How a designer earned $100,000 in 1 week thanks to iOS 14

Greg Taieb · · 2 min read

The designers I have worked with know this, I have been convinced for a while that a designer who knows how to make his work visible and invest in trends can earn a very good living and be very visible.

This week provided me with a prime example with the story of Traf a designer who took advantage of a new feature in the latest version of iOS to generate $100,000 in revenue in 6 days.

It all starts with the release of iOS 14, the latest version of the iPhone operating system. The latter popularizes a function available for years on Android: the possibility of changing the default icons of different applications.

Very quickly we saw the proliferation of screenshots of iPhone users sharing their home screens on TikTok and Twitter.

How a designer successfully rode a trend

Traf notices the trend and publishes a tweet and decides to make a zip containing a collection of icons and put them for sale on Gumroad a platform specializing in the sale of digital goods.

It took him less than 2 hours.

In the space of 24 hours, everything is going crazy and his collection is highlighted by very big tech sites and featured in a video by MKBHD (aka Marques Brownlee) who is quite simply the biggest tech YouTuber in the world with more than 12 million subscribers.

From then on it’s madness! Traf makes several sales per minute so much so that he is forced to deactivate notifications.

What to remember from this story?

In an article posted on its site, traf explains the key lessons of this incredible story. insights that I think everyone can draw inspiration from regardless of their situation:

  • Publish often
  • Act immediately thanks to a flexible schedule
  • Be transparent
  • Don't hesitate to charge more

He makes it clear that there is no miracle recipe and that part of his success is due to timing and luck, but specifies that checking the boxes above conditioned the success of this operation.

We can also add that the rise of no-code tools (like Airtable or Notion) favors the emergence of stories like these. When you can offer a product for sale in just a few minutes without managing the technology or payment platforms, this greatly improves time to market.

Hoping that this article and this story will have inspired you as much as me. Do not hesitate to share your opinions in comments. Or if you have other examples of “shots” of the same type.