Thijs Kraan

Value Positioner

We turn your work and expertise into founder-led content that attracts a steady flow of high-value projects from the right clients. A partnership for design agencies that want growth without the heavy lifting.

Send me a message if you want to learn more.

Founder

Hatch Conference

Growth Partner

Soldep

Designed websites, brands, content strategies, and funnels for SMBs to turn more visitors into customers.

Designer

UMC Utrecht

UMC Utrecht is an academic hospital. Designed a mobile app for nurses to streamline internal communication, documentation, and automation, so they had more time to take care of patients. Estimated workload decrease of 2 to 10%.

Product Designer

Essense

My graduation internship at Essense focused on understanding service design, customer experience, journey mapping, and customer research. I worked on a project (which I acquired myself) for UMC Utrecht.

Ahold Delhaize

Worked for Albert Heijn, the largest Dutch supermarket chain. Designed 2 products, including all marketing materials that led to a launch with 35k+ users in one week. Both MVPs were scaled into the larger product eco-system and now saves around 4.5M kilograms in annual food waste

I help designers sell their expertise through writing content.

Before 2023, 100% of my design clients came from referrals.

→ I had zero control over when my next project arrived

Today, 88% of my clients come through LinkedIn – inbound.

Learning “how” took me 1065+ days of sharing expertise:

- Positioning & articulating the value of my expertise
- Experimenting with writing high-performing hooks
- Converting attention into inbound business leads
- Talking to 1000s of designers and design leaders
- Finetuning my profile for the highest conversion

I was a poor design student, so I self-studied:

- I consumed 1000s of posts & 100s of videos
- I read 100s of books & 100s of articles
- I wrote more than 1200+ posts

Obsessed with mastering the nitty-gritty of content.

And that meant making countless mistakes:

- I tried appealing to everyone, so I never got to stand out
- I wasted 100s of hours on meaningless content iteration
- I pivoted direction 50+ times so nothing compounded
- I got 3M+ impressions without winning a single client
- I ignored 1000s of hand-raisers right in front of me

To this day, I still learn new things every day.

Even after investing 3 years in learning:

€10k+ on courses/coaches
1000+ hours on reading
2500+ hours on writing

But now, I've turned everything into one framework to:

- Share your unique expertise more effectively
- Become the go-to expert for your audience
- Start getting inbound leads (on auto-pilot)

My LinkedIn Growth Framework. 

After 10+ iterations, I'm confident it works:

- A design founder added €100k+ in revenue (in 6 months)
- A design leader landed a new €150k+ job (in 3 weeks)
- And many designers won new 5-figure project deals

All from sharing their unique expertise (on LinkedIn)

So, if you want to learn from my biggest mistakes.

Take my free 5-day LinkedIn Growth Strategy:

growexpertise.com/linkedin-growth-strategy
(or click my LinkedIn profile buttons above)

PS. For 1:1 help, DM me or visit valuepositioner.com

Design Content Consultant

I help design leaders, founders, and freelancers do 4 things:

1. Understand & position your unique value
2. Create your design content strategy
3. Systematize content creation
4. Start creating habitually

By:

1. Analyzing your existing customers, content & data
2. Strategizing toward your ideal future positioning
3. Producing content for authority, talent & leads
4. Upgrading your content, profiles & funnels

Together, this will help you:

- Get inbound leads
- Attract new talent
- Build authority

Want to learn how? 

Send me a message.

I met the design founder behind Polarsteps, a travel app with 18M+ users. 
 
From day one, Job Harmsen was the Head of Design:
 
He didn’t invent a new category, he made it beautiful
He bet on great experiences over growth hacks
He built for 11+ years alognside 3 co-founders
 
A design founder at heart. 
 
Short-film coming soon.
 
Made by Luc, Lars, and me. 
 
PS. Job is hiring a Senior Product Designer. If you're interested, reach out to him!

Back from a week in Paris:

- Visited nearly all the historic places
- Took the crown jewels from Louvre
- Drank a bunch of coffees in cafés
- Endulged in the French cuisine
- Quality time with my partner
- Loved the city's architecture
- Enjoyed some great wines

My favorite city trip so far.

It's what I love about having my own business.

I have full control over how I spent my time.

Not always easy, but definitely rewarding.

Now, it's time to get back to work:

- Kicked off a new big project
- Starting a 30-person cohort
- Finishing a few projects

A few busy last months.

All ready for 2026.

Let's go!

I’m a slow starter.

I didn’t start hitting the gym 5x a week
I started hitting the gym once a week

I didn’t start publishing 7x a week
I started publishing once a week

I didn't start reading 7x a week
I started reading once a week

Every habit had a few failed attempts.

But I know they're habits for life.

Don’t always be in a rush.

Start slow, finish faster.

I got my 1st client with luck.

I got my 2nd client with luck.

I got my 3rd client with luck.

All local businesses.

Over 7+ years, we did 10+ projects.

I was lucky to *accidentally* start a business:

- Learned to manage my clients and projects
- Learned to charge for outcomes, not hours
- Learned the basics of business by doing

But my 4th client came from intentional effort.

I published consistently for more than a year.

And then, I shared my 1st post with an offer:

→ That resulted in 20+ leads and 2 clients

That’s when growth finally felt in control.

By sharing my expertise on LinkedIn:

I built an invaluable network from scratch
I attracted many inbound opportunities
I won 88% of my current client base

All while I was a design student.

That’s the power of LinkedIn.

Take control of your luck.

You don’t need the perfect strategy.

You don’t need the perfect website.

You don’t need the perfect brand.

You don’t need the perfect plan.

You don’t need the perfect idea.

Perfection doesn't exist. 

Waiting for it is a trap.

All you need is:

- A specific customer
- A painful problem
- A good solution
- An action bias

We overcomplicate everything. 

Just do “simple” things well. 

Start small and iterate.

We're lucky. 
 
Being alive means we already won the lottery.
 
That's blind luck. Luck we didn't work for. 
 
Other types of luck come from:
 
1. Hustling
2. Preparation
3. Authenticity
 
When you share what you know, luck compounds: 
 
- You learn about what interests you
- You get inbound project requests
- You meet like-minded designers
- You open doors you didn't see
- You find experts to mentor you
- You gain free audience insight
- You can test & validate ideas
- You build a referral network
- You develop your character
- You iterate upon your ideas
 
That's why you should: 
 
Share consistently.
Prepare deeply.
Be authentic.
 
It's how we create our “luck.”

I made a mistake 4 years ago.

Not sticking with what worked:

→ Building websites

I sold websites for €5k to €17.5k/each and I built each one in 30 to ~90 hours.

That's when I faced a few wrong beliefs:

- Web design is a race to the bottom
- Tools will replace website-building
- Websites are often not important
- Building websites isn't leveraged
- Too many people build websites

So, I decided to do a hard pivot, and I tried finding a new:

- Audience = ICs → leaders → founders → businesses
- Market = design industry (only worked with designers)
- Offering = program → growth sprint → growth retainer

Took 2-3 years to find what worked, and I still iterate every day. 

Sure, I make more than I need, but if I wouldn't have pivoted:

→ I would've made at least 5x to 10x more, easily

How do I know? A few friends sell websites for €20k - 80k+

And I'm confident I delivered similar quality 4 years ago.

But I wasn't willing to double down on “boring” work:

- Prioritize one market and audience
- Build a predictable growth engine
- Systematize for higher efficiency
- Learn to hire → delegate → scale
- Do more work and do it better

So, if you're thinking about pivoting. Please think twice. 

When something works → Don't pivot, just do more. 

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Trevor Nielsen, LLC

Freelance Product Designer

Kleo

• Grew Kleo to 70k users with free Chrome extension
• Led design for pro beta with 500+ creators generating $170k in first week
• Owned product design as founding designer from MVP through launch

Founding Designer

Giddy

*43% company wide layoff 

• Designed & launched mobile app from 0 to 1
• 500k app downloads + 50k active users in 12 months
• Reached 1,200+ reviews averaging 4.7/5.0 stars
• Created crypto wallet circulating over $50M transaction volume
• Built design system from 0 to 1 with engineering
• Contributed to library of 40+ custom illustrations

Senior Product Designer

NOCD

• Helped mobile app reach 8.6k reviews averaging 4.9/5.0 stars
• Designed tools resulting in 10% increase in therapy effectiveness
• These tools allowed members to get better up to 6 weeks faster
• Lead 10+ user interviews testing product from user feedback
• Created dashboard allowing members to view their progress
• Established a design system unifying app styles & components

Lead Product Designer

Newfold Digital

• Shipped Office 365 offering to 800k HostGator users
• Audited 200+ styles & components throughout the product
• Involved from 0 to 1 creating design system for product
• Art direct the new and improved UI refresh

Product Designer - HostGator

• Provided art direction for marketing & product team
• Supported the marketing team with all advertising assets (online ads, email marketing, print collateral)
• Worked closely with devs to design and build landing pages for marketing campaigns
• Created illustrations for the website and marketing

Senior Designer - MOJO Marketplace

Canopy, Inc.

• Played significant role in the rebrand of Canopy
• Full redesign of the company website
• Booth design + sales collateral for 70+ tradeshows
• Designed 50+ custom icons & illustrations
• Created 5 ebooks in collaboration with copywriters

Visual Designer

ICON Health and Fitness

• Technical image editing: color correction, manipulation, compositing
• Retouch, manage, coordinate, and care for all of ICON's imagery - created internally and externally
• Use of tools such as: Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One, Illustrator
• Maintain distinct brand image styling for multiple world class brands including: Proform, Nordictrack, Altra, iFit, Gold's Gym, FreeMotion

Senior Photo Retoucher

• Collaborate with clients to produce print/digital content including: logo, website, flyer, poster, business card, letterhead, infographic, iconography
• Assist clients in producing branding standards and guidelines

Owner / Designer

Malouf

• Product image preparation for web, packaging and catalog
• Creative image compositing
• Digital tech on site and in studio photoshoots
• Package file resizing and preparation for print
• Content creation for web and online channels

Photo Retoucher / Graphic Designer

Aggie Idol

• Raised over $3,100 in monetary donations and over $10,000 in value as a team for charity event through donations by local sponsors and time of well-known community personalities
• Co-managed event that was recorded for having the biggest crowd ever at Utah State University for a non-school sponsored event with approximately 1,200 in attendance 
• Designed posters, flyers, banners, and ground signs to be posted & distributed throughout the community and university campus. Also designed the 12 page final event program
• Marketed event to the community through print, radio, Facebook, Youtube, and movie theater commercials

Graphic Designer / Co Founder

Part of the bottom 99% of designers. Building Kleo. Serving teams with fractional product design.

I help founders validate ideas with polished MVPs.
And I help product teams move faster with fewer bottlenecks.

Trusted by startups who have raised over $350M.
I’ve partnered directly with founders, PMs, and heads of design.

Web + mobile. Fast-paced. Strategic + hands-on.
U.S.-based and async-friendly.

If you need part-time design that feels full-time reliable, reach out. ⤵

https://tidycal.com/trevordesign/chat-with-trevor

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Thijs Kraan

Trevor Nielsen

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The Battle

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Trevor Nielsen

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Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Thijs Kraan's LinkedIn Performance

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