AUGUST 25-27, 2020
Speakers
Join thousands of folks online for 3 days of all things freelancing and side hustles. Interested in speaking? Share your expertise and empower the community to leverage the power of side projects!
🔥 Just Announced
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Aaron Draplin,
Draplin Design Co.
🔥 Just Announced
SCALING SIDE PROJECTS
Carly Ayres, Google Design & 100s Under 100
🔥 Just Announced
FIRESIDE
CHAT
Chris Do,
Blind & The Futur
🔥 just announced
passion for progression
Matt Faulk, Founder & CEO, BASIC®
Matt Faulk is the CEO at BASIC®. He has dedicated my career to helping brands digitally transform and believe design and technology can solve the points of tension that exist between companies and the communities they serve.
💼 Career
GOING INDEPENDENT
Badal Patel, Founder, Badal Patel
Badal Patel is an independent graphic designer and art director based in New York City. She is a problem solver and visual storyteller that prides herself in adding cultural relevancy to the work she creates.
🎙 podcasting
Leading & Creating
Khoi Vinh, Senior Director of Product Design, Adobe
Khoi Vinh is the Senior Director of Product Design at Adobe, working on Adobe XD. Previously, he was the Design Director for The New York Times. He is the host of the popular Wireframe podcast and also writes a widely read blog on design and technology at Subtraction.com
💼 career
Work Life Balance
Josiah Duinkerk, Founder & CEO, Annut Design & Development
As the founder of Annut Design & Development, Josiah freelances on multiple projects simultaneously for top companies like Adidas, Randtstad, De Persgroep, ANWB. Because of this, he is able to single-handedly bring in €20-30K monthly.
💼 career
going independent
Sarah Jutras, Co-CEO, Make&Model
Sarah’s expertise in mobile app UX and UI comes from designing and shipping over 20 native apps to the iTunes App Store and Google Play. After building her business, refining her processes, and growing her client base, she recently merged with a longtime friend and collaborator to co-run an experience design studio called Make&Model.
💼 Career
connect with your users
Benjamin Hersh, Design
Lead / Manager, Dropbox
Ben Hersh designs to make the world a more thoughtful and creative place. He leads design for a team at Dropbox, and previously designed at Medium. Ben came to design by way of visual art, cognitive science research at Stanford, and public radio.
🛍 Online Store
SELLING ON THE WEBS
Haris Mahmood, Senior Engineer, Shopify
Haris works at Shopify as a senior engineer, helping create a better world of commerce. He runs a developer focused online store (repitsupply.com), has a weird obsession with dinosaurs, and is still emotionally recovering from the terrible GoT finale.
✨ Social impact
curated shopping destination
Michelle Dalzon, Founder, The Black-Owned Market (theBOM)
As the descendant of small business owners, Michelle envisions a world where Black brands THRIVE. Her dream is to help as many Black business owners succeed by giving them a platform that connects them to their intended consumer.
🎙 podcasting
From 5to9 to Smithsonian
Maurice, Founder and Host, Revision Path
Maurice Cherry is a pioneering digital creator who is most well-known for Revision Path, an award-winning podcast which is the first podcast to be added to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).
💼 Career
finding the right idea
Robleh Jama, Director of Product, Shopify
Robleh Jama is a Product Director at Shopify, working on the Shop app. Previously, Robleh founded an award-winning mobile product studio called Tiny Hearts that was acquired in 2016 by Shopify. At Tiny Hearts, Robleh launched several highly regarded apps.
🤝 community building
championing community
Bobbie Racette, Founder & CEO, Virtual Gurus
Bobbie Racette is the Founder and CEO of Virtual Gurus. She is a Cree-Metis woman who prides herself on building an inclusivity-first company, championing for indigenous people and the LGBTQ+ community.
💼 Career
productized services
Tyler Gillespie, Thinking Time Chief
For the last 15 years, Tyler has been building service businesses. Now he helps Freelancers, Consultants, and Agency owners productize their offerings so they don’t want to rip their hair out from running a typical service business.
🤝 Community building
Paid newsletters
ROSIE SHERRY, Community builder, indie hackers
A community builder, indie hacker, founder of ministry of testing – rosie is a well known leader in building tech communities.
✨ Social Impact
Side Projects for Impact
Mudassir Azeemi, UX Designer, Wells Fargo
Apart from leading the interaction design effort for portal doing 13 trillion dollars of transactions every year at Wells Fargo, Mudassir also brought the Urdu language on Apple’s iOS 2 billion devices!
💼 Career
freelancing while employed
Mohammed Asaduallah, CEO, Benji
To be a freelancer is to be your own business. Mohammed is the CEO of Benji — an online financial solution that finds tax write-offs for Canadian freelancers by sifting through their bank transactions. Mohammed will share insights and actionable steps that you can take to start freelancing while working full-time.
💼 Career
Making my own clothes
Maria Pereda, Director of Design, Clio
Having been a designer for over 15 years, sometimes it’s easy to forget how it feels to be a beginner. Maria will share her 5to9 & how making her own clothes helped her become a more empathetic leader. Bonus: How you can also start making your own clothes!
🤝 Community building
COMMUNITY AS A SIDE PROJECT
Andy McIlwain, Community, Godaddy
Organizing meetups, freelancing, community building for GoDaddy Pro and more – Andy has a wealth of knowledge around turning your hobbies and side projects into a career, all while pursuing your interests.
🚀 IDEA to Product
Automation in Side Projects
Stephanie Eckles, Author, ModernCSS.Dev
Stephanie Eckles is the author of ModernCSS.dev and creator of StyleStage.dev. Steph will speak about building community driven projects, automating for minimum oversight and setting processes in place.
📺 Youtube
Content Creation
Femke van Schoonhoven, Product Designer, Uber Eats
Femke’s 9to5 is a product designer at Uber Eats. Her 5to9 consists of co-hosting a weekly podcast (Design Life) about design and side projects, along with a YouTube channel touching on topics related to design and research.
💼 Career
Building Your Brand
Stephen Gates, Head Design Evangelist, InVision
Stephen is Head Design Evangelist at InVision. He is also founder and host of The Crazy One podcast which gives you actionable insights to be more creative, become a better leader, create more innovative work, build better relationships with your clients, grow a stronger career, and more.
🤝 Community building
Embracing Fuckups
Marsha Druker, Host, Create Community & Founder, Fuckup Nights Toronto
Marsha is a community expert and the Founder of Fuckup Nights Toronto (a community that de-stigmatizes failure). She is also the host of the Create Community podcast, where she chats with fellow community builders to define what community truly means.
💼 CAREER
GOING INDEPENDENT
Derek Vaz, CEO & Founder, DVXD
Derek Vaz is a Canadian designer, technologist, and entrepreneur. In 2018 he established DVXD, a design studio partnering with influential leaders to create socially-impactful brands and products.
🚀 IDEA to Product
From 9to5 to
YCombinator
Daryna Kulya, Co-founder, Openphone
Alongside leading a thriving product community and managing product at Vidyard, Daryna spent her 5to9 rethinking business phone communications – leading to ycombinator.
💰 Venture Capital
finding the right idea
Ameet Shah, Partner,
Golden Ventures
Founded FiveMobile, acquired by Zynga and now, a partner at one of North America’s coveted vc firms.
🤝 Community building
COMMUNITY as side projects
Marianne Bulger, CEO & Co-founder, Prospect
A multi-disciplinary strategist and entrepreneur, Marianne’s company recently launched the Canadian #COVID19 Talent Help List. In her spare time, she builds large scale mirror installations in natural landscapes and runs a global self-affirmation postcard initiative called Moon Mail. She’ll share how side hustles can expedite your career journey.
💼 Career
DESIGNING DESIGN TOOLS
Gleb Sabirzyanov, Indie Maker
A self-proclaimed indie-maker and full-time Figma plugin maker, Gleb’s background is in design and development. He uses these skills to build digital tools that empower creatives because he wants everyone to be able to express themselves.
✨ Social Impact
12 Projects in 12 Months
Kezie Todd, Associate UX Designer, Puppet
Teaching herself anything from modular synthesis to origami, side projects are a way of life for Kezie. She looks to find the fun in venturing outside your comfort zone and help others do the same. Kezie has learned to carry the best of the 9to5 into the 5to9 and vice versa by bringing a beginner’s mindset and hobbyist’s enthusiasm to any project, side or not.
🛍 online store
selling on the webs
Alison Post, Senior UX Researcher, Shopify
Alison Post is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Shopify. She is also the artist and maker behind Little Coco Studio, which is an online store that sells hand crafted candles, woven wall hangings, and stickers. In her spare time, you’ll find her spending time with her rescue dog, Coconut.
✨ SOCIAL IMPACT
GET FEATURED IN THE MEDIA
Jacky Habib, Freelance Journalist
Jacky Habib is a freelance journalist who regularly reports on the social impact sector in Canada. She is also the founder of New Lens Travel, a social enterprise that highlights storytellers and creatives, and provides media training to marginalized youth.
💼 Career
Inbound for freelancers
Stefan Palios, Founder and Publisher, Remotely Media
Stefan has been a freelancer since 2017 and is the author of The 50 Laws of Freelancing. From day one, he built an inbound funnel so clients come to him. To this day he has never sent a cold pitch. In this talk he’ll explain how you can build your own inbound client funnel.
About The Conference
5to9 Conference is a virtual 3-day conference, focused on exploring how folks can leverage the power of side projects to diversify their income streams, launch their passion projects and more.
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