Andrew Wilkinson: a $6.50 an hour barista started an agency from his parents' basement and became a billionaire
In 2006 Andrew Wilkinson was 20, a journalism school dropout making coffee for $6.50 an hour in Victoria, Canada. He taught himself web design from one book, named a one-man shop MetaLab, and made it look like an agency. He landed about $15,000 of work in his first month. MetaLab went on to design for Slack, Uber, Google and Apple, and became the first business inside Tiny, the holding company that made him a billionaire. This is exactly how he got started and how he got his first customers.
Overview
Andrew Wilkinson grew up in a small house in Victoria, Canada. His parents fought about money, and he grew up assuming that being rich would fix everything. He dropped out of journalism school after about three months.
In 2006, at 20, he started MetaLab, a design agency, while working as a barista. It grew slowly into a multimillion dollar business that designed products for Slack, Uber, Google, Apple, Disney and Walmart. MetaLab became the first business in Tiny, the holding company he built with his partner Chris Sparling. Tiny went on to buy more than thirty companies and went public in 2023.
He did not have a degree, money or connections. What he had was one book, a name, the word "we," and a willingness to pick up the phone.
The cafe
After dropping out, he worked as a barista at 2% Jazz, a small cafe in Victoria. He made $6.50 an hour.
Two regulars, Chris and Jeff, started coming in. They sat there all day with espresso and laptops, using the cafe wifi. They called themselves web designers. Andrew made their coffee and watched them work.
He has said the thought was simple: he wanted to be the guy drinking the espresso, not the one serving it. He already knew some basic HTML from running a Mac news website as a teenager. He figured if they could do it, so could he.
The basement and the data entry job
He moved back into his parents' basement. In his own words on his website: "I dropped out of college, made coffee for $6.50 an hour, and started a design agency from my parents' basement called MetaLab."
Before MetaLab took off he also had a data entry job at a small web development company in Victoria, updating a grocery chain's weekly product catalogue by hand. He has said he was a poor employee. His boss gave him an ultimatum: "Either you need to shape up or you need to leave."
He left. He had about $200 in the bank. (In one interview he says $200, in another $250.)
He taught himself web design from a book by Dan Cederholm, a well known web designer. That book was his whole education.
Faking the agency
This is the move that made everything else work. Andrew was one person. He decided to look like a company.
He gave it a name. He called it MetaLab, after the meta tag in HTML. A name sounds like a team. "Andrew Wilkinson, freelancer" sounds like one guy.
He made the website look like an agency. He put photos of his friends on the site so it looked like there was a team behind it.
He said "we," every time. On calls and in emails he never said "I." In his words: "I kept saying, we." Things like "we'll get right on it."
He charged like an agency. His reasoning, in his own words: "I knew that if I pretended to be a legitimate business, like a design agency, I could probably charge like twice as much for my work." He raised his rate from $15 an hour to $30 an hour.
Clients were not buying Andrew. They were buying MetaLab. And MetaLab was worth twice as much.
How he got his first customers
He did three things at the same time.
1. Freelance job boards. He was looking for a full-time job and planned to "just contract" in the meantime. He posted on freelance job boards and answered projects there.
2. Cold calls to startups. He called startups directly and presented MetaLab as an agency.
3. A small local first job. His first local client is reported to have paid him $500.
It worked fast. He landed about $15,000 of work in his first month, from two startups, one in New York and one in San Francisco. (In another interview he says three clients in the first month.) Within about six weeks he was earning four to five times what the data entry job paid.
He is open about why. "I'm not an exceptional designer, but because I'm a good talker I've been able to build a really great business." And: "If people don't like you, no one works with you."
Strategic favours: how he got the big names
Getting Fortune 500 companies as a tiny shop from Victoria took a different trick. He called it strategic favours.
He would build a blog for a big company or a well known founder for free, or close to free. Then, once they trusted him, he offered the paid interface design work.
One example: he redesigned the blog of the CEO of CollegeHumor for free or for about $500. That one favour led to introductions, and the introductions led to more work. He says he never did it expecting something, but it kept paying off.
Over the years, favours and word of mouth brought in clients like Walmart, Apple, Google and Disney, and later Slack, Uber, Amazon, Shopify and Tumblr. Their budgets paid for MetaLab's growth. He never raised outside money for it.
Growing it
He hired before he felt ready. He worked alone for about six weeks, then hired a friend, Luke, to do the JavaScript and front end work. His dad told him that having a payroll would "force you to grow this business." He now gives the same advice.
He used contractors. For the first three to four years he leaned on a few contractors instead of a big team.
It was slow. One early year brought in about $60,000. He says it was "never the overnight success that everyone thinks it is." About nine years in, MetaLab had about 60 employees. Later it reached about 200.
He kept it conservative. In 2008, clients stopped paying their invoices. MetaLab survived because it had several clients and did not overspend.
Later, MetaLab designed much of the original Slack product. The profits from MetaLab funded everything that came after, including Tiny.
The numbers
| Figure | Number |
|---|---|
| Barista pay | $6.50 an hour |
| Journalism school | About 3 months, then dropped out |
| Age at start | 20 (2006) |
| Money in the bank | About $200 to $250 |
| Where | His parents' basement, Victoria, Canada |
| Training | One web design book |
| Hourly rate | $15, raised to $30 once he looked like an agency |
| First local client | Reported $500 |
| First month | About $15,000 of work (2 to 3 clients) |
| Six weeks in | 4 to 5 times his data entry pay |
| First hire | About 6 weeks in |
| An early year | About $60,000 revenue |
| Team | About 60 at year nine, about 200 later |
| Outside money for MetaLab | None |
| Later | Tiny: 30+ companies, public in 2023 |
Do what he did: step by step
1. Learn one skill people pay for, from one source.
Do this: pick a skill businesses already buy and that you can learn in a few months. In 2006 it was web design from a book. Today the same move is learning to build simple apps, websites and automations with AI tools. Pick one course or one book and finish it. Do not collect ten.
2. Give yourself a name, not a job title.
Do this: choose a short studio name. Buy the domain. Put up a one page site with three things: what you build, two or three examples (even practice projects), and a contact form. Clients trust a name more than a person's name.
3. Say "we."
Do this: in every email and call, say "we." If you have a friend who helps now and then, or a contractor you can call, that is a "we." It changes how people see you and what they will pay.
4. Charge double what feels right.
Do this: write down the hourly rate you think you deserve, then quote twice that. Andrew went from $15 to $30 an hour the day he started acting like an agency. If nobody ever says no to your price, it is too low.
5. Get your first client this week.
Do this: answer five projects a day on freelance job boards, and send five short messages a day to small startups or local businesses. Keep it about them, not you.
The message, word for word:
"Hi [name], I'm [your name] from [studio name]. I was looking at [their website or app] and noticed [one specific thing that could be better, like the signup page being hard to find on a phone]. We fix exactly this kind of thing for small companies. Would it help if we sent you a quick mockup of how it could look? No charge for the mockup."
6. Do one strategic favour.
Do this: find one person with a big network: a well known founder in your city, a popular newsletter writer, the CEO of a company everyone in your niche knows. Offer to build or fix one small thing for free. Do great work. Ask for nothing. When they thank you, tell them you also do paid projects.
The message, word for word:
"Hi [name], I'm a fan of [their company or work]. I build [what you build] and I noticed [small specific thing]. I'd love to fix it for you, free, no strings. I just like what you're doing. Want me to send it over?"
7. Hire your first helper early, and keep cash.
Do this: once you have more work than you can do for two weeks in a row, bring in one contractor for the part you are worst at. Keep at least three months of costs in the bank, and never let one client be most of your income. That is what got MetaLab through 2008.
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Sources
- Andrew Wilkinson, neverenough.com (his website and book page for Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire)
- SaaS Club podcast, "How Andrew Wilkinson Bootstrapped a Multi-Million Dollar Design Agency," part 1
- Bench, interview with Andrew Wilkinson
- Fortune, July 8, 2024, excerpt and interview on Never Enough
- BCBusiness, profile of Andrew Wilkinson
- Andrew Wilkinson on X, April 2023 post on Tiny going public
