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Billions worth of value created by tech startups with designer co-founders?
- rokhayakebe 15y agoWhat I see is 0.5 to 1 user per $1 of funding for post 2009 consumer companies.
- quique 15y agoYeah lot of data private but working on surfacing as much as possible...wish we could do profit filter of course... main point is to showcase case studies for further exploration
- rokhayakebe 15y agoActually this is informative. What was important to me was the ability to see how many users they have, then relate it to their amount of funding. Thanks for sharing.
- asanwal 15y agoThe not-so-subtle implication that there is a causal relationship between design and success is totally unproven. In general, ascribing success to one factor is always a bad idea. And of course, success = funding is a different matter altogether. In a practical sense, however, startups that are fundraising and which have design chops should use this type of data/meme to their advantage by talking about design as if it actually has a causal relationship with success. Use pattern matching to your benefit.
- quique 15y agoOf course, stats 101...We put caveats below the infographic: -we're not making the claim that tech startups with designer founders are statistically better in some way, instead we are highlighting interesting case studies to explore further -Of course the designers featured here can’t possibly take all the credit for any success, it's all about team work and we're celebrating design together no matter what background you come from -The goal is to raise awareness about the existence of designer founders and their diverse backgrounds with data in a fun way that has never been done before (not draw causal claims)
- quique 15y agoWe were also pretty intentional about not really using the word 'success' too
- dustingetz 15y agohey look. i'm skeptical about this whole "designer co-founder" thing in the general case. i think other people who know more than me are also skeptical. Things like this are interesting to explore, but I haven't seen any solid reasoning from the set of people pushing this, um, cause. I basically see a lot of designers who think they should have higher valuation on their contributions. Lets see some articulate arguments and stop the hand-waving, yeah?
- quique 15y agoDid you read below the infographic? We laid out some reasoning...long story short it's about collaboration and multi-disciplinary skills necessary to ship, titles are actually not that important... Have you read the software design manifesto?... agree got to show with data and prove value of course, like the recent FAB funding round with strong emphasis on design
- dustingetz 15y agoi read it, and read it twice more after you commented, and failed to parse any meaningful information. :/
- quique 15y agoYeah sorry the article layout is actually sloppy, bad design, poor readability...will work on making more persuasive, data full examples in future and appreciate your candid feedback...but here were a couple assertions: -First, as the the consumer tech market becomes more crowded, differentiated brand and experience design is becoming critical to both short-term and long-term success. -Second, successful designer founders will attract the remaining distribution of aspiring entrepreneurial designers, theoretically shifting the supply of designers innovating rather than advertising sugar water. -The third assertion is that designer founders have unique skills (not just visual) to understand human needs, make products that people actually want by driving new ideas and connecting things that aren’t obviously connected, and to communicate persuasively by visualizing a narrative of the future state of things. -Furthermore, a startup with a designer founder who can lead and model design practices has a competitive advantage [2], especially when the designer is accompanied by technical and business co-founders. The critical mass of combined design, technical, and business skills enables product iteration to happen faster and at a higher resolution. -Finally, later-stage companies have an appetite for designer founders who are capable of leading product innovation within their organization and are willing to acquire designer founded startups, which creates a virtuous cycle of wealth.
- davidhansen 15y agoHow are you defining value creation? Why are investment sizes listed, but not earnings, or even revenue? Oh, that's right. It's 1999 all over again.
- dmix 15y ago> Oh, that's right. It's 1999 all over again. I've read this same comment so many times over the last 4 years on hacker news my instinct is to downvote it automatically. Sure you made a good point about the article mentioning capital raised, not revenue/profit. But how does constantly comparing now or last year or 2008 or 2007 to the dotcom boom adding any value to this or any discussion?
- davidhansen 15y agoYou've also probably seen thousands of variants on "what ever happened to do no evil?" posted to myriad Google articles over the years, as well. Such is the nature of discussion. Sometimes the same idea in a slightly different context is unique enough to qualify for positive value. Does my comment qualify? I don't know. I will just note that some of us lived through the dot com bust, and we remember quite clearly what the mentality was like, especially for insiders. For us, the environment today is damn near identical to what it was like then; we just had slower connections and hardware. When we post semi-snarky comments like this, we do it partly as a warning. Profits do matter. At some point, the kids will realize it.
- quique 15y agoWe posed a "?"...our goal is to increasingly focus on impact: would love to show profit and positive social externalities... I hear you that it's frothy and too many me-too things going on that are targeting the tip of Maslow's hiearchy for the top <.5% of people
- pg 15y agoI lived through the the dot-com bubble, and the environment today is nothing like it was then. No one is claiming now that there is a "new economy." Investors are not afraid to put their money in bonds, for fear they'll miss out on a new, transformative sort of growth in equities. LP money isn't flooding into new VC funds. VCs aren't funding MBAs with business plans. dmix's instincts are right; saying it's 1999 all over again is just a facile put-down.
- feralmoan 15y agoDoes some type of meeting place exist for backend + UI/design founders to meet up? I'm having enormous trouble trying to find a design co-founder for my own startup they're a rare bird out in the wild. (I know this is a selfish post but I'm acutely feeling their worth)
- tlow 15y agoOne example is http://builditwith.me http://builditwith.me their tagline is "Connecting Designers and Developers". Good luck.
- linzlovesyou 15y agoAt least someone on here actually appreciates the work of designer founders :) As a designer, I've felt the same-- it's definitely hard finding backend/UI designers who want to cofound with a designer.
- AznHisoka 15y agoI don't think design alone, or technical skills alone are enough to get it done. Both are commodities. Anyone can throw up a spiffy iPhone app or web app with Node.JS in the backend. Not everyone, on the other hand has domain expertise, and can create a product with market fit, and sell it. If you rely too much on your design skills, you'll end up creating something like Gowalla - something noone wants. if you rely too much on technological sexiness, you'll end up like SimpleGeo.. I bet they got 100,000+ lines of code altogether all for naught.
- quique 15y agoFor sure, it's about a critical mass of engineering, design and business skill...it's a constant re-balancing act as you iterate
- limedaring 15y ago"If you rely too much on your design skills, you'll end up creating something like Gowalla" ...or you can build something like Kickstarter, which is a fantastic company, doing amazing things for others, and something that people want? You can name plenty of companies with designer founders that haven't IPOed in the same breath that you name plenty of companies who had developer founders who haven't either. It's a bit unfair to say just because you rely on one aspect, you'll end up like a couple companies that have failed.
- AznHisoka 15y agoI dun understand your point?
- pud 15y agoWhat qualifies someone as a designer? Going to design school? Using Illustrator in the course of business? Having "good taste?" I've never had the word "designer" on a resume, but I kind of feel like I'd qualify. But not sure.
- mmahemoff 15y agoThere's a world of difference between a visual designer and a UX designer, not to mention a software designer (==architect). Most of the people here are more like UX designers, which in the context of a founder, means a "product person". So if you're a product person (clearly yes), you qualify IMO.
- quique 15y agoGreat point, that's a whole other discussion about what makes a 'great product person', that's almost more of a opaque term...
- quique 15y agoYou can go to school or be self taught... definitely, 'designer' is more like a mindset and skillset that you have to have the confidence/respect to own(you can be a developer, designer, business person all in one but very rare you can be great at all of them)... intentional behavior changed and impact definitely help qualify like real artists ship...not all are equal and we're talking about a very rare breed... if you read below the infographic we layout some unique characteristics: -Clearly every designer isn’t meant to be a founder and probably shouldn’t be, (especially as some believe we’re spreading talent thin across too many little “me too” startups but that’s a whole other discussion). To be clear, we don’t mean “designer as the prima donna pixel-pusher” that you might be picturing. We also don’t mean “designer as the I Took One Class Called UX Fundamentals In Business School.” We mean an honest-to-goodness, experienced, craft-driven, product-focused, reflective practitioner who has learned to design by designing, who views design as a way of thinking about solving hard problems and is capable of building usable products with more than just beautiful aesthetics.[3] The word ‘design’ is so loaded nowadays and hope that our Designer Founders info cards will begin to clarify the impact of designers with various backgrounds in the context of early stage tech startups. -Designer founders we’ve observed are consistently multidisciplinary and have cross functional skills necessary to make product decisions. They are fluent in the full design stack ranging from user research, product design, interaction design, information architecture, graphic design, to communication design. They may not be experts in all sub-disciplines of design but can get by on their own in the early days of their startup and attract specialists when needed. In addition, they have a thorough enough working understanding of technology and business stacks including agile programing and data-based marketing methods. Designer founders can move up and down the design stack and horizontally to technology and business stacks to do what it takes to ship and use data to justify their decisions when needed. Thus they are capable of leading both their product and organization through the design cycles needed to innovate. There’s a difference between a designer who can design a dashboard in a car and a designer who can design a whole car and how to drive it. Designer founders need to be able to do both.
- nchuhoai 15y agoI dont think the value of start-ups with a design co-founder gives us much more value than saying, designers are very beneficial for a product-oriented startup. Im sure we can have similar calculations with value of startups with a single founder, with a business co-founder, startups that have their hackdays on friday ... I don't want to marginalize design co-founders, I am looking for one for myself, but I dont like these sorts of conclusions and statistics
- quique 15y agoRe: I dont think the value of start-ups with a design co-founder gives us much more value than saying, designers are very beneficial for a product-oriented startup. That's the simple point, you got it, we're saying yes they can be very beneficial for a product-oriented startup just like more engineering and business focused people are (you'd be surprised by how many people don't act like that)...then exploring stories about the value these people deliver... there's no conclusions, we put '?s'
- OoTheNigerian 15y agoWhat got my attention was the amount of funding the fist line of companies got compared to their counterparts. SlideShare (3m!), Flickr acquired for 35m (!). Does anyone know why Flickr sold? Why does about.me need 51 employees? 1. Asides YouTube, the acquisition amounts are not impressive. 2. How is value being calculated? Funds raised? 3. They do not even almost match up to Developer founded companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc). 4. What is even the idea of the vs. argument? It takes a good idea, a big market and good execution to win big. Developers, Designers, Business people, all contribute to that success.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- quique 15y ago1) We acknowledge the outliers like Lotus and YouTube, at least others have been life changing even if it wasn't billion dollar exits 2) Did you read previous comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358703 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358703 Public data that was available to use as 'proxies'/indicators of value: User base, company size, funding, and acquisition amount...of course we'd like to show profit...a couple companies like Blurb submitted profit eg revenue 58M in 2010 3) It's not an us vs them comparison, again it's all about collaboration and multidisciplinary skills 4) Did you read previous comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358727 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358727 -Of course the designers featured here can’t possibly take all the credit for any success, and they shouldn't, it's all about team work and we're celebrating design together no matter what background you come from -The goal is to raise awareness about the existence of designer founders and their diverse backgrounds with data in a fun way that has never been done before (not draw causal claims)
- teej 15y agoThis acts as a cheerleader for companies with designer co-founders. That's great, I really appreciate the effort. The problem is that many of the companies you highlight are -inconsequential-. If you're going to make a claim about how much impact these companies have made, you can't turn around and name a bunch of duds[1]. You start the list with mega successes (Android and YouTube are ubiqutous products that have made a huge impact on millions of people) and then finish up with failures and unproven startups. To be clear, I'm not saying anything about design cofounders. It's just that there's this weird implication in what you've communicated. You're sort of saying that all these companies are in the same league due to the skill of one of the founders. Something about that just doesn't sit right. ======================================== [1] - Sold in a talent acquisition after product failed: Hunch, Gowalla Sold before they ever did anything: About.me Niche community product: Forrst, ColourLovers, Foodspotting Unproven product: Path
- notatoad 15y agohow did forrst get $225k of funding? and for that matter, what does forrst need $225k for, other than hookers and blow? it's basically a blog with a shiny template and no authors.
- haberdasher 15y agoI like how the Android card has "Chris White" listed, but Andy Rubin's dashing face.
- prayag 15y agoI am surprised you missed Brian and Joe from AirBnB. Both went to Rhode Island School of Design and AirBnB is probably valued higher than all these companies combined.
- wpietri 15y agoThe thing that bothers me about this is what bothers me about the term "designer" in general. The role of "designer" is by definition a person who doesn't get their hands dirty. It's one that depends on other people to make things happen. I think that's a mistake in a startup for the same reason that it's wrong to have a role involving control of quality or security or innovation or customer satisfaction. Those things are pervasive concerns, and if you have one person or group responsible for them, then it means everybody else isn't. I intensely value design activities and design thinking. And I value products that are well designed. But I think treating "designer" as a role is dangerous.
- josh33 15y agoHave you seen what you're describing work in a company with multiple software products and more thank 20 people?
- quique 15y ago"Anyone who makes a decision about how the product should be is a designer. Designer is a role, not a person. Almost every developer on a team makes some decision about how the product will be, just through the act of creating the product. These decisions are design decisions, and when you make them, you're a designer. For this reason, no matter what role on a development team, an understanding of the principles of design will make you better at what you do."...While I agree with Jesse Schell, what we are highlighting, the potential for designer founders, is not mutually exclusive with your concern...there are many ways to get design done eg Jared Spool lays out some types (I am by no means advocating for one size fits all), but I am saying that having a strong design leader may help your team (the best ones don't have to control every little detail, they empower others), it's like having an editor eg http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/technology/what-apple-has-that-google-doesnt-an-auteur.html.. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/technology/what-apple-has-.... my major issue with design thinking and make everyone a "designer" so easily is you lose a bar of quality, craft, and professionalism that you want everyone to aspire to be...just like you'd want your CTO to inspire other developers to work with him/her, you want a designer founder to do the same...great talent attracts other great talent... It makes sense that a prerequisite for a tech company is to have a founder with technical skills. The same heuristic should hold true if you want to consistently ship well designed products like Pinterest, AirBnB and Path. Why not have a co-founder with design skills who champions the user experience?
- tszming 15y agoActually, the tagline is rather meaningless (I'm not offending anyone), "Did you know about billions worth of value created by tech startups with XYZ co-founders?" Replace XYZ with you choice and here you go.
- quique 15y agoAgree see previous comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3359246 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3359246 Goes back to our goal to raise awareness about the existence of designer founders and their diverse backgrounds with data in a fun way that has never been done before (not draw causal claims)
- noodle 15y agoWhy should someone apply to this fund? I don't see enough meat on this page to really know what'll happen. The FAQ is just the "how to apply" section. Is this the fund's first round? Who was in the previous round? Success stories? Etc..
- limedaring 15y agoI think what you're looking for is on the homepage if you scroll: http://designerfund.com/ http://designerfund.com/ Shows the overview, the mentors and people involved in the program, and at the bottom, what's involved in the fund. Disclaimer: I'm in the current "batch" and have received a non-equity grant.
- noodle 15y agoNope. Is this a program-style thing like YC which involves being present for a period of time? If I'm accepted will I be expected to move to SV for a period of time? Why would I want to apply as someone not from SV? Who are some people who are being funded? Any success stories? Etc..
- limedaring 15y ago"Build: Starting in March, designers co-work together at the spaces of partners on a bi-monthly basis as a motivation function pushing teams to iterate on product, refine their business, and get market traction." — solves your first two questions. You need to be in SV. That said, it IS new, and it's too early for success stories and exits. I'll pass your critique along to Enrique to help improve the page — thanks for the critiques!
- noodle 15y agoNo, I read that and it didn't answer my question, which is why I asked it. "Partner" = ? Cofounder? Mentor? Etc.. Its not clear. Is everyone on that huge list in SV? Or are there mentors in NYC? Seattle? Austin? Etc.. Its just light on the details that someone would actually want before hitching an established business to it.
- fookyong 15y agoThis "infographic" (it's a gallery!) got me so riled up that I felt compelled to blog for the first time in months! Focus on value creation. Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. A product or service that is indispensably useful yet looks like ass is infinitely more likely to be successful than a product that solves zero problems but looks like a work of art. Stop this cycle of creating beautiful novelties, getting your 15 minutes, then disappearing. Create value. More below - sorry to self promote but it's relevant :) http://yongfook.com/post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit http://yongfook.com/post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit
- rokhayakebe 15y agoI think there is a line in Founders at work that goes "Appearance starts where performance ends".
- ahoyhere 15y agoIf you think that design == appearance, you must not spend time on the internet.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoMan, how is being a apparatus working for you and the people around you?
- limedaring 15y ago"Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. A product or service that is indispensably useful yet looks like ass is infinitely more likely to be successful than a product that solves zero problems but looks like a work of art." Why do you assume that focusing on design in a startup means that the startup will "solve zero problems"? Admittedly, I'm biased (my startup is in the current batch of The Designer Fund), but the fund is very focused not on "prettiness", but usability and interfaces that work and convert. I think it's rather unfair that you look at the graphic which is celebrating companies with designers and then rant about design making shitty products. Design is CRUCIAL to a good product, because design isn't "prettiness", it's how people use it and how it works. Which of those infographic cards would you call shitty? And why?
- kwamenum86 15y agoInstagram's Mike Krieger actually wrote quite a bit of code at Meebo (he is listed solely as UX). But point taken.
- quique 15y agoHe's also Stanford HCI and when I talked to him last at WarmGun seems to be doing a lot of front end work too
- ahoyhere 15y agoI'm tired of the useless back and forth over whether "design is horseshit." That's not only a falsehood, it's a simplistic falsehood. Reducing the work of something as broad and universal as "design" to "laying on the pretty" is definitely a one-two punch of reductio ab absurdum and strawman. And yongfook is smarter than that. But. I believe only one of the companies on this list is profitable, maybe two. And there's no way Behance produces billions of dollars of "value" all by itself, even with the potential of help from Pulse or Slideshare (MAYBE). That has nothing to do with the fact that they prioritized design. That has nothing to do with the fact that they are led by designers. It has everything to do with VC-driven startup culture which believes getting funding and getting bought is the way to go, rather than self-funding and creating a sustainable, profitable business. It has everything to do with the idea that you DESERVE money NOW, for what you MAY do or MAY achieve in the future. And the belief that you WILL do or WILL achieve whatever you imagine, because your internal, imagined narrative is just like The Kung Fu Kid, complete with montage. If you make the bestest location checkin app people will flock to you! Cue riches! But no. You end up bought because you can't sustain yourself. It also has to do with the absolutely crippling belief that there can be free money with no strings. Startups are rarely bought because they are profitable and sustainable, they are bought for a million other reasons. And getting sold or going on IPO is the only way for 99% of VCs to get their payday, so once you accept VC, that is the track you are on. Value is quantum: it only happens when you have a customer. Value is something you create for the customer, which they are willing to pay you for. If your customers won't pay for your services, that's the #1 sign that you don't, in fact, create value. Or if they will not pay you enough to cover your costs, ditto. Most startups sadly put themselves in the position of having only one true customer -- the company that buys them.