As a UX person, I have a little secret to tell you: if the product idea is really good, the UX part is really easy. Hiring a UX person isn't going to make your

As a UX person, I have a little secret to tell you: if the product idea is really good, the UX part is really easy. Hiring a UX person isn't going to make your product take off. It's not going to make your users love you. It can make it easier or harder for them to love you, but it's just a modifier. Design is how it works. Your idea is how it works. Unfortunately, the idea, the technology, and the UX are all tightly intertwined. New technology lets you do things that were never possible before, enabling new ideas. New ideas need to be massaged through a few UX wash cycles before they come out looking the way they should. UX must live within the technical confines of what is possible. You need all three. Companies fail because they don't care enough about one of them (or two of them). Traditionally, UX has been the most commonly neglected. That's starting to change - but that doesn't mean that UX is the source of success - it's 1/3 of the source of success.