Another year around the Sun. Grab your favorite cup of liquid because it’s time to reflect on it…
Highlights
- Resigned from my longest-ever job at Hygraph
- Made $2,621 in revenue from Product Disrupt
- Hosted first-ever in-person meetup for Product Disrupt in San Francisco
- Started building With a View with close friends
- Spoke at four conferences & meetups
- Started home-swapping and later became a Kindred ambassador
- Landed a four-figure quarterly sponsorship deal for the Design Life podcast
- Published 2 videos & 3 reels on YouTube
- Published 16 reels on Radler & Gelato
- Went on a creative break
- Recovered from anxiety attacks
- Enrolled as a visually disabled person in Germany
- Insane amount of walking, cricket & tennis
- Celebrated five years in Berlin
- Traveled to 22 places in Asia, Europe & the USA
Work
Hygraph
In September, I made the tough decision to say goodbye to my longest-ever job at Hygraph. I joined mid-pandemic when we were just 20-ish people hustling in the CMS space. Back then, I was the lone designer, working closely with Michael Lukaszczyk and our band of frontenders – building the product from the ground up.
Fast-forward four years – I left behind a powerhouse design team, over $44M in total funding, and a strong brand presence. Reflecting on what we achieved together fills my heart with pride.
Also, look at this cool coffee mug with the custom emojis my team gifted me as a farewell gift. I brew my morning coffee in this mug now.
Product Disrupt
Financially, this was the lowest revenue year in the last four years. Sponsorships & affiliates were on a decline and the job board went to zero after Pallet shut down their product.
I saved significantly on the expense after moving the newsletter to Kit (formerly ConvertKit). The move has been great for running the newsletter sustainably and using its referral network for growth.
While moving to Kit, I also cleaned up the newsletter removing a good ~300 inactive subscribers. This looked bad in numbers but the subscriber growth picked up again within a couple of issues.
Website traffic more than doubled in 2024. I can’t really attribute this to any major spike. Maybe this was owing to the speaking I did this year at conferences & meetups.
2024 – Product Disrupt
- Revenue: $2,621.14 (-$5,075.53)
- Expense: $85 (-$119)
- Total Subscribers: 4,787 (-205)
- Site Views: 20.2K (+11.49K)
Shameless plug: Want to receive new free resources to stay up-to-date with product design and build your own products? Then subscribe here to get them straight in your inbox every two weeks.
I also hosted the first ever in-person meetup for Product Disrupt while I was in San Francisco for Figma Config. I partnered with Grace Ling from Design Buddies to host at her Bunny House.
We had a packed house with more than 50 people. I wanted the attendees to get comfy and make new friends before the mega event of Config. I followed Nick Gray’s 2-hour cocktail party technique for the mixer. I heard that the attendees loved the energy. I’m definitely going to host more of this.
With a View
In May, I teamed up with two of my close friends – Rahul & Deepak on a side project we’re all obsessed with. After putting together many nights & weekends, we finally published the extension on Chrome Web Store in Feb 2025.
Tab With a View is a free browser extension that will make your everyday browsing amazingly beautiful.
Every time you open a new tab, you’ll see a breathtaking view from somewhere in the world – guaranteed to light up your day and perhaps inspire your next trip.
This is only the first product of our travel discovery venture, there’s more to come. So keep an eye out. Meanwhile, give our extension a try and let me know how you like it. I won’t bite, promise!
Speaking
I spoke at a few events in Berlin and online. I also developed a new talk on my curious experiments with AI.
- The Spicy Side of Side Projects – Creative Mornings / Berlin
- Breaking Down Design Silos – femke.design
- Fireside Chat – The CLAN
- Build Your Ideas with AI – PAKCon 2024
I also went on the opening season of my friend Jayneil’s show called Sneak Peek. We jumped into the design files and process at Hygraph giving an insider look into the startup’s design culture. It’s a pretty solid concept and a goldmine of a resource for designers at all stages. Be sure to take a look.
Kindred Ambassador
We joined this home-swapping platform called Kindred to explore a new way to travel. We visit our family in India every year and are away from Berlin for a couple of months. So when we heard of Kindred, we instantly saw this as a great way to leverage our empty Berlin home while away.
Their concept is simple – we acquire credits for hosting guests and then we can use those credits to stay at member homes when traveling. Kindred credits covered my entire stay in the expensive San Francisco & New York City, easily saving me over $4K+ in hotel bookings.
Later this year, Kindred started an ambassador program and so as a happy user, I applied to become their city ambassador for Berlin. Now I help them foster the home-swapping community in Berlin.
If you join Kindred using my invite code, you’ll get early access along with 5 credits to book your favorite home in any available city. You’re welcome ; )
One of my favorite duties as an ambassador is to host local events – like this Christmas Market visit with gluhwein and smiles : )
Partner Management
I’d unlocked free time after resigning from my job. So I was looking to take up unusual work that excited me.
Constantly working on side projects has helped me acquire unusual skills over the years. I’ve learned to pitch to clients and sell sponsorships. When I saw my friend Femke was looking for help to book sponsors for her podcast Design Life, I offered to collaborate.
I helped them land a four-figure quarterly sponsorship deal for their podcast. It was a fun side quest. I’m considering doing more of it. Reach out if you need help.
YouTube
I published 2 new videos and 3 reels on my design channel. The best performing one was a recording of my talk on side projects at the Berlin Product Designers meetup.
I also recorded an episode for Consistent Creators, it will be out soon on my channel, make sure to hit the subscribe button.
I published 16 reels on our travel channel – Radler & Gelato. I’m pretty happy with the rhythm and how our editing style is shaping up.
Life
Creative Break
I went on a creative break after resigning from my job. It’s commonly called a sabbatical, but I’m rebranding it to a creative break, as I intend to use this time to embark on a pathless path to let my creativity wander.
I thought I’d be lazing around, but instead, I’ve been the most productive I’ve been in the past couple of years. I answered the “How’s your break going?” question here…
In summary, life has mostly been great except for a few visits to the doctor for my ongoing health situation.
Health
In my last year-in-review, I opened up about my battle with anxiety attacks. This time I’m happy to report that they faded away as the year passed by.
Apart from cultivating healthy habits, I made some big life decisions in 2024 that helped me get back to my normal self. The biggest one was resigning from my 4.5 years old job.
Earlier that year, I visited a house doctor in Berlin in search of answers to my anxiety issues. They couldn’t do much other than recommend me to see a Psychotherapist and give me a sick note.
Specialist doctors and rental apartments in Berlin have one thing in common – you can’t find either of them. The sick absence helped me a great deal though. It allowed me to solely focus on my fitness and reflect on my life situation. I came back from the sick absence and resigned from my job, realizing that it was the best decision for both parties.
While I was on the hunt for a Psychotherapist, I won the lottery for a retinal inspection appointment at Charité. I suffer from a retinal condition called Stargardt disease, which makes me borderline visually impaired. I was already diagnosed with it in India but I started the treatment again in Germany for a second opinion.
After putting me through a whole day of eye tests, they confirmed the condition and reconfirmed that there was no cure for it. They also identified me as a visually disabled person and enrolled me for disability benefits and provided some visual aids to help with my everyday life.
Throughout the process, it became clear to me how thoughtful and considerate Germany is towards people with disabilities. I’m grateful to live a life here.
Sports & Fitness
The idea of going to a gym has never excited me, but on the other hand, the idea of playing a sport always has. I doubled down on my playtime in 2024. I became a regular at cricket, picked up tennis and tried paddle as well. Oh yeah, my walking meter on Strava has been through the roof.
This year I also played my first cricket match with a leather ball. As a passionate cricket lover, it feels great to have unlocked this level.
All this activity helped me lose 6.5 kgs in 2024. I feel the fittest since I passed college.
Five Years in Berlin
In Nov, I celebrated five years since moving to Berlin. Every day I wake up feeling grateful that I get to live in this city.
As an anniversary reflection, I give you five reasons why I think Berlin is the best city in the world…
Travel
Life happened but I made sure it didn’t get in the way of travel, because what’s life without travel?
- Family visit to India
- Mumbai
- Vapi
- Jaipur
- Remote work & vacation in South East Asia
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Surat Thani, Thailand
- Khao Sok, Thailand
- Ko Lipe, Thailand
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Remote work & road trip in & around Milan, Italy
- With a View onsite in Drzewce, Poland
- Figma Config & vacation in the USA
- San Francisco
- Napa Valley
- New York City
- With a View onsite in Jáchymov, Czech Republic
- Work trip to Marburg, Germany
- Birthday vacation in Stawno, Poland
- Remote work & vacation in Spain
- Alicante
- Altea
- Valencia
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Brussels, Belgium
- Bruges, Belgium
Wrapping Up
2024
I ended the last year realizing that I needed to make big changes in my life to get back to my creative best, so I’ll take great pride in seeing that Change emerged as the theme for 2024.
2025
I’ve finally taken the road less traveled to let my creativity wander. So I’m not making any big plans, just letting it do its magic. I’m enjoying tinkering with new tools and building my ideas.
Congrats! You made it till the end. Thanks for giving me your attention. I wish you a beautiful start to the new year ✦
In case you’re interested in reading my past year reviews, you can find them here – 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.
Feel free to drop a link to your year-in-review in the comments below. I love reading them.
Darshan Gajara 