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My general design process: 1. Design it myself. Get my ideas on paper before I'm biased. 2. Review designs. See how other people did it. 3. Talk to experts.

by blagie 4y ago

My general design process: 1. Design it myself. Get my ideas on paper before I'm biased. 2. Review designs. See how other people did it. 3. Talk to experts. 4. Integrate ideas and build it. Most of my clever ideas turn out to be dumb at step #2 or #3, but a few pan out, and those have been important. In many cases, there is some kind of fusion too. It seems someone missed steps 2-4 here.

V__ 4y ago
That sounds intriguing. Can you talk about some success (and failures)?
- blagie 4y ago
  No, since that would tie back to my identity. I use throw-away accounts online. When I upgrade my web browser, this account will disappear and a new one will appear. I have the level of fame where you almost certainly wouldn't recognize my name, but where most people (not just on HN) have heard of one project I created from scratch (to give an analogy, very few people would recognize the inventor of the Nerf gun, the Super Soaker, the touch screen, a popular TV show, or the iPod, but if you said "I'm the inventor of the ____," they'd know who you were). It takes about 30 seconds with Google my successes and failures to figure out who I am. I attribute that success to: 1. Being willing and able to talk to a large and diverse set of experts (and not just recognized ones; in the above example, an expert might be a trucker, rather than just a truck designer, and you want to talk to both, not to mention people who hire truckers, people who ship things, etc.). Finding something like an "expert trucker" is probably harder than you'd imagine; "expert trucker" isn't the same as "random trucker." 2. Being able to swallow my ego, ignore my ideas, and follow their advice. Most of my success was based on gluing together ideas that other people / products had in innovative combinations, and in being somehow effective at scouring the universe for good ideas.
nazka 4y ago
Sometimes I actually do a slightly similar one. I do 3. 2. 1. 4. I also sometimes skip point 2. to avoid any bias and follow their own pitfalls instead using my own creativity from the raw material of point 3. But your workflow is great. :) It's the same than Apple or Ford when they created the first cars. Like their famous quote: if Ford asked first to experts what the next transportation will be they would have said faster horses. It had to start from a visionary first and not experts.

by blagie 4y ago

V__ 4y ago

That sounds intriguing. Can you talk about some success (and failures)?

blagie 4y ago
No, since that would tie back to my identity. I use throw-away accounts online. When I upgrade my web browser, this account will disappear and a new one will appear. I have the level of fame where you almost certainly wouldn't recognize my name, but where most people (not just on HN) have heard of one project I created from scratch (to give an analogy, very few people would recognize the inventor of the Nerf gun, the Super Soaker, the touch screen, a popular TV show, or the iPod, but if you said "I'm the inventor of the ____," they'd know who you were). It takes about 30 seconds with Google my successes and failures to figure out who I am. I attribute that success to: 1. Being willing and able to talk to a large and diverse set of experts (and not just recognized ones; in the above example, an expert might be a trucker, rather than just a truck designer, and you want to talk to both, not to mention people who hire truckers, people who ship things, etc.). Finding something like an "expert trucker" is probably harder than you'd imagine; "expert trucker" isn't the same as "random trucker." 2. Being able to swallow my ego, ignore my ideas, and follow their advice. Most of my success was based on gluing together ideas that other people / products had in innovative combinations, and in being somehow effective at scouring the universe for good ideas.

nazka 4y ago

Sometimes I actually do a slightly similar one. I do 3. 2. 1. 4. I also sometimes skip point 2. to avoid any bias and follow their own pitfalls instead using my own creativity from the raw material of point 3. But your workflow is great. :) It's the same than Apple or Ford when they created the first cars. Like their famous quote: if Ford asked first to experts what the next transportation will be they would have said faster horses. It had to start from a visionary first and not experts.