I started out with a very talented designer and I'd say a designer is key to decide what features are essential and cut ot all the clutter. I'd also involve him

I started out with a very talented designer and I'd say a designer is key to decide what features are essential and cut ot all the clutter. I'd also involve him not only in the design of the website, but the actual design of the company and the product. There are so many processes in startup that can benefit from a designer mindset. And there is always something to actually design as every new feature should be carefully integrated into the the most intuitive way. So, our designer was actually the one who had to work the most hours, because once the design was done implementation was fairly straightforward - but it took always a lot of creative work to get there.