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One thing to add for the first-time founders: Your customer problem understanding has to be great. Your product has to solve a problem. These things cannot be

One thing to add for the first-time founders: Your customer problem understanding has to be great. Your product has to solve a problem. These things cannot be neglected. But, your design, logo, fonts can be awful, so do not spend time/money/efforts on that when you just begin. Use product like Parade and start solving a problem. No one will care about your design as long as you solve a problem, but NOT the other way round.

alexray 5y ago
Yeah, this is definitely true. It's not worth much time or money on design early on. You just need something credible -- sometimes we joke about the idea of "Minimum Viable Branding (MVB)", like an MVP. We think Parade gets you there.
tixocloud 5y ago
Great advice. In addition, first-time founders should focus a lot on how the product addresses the customer problem and build no more than what is needed to solve that problem. I sometimes work with founders who have too much luxury with time and money (from their full-time job) that so much time/effort is wasted on building features that aren't necessary. That being said, the hard part is that it's an art and not exact science but there are frameworks you can use to minimize waste. We've built product without even having a website. Just cold outreach and talking about how we solve our customer's problems.
mitchdoogle 5y ago
I tend to view design as a signal of legitimacy and competence. Whether it's a website, or a brick and mortar establishment, I will leave if it looks like no attention was given to the way things look.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  I can't disagree more. I personally look only at reviews (trying to tell what's paid or fake) / price. Some (if not most) of the best experiences and services I purchased had terrible websites and I often thought about offering to prop something up for them - it's not a terribly lucrative field though. Anecdotally, I found it easier to raise money after having a nice designed website.

alexray 5y ago

Yeah, this is definitely true. It's not worth much time or money on design early on. You just need something credible -- sometimes we joke about the idea of "Minimum Viable Branding (MVB)", like an MVP. We think Parade gets you there.

tixocloud 5y ago

Great advice. In addition, first-time founders should focus a lot on how the product addresses the customer problem and build no more than what is needed to solve that problem. I sometimes work with founders who have too much luxury with time and money (from their full-time job) that so much time/effort is wasted on building features that aren't necessary. That being said, the hard part is that it's an art and not exact science but there are frameworks you can use to minimize waste. We've built product without even having a website. Just cold outreach and talking about how we solve our customer's problems.

mitchdoogle 5y ago

I tend to view design as a signal of legitimacy and competence. Whether it's a website, or a brick and mortar establishment, I will leave if it looks like no attention was given to the way things look.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
I can't disagree more. I personally look only at reviews (trying to tell what's paid or fake) / price. Some (if not most) of the best experiences and services I purchased had terrible websites and I often thought about offering to prop something up for them - it's not a terribly lucrative field though. Anecdotally, I found it easier to raise money after having a nice designed website.