal community really being in a place where you feel like you're home, and you belong, and you could just be yourself. Marsha Druker 27:09 Congratulations on what you've created. I really wish you the best of luck in future communities that you're going to create. And thank you so much for joining me today.
Preet Singh 27:18 Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Marsha Druker 27:24
I had such a great time chatting with Preet today, and I hope that you learned as much as I did from this episode. You can connect with Preet on LinkedIn by searching for Preet Singh, and you can learn more about DesignX at designx.community.
Thanks for tuning in to Create Community, a podcast where I chat with incredible community builders to define what community truly means.
You can check out the series on Spotify, Apple or wherever you normally listen. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. I'd really love to hear your feedback. You can also follow us on Instagram @CreateCommunityPod, or check out our website at createcommunitypod.com for updates. Once again, I'm Marsha Druker your host, signing off.
