4 ms·

Is there a thing called as a Designer Co-founder?

3 points by zeppelin_7 15y ago

nostrademons 15y ago
It's because there's not enough work when the startup is first building their project to fill up a pure designer's time, and if one of your cofounders is sitting idle while you're trying to build a company, you have a serious problem. Same reason there are very few tech startups with legal cofounders, or accountant cofounders, or techwriter cofounders. You do get a fair number of startups with designer/frontend-engineer cofounders (37signals?) or designer/business cofounders (Apple?). But a startup founder needs to wear many hats. If you define your specialty narrowly, you won't be able to do everything that needs to be done to get a business off the ground.
- zeppelin_7 15y ago
  Yes, but just as an engineer rises up to wearing many hats, why cant designers? If they are ready for the plunge, they can dabble around in more places, than just design. Plus like I said if the entire app is user centric/facing, a designer (with some frontend) is very valuable. Being a designer cofounder, I imagine a designer who is ready to do more, and willing to bend/broaden him/her self.
  - nostrademons 15y ago
    They can, but if they do, they're usually not called a "designer" anymore. Usually they're at least a "business cofounder", if not a "visionary". Steve Jobs is arguably one of the best designers of this generation. He's almost never called a designer. He's called "the genius visionary behind Apple Computer".
    - zeppelin_7 15y ago
      Well an engineer doing everything is still an engineering founder, so why not a designer doing more than designing be called so? I think the question is why do fewer designers take the plunge as a founder.
      - arvindsuresh 15y ago
        Because engineers build things. And can come up with a simple design themselves, even though it might be a really bad design. We've all grown up interacting with user interfaces. But designers haven't grown up playing with code, and hence, its a relatively harder/non-traditional concept for them.
    - steventruong 15y ago
      I could be wrong on this but I'm not sure there's any evidence that suggests he's a designer as opposed to someone with an eye for design, similarly, just like how he didn't build or code the original Macintosh but he knew how he wanted it to work. You wouldn't call him a programmer or engineer in that case either (although he did have some experience as a hardware technician).
- radley 15y ago
  There's a lot that goes into product & marketing that a "pure" designer can handle. UI/UX, user feedback, website, marketing material, press material, the deck, logo... But if they're really a founder, they're probably expecting to don a biz-dev hat too, at least.

3 points by zeppelin_7 15y ago

It's because there's not enough work when the startup is first building their project to fill up a pure designer's time, and if one of your cofounders is sitting idle while you're trying to build a company, you have a serious problem. Same reason there are very few tech startups with legal cofounders, or accountant cofounders, or techwriter cofounders. You do get a fair number of startups with designer/frontend-engineer cofounders (37signals?) or designer/business cofounders (Apple?). But a startup founder needs to wear many hats. If you define your specialty narrowly, you won't be able to do everything that needs to be done to get a business off the ground.

zeppelin_7 15y ago
Yes, but just as an engineer rises up to wearing many hats, why cant designers? If they are ready for the plunge, they can dabble around in more places, than just design. Plus like I said if the entire app is user centric/facing, a designer (with some frontend) is very valuable. Being a designer cofounder, I imagine a designer who is ready to do more, and willing to bend/broaden him/her self.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  They can, but if they do, they're usually not called a "designer" anymore. Usually they're at least a "business cofounder", if not a "visionary". Steve Jobs is arguably one of the best designers of this generation. He's almost never called a designer. He's called "the genius visionary behind Apple Computer".
  - zeppelin_7 15y ago
    Well an engineer doing everything is still an engineering founder, so why not a designer doing more than designing be called so? I think the question is why do fewer designers take the plunge as a founder.
    - arvindsuresh 15y ago
      Because engineers build things. And can come up with a simple design themselves, even though it might be a really bad design. We've all grown up interacting with user interfaces. But designers haven't grown up playing with code, and hence, its a relatively harder/non-traditional concept for them.
  - steventruong 15y ago
    I could be wrong on this but I'm not sure there's any evidence that suggests he's a designer as opposed to someone with an eye for design, similarly, just like how he didn't build or code the original Macintosh but he knew how he wanted it to work. You wouldn't call him a programmer or engineer in that case either (although he did have some experience as a hardware technician).
radley 15y ago
There's a lot that goes into product & marketing that a "pure" designer can handle. UI/UX, user feedback, website, marketing material, press material, the deck, logo... But if they're really a founder, they're probably expecting to don a biz-dev hat too, at least.