START → BUILD
LU Wellness
Expertise → Professional Brand
A wellness professional with knowledge, experience and a personal story worth building around — transformed into a professional brand with its own positioning, identity and digital home.
Opportunity strategy
Know what to do next.
Design Yourself helps experienced people turn what they know into what they do next.
We find the opportunity first, then build only what the opportunity actually needs.
You are not finished.
Your most meaningful chapter may still be waiting to be written.
Start · Build · Grow
Your future is not found. It is designed.
Eric Mallari
Founder & Opportunity Strategist
You are here
Two situations. The same question.
- “I have experience, knowledge and credibility — and I want something of my own.”
- “I already own a business, and I want to know where the next opportunity is.”
- Either way, the hard part isn’t effort. It’s knowing which move is worth making.
You probably don’t need more ideas. You need to know which one is worth pursuing.
Not sure where to begin? Take the free Opportunity Assessment →
The path forward is quieter than it appears.
Our philosophy
Opportunity first. Technology second.
We don’t assume the answer is AI, a website, automation or marketing. Those are capabilities, used when the opportunity calls for them.
First we work out which opportunity is genuinely worth your time. Only then do we decide what — if anything — needs building.
Design the life before you design the business.
How we work
Start. Build. Grow.
Find the opportunity, make it real, then keep finding what’s next. Three stages of the same journey.
- 01
START
Find the opportunity.
For experienced people considering something of their own, and for owners deciding where to put their next effort. Structured discovery, independent research and a clear recommendation — the Opportunity Blueprint™.
OUTCOME
A decision you can defend
- 02
BUILD
Make it real.
Once the opportunity is clear, we build only what it needs: position, digital foundation, demand, leverage or new capabilities. Technology follows strategy, never the other way around.
OUTCOME
Something that works
- 03
GROW
Keep finding and acting on what’s next.
An ongoing opportunity partnership: continuous monitoring of your market, a Monthly Opportunity Brief™, the three priorities worth acting on, and a monthly strategy session with Eric.
OUTCOME
Continuous momentum
You don’t have to begin at START. If you already know what you’re building, we can meet you at BUILD or GROW.
Where most people begin
The Opportunity Blueprint™
Know what to do next — and why.
$995 CAD
Fixed fee. No obligation to continue into BUILD or GROW.
Structured discovery
Your experience, your business, your goals and your constraints.
Independent research
Markets, customers, competitors and models — researched for you.
Opportunity Scorecard™
The strongest two or three opportunities assessed across eight dimensions.
Eric’s recommendation
DO IT, EXPLORE FURTHER, NOT NOW or DON’T DO IT — with the reasoning.
90-Day Opportunity Plan
The first moves, sequenced, and what to test before spending more.
BUILD
Make the opportunity real.
Positioning, digital foundation, demand, leverage and new capabilities — scoped to the opportunity rather than sold as a package.
Projects from $4,000 CAD
GROW
Keep finding and acting on what’s next.
A continuous opportunity partnership: monitoring, a Monthly Opportunity Brief™, the Top 3 priorities and a monthly session with Eric.
Partnerships from $1,250 CAD/month
What could your experience become?
What you know can become something of your own.
Years of work leave you with more than a résumé — expertise, judgment, relationships and interests that took a lifetime to gather.
What that becomes is different for everyone. Some people want a professional presence. Others want a business, or simply a better way of working with the people they already have.
- A professional brandYour experience and expertise, given a presence people can understand and trust.
- A business of your ownAn idea, an expertise or an opportunity, turned into something that can actually operate.
- A way to find and keep clientsLead and client systems that help you attract the right people and follow up properly.
- An experience your customers useInteractive client experiences that help people work out what they need before they reach you.
- AI working inside your businessAI business experiences, used where they create real leverage rather than novelty.
Built with Design Yourself
What experience became.
Three different starting points, each carried through the stages that fit them — what they knew, turned into something they own.
START → BUILD → GROW
PEDAL & PORT
Experience + Passion → Positioned Business
A lifelong interest in cycling, travel, fitness and community became a focused active-lifestyle travel brand — with its own positioning, website, authority content, community model and intelligent travel guidance.
BUILD → GROW
Ontario Cruise Center
Expertise → Intelligent Business Experience
Cruise expertise became more than a traditional travel website. Ontario Cruise Center combines advisor credibility, authority content and a proprietary Cruise Fit approach with an intelligent customer experience that helps visitors understand what kind of cruise may suit them before speaking with Eric.
Maya
Your AI Opportunity Guide
Meet Maya
Not sure what comes next?
Tell Maya what you’ve done and what you’re weighing up, and she’ll help you think it through — then hand the conversation to Eric when it’s useful.
Maya helps you explore. Eric helps you decide.
She is also a working example of the kind of intelligent business experience we build for clients. See how it works →
The journal
Ideas for the life you are designing.
Essays on reinvention, building something of your own, personal branding, and using AI and better opportunities to grow it.
Live
You’re Not Starting Over: What Will You Do With Everything You’ve Learned?
For most of your life, the question was what you wanted to do next. Eventually it becomes something harder and far more interesting: what will you do with everything you already know?
Grow
How to Make Your Business Less Dependent on You
A stronger business doesn't require you to disappear. It gives you more choice about where your time, experience and judgment are actually needed.
Grow
What Should a Small Business Automate First?
Automation can save time, reduce errors and create leverage. But the first question isn’t what can be automated. It’s what is worth automating.
A shared belief
You are not starting over.
You are building forward.
Your experience still matters. Everything you have learned, experienced, overcome, and contributed becomes part of what comes next.
Design Yourself is for people who believe growth does not have an expiration date.
The founder
Eric Mallari
Founder & Opportunity Strategist, Design Yourself
Three decades of entrepreneurship, business building, leadership and relationships — and, more recently, of putting modern technology and AI to work in how businesses actually get built. Today Eric helps experienced people and owner-led businesses find the opportunity worth pursuing, then build it.