Success in Tech with Penny Talalak
Known for bringing her work laptop to the club
I met Penny through Earlywork, an early career startup community. She’s the head of UX at Z Recruitment, owner of Bizkit Lab a design agency and at one time had 5 side hustles. At first, I followed her adventures on Instagram and somehow, we hopped on an impromptu coaching call . Penny is a serial workaholic, but she doesn’t see it that way... Read on to see why.
Who is Penny?
How would you describe yourself and your involvement in tech?
My name is Penny Talalak or Penny Pang, my stage name for social media purposes. Pang is also my Thai nickname, so it works out.
I’m a UX/UI designer. No one really thinks design is tech.
When you think of tech, you think of a software engineer. But tech is so broad, it's not just engineering anymore.
I’m a member of the Earlywork startup community and I also go to a lot of tech events.
In my current role, I work with a lot of products. I work with a lot of engineers.
That’s how I’m involved in tech.
What do people around you think when they hear Penny Pang?
They think: ah, the UX/UI designer because I am a UX/UI designer and I don't have any other job titles. I try to stick to one.
Even though there are a lot of titles out there that people make up, like founder or CEO of whatever they just started a day ago.
Another thing that people think of when they hear my name is: side hustles because they know me from my design business and my other ventures.
Whereas my childhood friends will just know me as Penny who is always starting a business.
Success with Penny
What does success mean to you?
I love this question.
I’m someone who's obsessed with achievement. Not success.
Because when you achieve success, you still feel like a failure and that’s a common experience for high achievers.
There's just never enough.
So when I think about success, I don't ever think that I'm successful, even though people think that I'm successful.
You see other people’s success and compare yourself to them, wondering when you’ll be enough to call yourself ‘successful’.
But success to me is actually when you're happy.
I think people who are just running around in the desert playing with wooden toys are happier than I am right now. Probably… and I envy that.
I think they are successful because they’ve found happiness with what they have.
Whereas you could have everything: money, career, friends, family, and never be satisfied. That’s not success.
Success should be measured by happiness.
What motivates you to chase success?
I don't chase success because when I achieve it, I still think that I'm unsuccessful. I would never be happy and the cycle would continue.
Instead of success, I chase goals.
I only have one life so here are goals that I want to achieve:
Build a dream home
I'm really into architecture. My dad's an architect and I studied architecture. I love designing houses and I used to be obsessed with building my dream home in ‘The Sims’ videogame.
But a big house does not translate to success because once I get a big house, I would feel like: “Great! What's next?”
This is why I like to focus on goals rather than ‘success’.
Get a master's degree
My bachelor’s degree was during COVID so I never get to wear a hat and have my graduation photos. I've never had that so I feel like I have to go back for that opportunity.
Design an app that has 1 million active users
This is my number one goal because I want to create something that has impact. I don't want to just design something for it to sit there and do nothing.
What I found interesting about you was your crazy work ethic eg. working on your laptop in the club. How did you do it?
I love working but I don't consider work as work. To me, it’s only work when you're just doing something for the money.
I see my work as a hobby because I enjoy doing it.
Why not look at it in a positive way right?
But there’s a fine line right between a hobby and work.
When you become a slave to your business, that's when a hobby becomes work.
Unfortunately for me, a lot of my hobbies became work eventually.
When I started freelancing, I said yes to every single client, It was so fun.
But I was charging so low at $500 per website. I thought that was really expensive because I would never pay $500 for a website. Then I realised I wasn’t the one paying, the client was and that’s when I started to charge more.
But it got to a point where I only did it because I was paid to. At that point, it no longer felt like a hobby.
I was working full time as well and I felt like I was having a mental breakdown.
This is when I began outsourcing projects that I wasn’t passionate about, so I could focus on the ones I enjoyed.
People might think I'm a workaholic, but I'm just passionate about what I do. I now delegate more projects to others and only personally work on projects I’m passionate about.
What's been your biggest obstacle so far? And how did you overcome it?
The biggest obstacle not running the business, but finding good people that you can trust and work with.
When I first started building a team, I would hand my junior designers a client project right away.
One time, I asked one of my team members when a project would be done.
They told me they hadn't even started and it was due the next day.
It was a disaster.
I had to jump in and do the whole project myself before the client deadline.
To prevent this from happening again, I now provide free mentorship to the junior designers that I hired. I also focus on finding people who are genuinely interested in design.
To filter potential candidates, I start with a crucial question: Do you genuinely want a career as a UX UI designer? This is essential for me, as I invest time in teaching them.
The initial interview involves a challenge: design a web landing page in under 20 minutes using Figma. This helps me assess their technical skills and forms a basis for the training I provide. Once they’ve nail the challenge, I give them their first client project.
Building mutual trust with my team was crucial to business success.
How close are you to achieving your life goals?
I feel far away from achieving them.
However, I aim to make 1% progress every day, instead of doing too much and burning myself.
I believe every day should contribute to my goals, that’s why I took my laptop to the club as you mentioned.
Is clubbing going to going to get me closer to my dream house or a master's degree?
No.
How can I be more like Penny?
Do you think there's something special about you or can anyone be like you?
I’d turn it around and say would you really want to be me?
Do you want to:
Bring your laptop to the club to do work?
Wake up at 4am in the morning to do work?
Work 3-5 jobs at the same time?
I have this toxic mindset where I can’t help but think that every second matters to me.
That’s why I only see my friends every three to six months despite appearing social on Instagram.
My lifestyle involves working multiple jobs, studying constantly, and avoiding social events.
I believe everyone should be unique, as successful as I might appear.
The standard advice that hard work pays off feels clichéd.
Instead, I emphasize pursuing what you love, which can lead to success. The term "work" carries negativity, but if you enjoy something, why not monetise it?
More importantly, what keeps me going is the impact that my designs have. When I see my work being used by real people it’s so rewarding.
Optimise your life to do more of what you enjoy in your work and maximise your impact, don’t be afraid to experiment to figure things out.
I think anyone can do that.
What’s your top piece of advice for young people in the tech industry right now?
Get your foot in the door.
If you’re offered a job at a startup, take it.
You might only be there for six months or a year. But if you want to get into the industry, you can’t be picky.
That's what I’m seeing a lot right now with Gen Z. It's a generation of: “I’ll only do what I want to do”.
If you want to have your dream role in tech you need to justify your value first. There’s a lot of hype around getting VC funding and achieving huge growth.
But you can’t just drop out of uni and start a multi-billion dollar business.
You need to start small before you go big.
You might not be working at the coolest startup but if you focus on making connections, it can pay off more than chasing status.