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A couple observations from my experience: 1) It's hard to find truly insightful designers who also have an entrepreneurial instinct. The most famous examples w

by wgj 17y ago

A couple observations from my experience: 1) It's hard to find truly insightful designers who also have an entrepreneurial instinct. The most famous examples who do are legendary. (The Real Steve Jobs) 2) Hiring out for design work usually means superficial work like graphics, layout, etc. The reason to include a designer as a founder is to go deep on user experience and other psychology of the user, in a way that no one can or will do for hire.

replicatorblog 17y ago
1) It's true. I think a lot of that is training. Most design programs don't promote an entrepreneur track. There really is nothing like YC or even the constellation of tech bloggers who can share the path with young designers. 2) Exactly. It is like Steve Jobs quote "We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing. In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together."
- dasil003 17y ago
  I agree except I would say that you're confusing vision with design. The core of a successful product is the vision. The design of the product is the realization of that vision. Someone with no technical or design skills can have a very strong vision, and a good designer can work with that person to bring out a superb product even if the designer has no personal vision or even an investment in the final product. In that way, visionary is to designer as designer is to engineer.
  - replicatorblog 17y ago
    You are right. designers can have vision, engineers can as well. A good product manager can do the same. I was curious about designers because they tend to come from more blended liberal arts backgrounds that has a more human focus. In addition they have technical skills to be able to produce assets that are useful at the early stage vs. a product manager who tends to join later in the cycle.
- wgj 17y ago
  "In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer." That on its own is a great one-liner.
replicatorblog 17y ago
Slightly OT, but I think the designer training is especially relevant to 2). The main method of assessment in design school is the critique. You design something, pin it on a board, then have to explain it to 20 classmates and your professor. If you slack it is immediately visible. You also start thinking about how you will communicate it while you work which informs the process. I'm sure this is more the case with CS folks now that the web is a central distribution channel vs. when project output was a compiled file shared on floppy.
pxlpshr 17y ago
I agree with your generalities but I think it comes down to the person more so, and this is why I stand behind the notion of investing in people. There are just as many programmers I would not hire for the founding team for the same reasons you've cited. If you have a bit of money/funding, you can have just about anything built in regard to a minimum viable product these days... This is a good article on hiring developers over programmers. http://www.ericsink.com/bos/Hazards_of_Hiring.html http://www.ericsink.com/bos/Hazards_of_Hiring.html So on that same note, if you're going to put a "designer" on your founding team then I feel he/she should be able to do more than just design pretty pictures... their roll should be moreorless a hands-on product manager who works with the founders/team to act as the voice of the customer and manage the experience.

by wgj 17y ago

replicatorblog 17y ago

1) It's true. I think a lot of that is training. Most design programs don't promote an entrepreneur track. There really is nothing like YC or even the constellation of tech bloggers who can share the path with young designers. 2) Exactly. It is like Steve Jobs quote "We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing. In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together."

dasil003 17y ago
I agree except I would say that you're confusing vision with design. The core of a successful product is the vision. The design of the product is the realization of that vision. Someone with no technical or design skills can have a very strong vision, and a good designer can work with that person to bring out a superb product even if the designer has no personal vision or even an investment in the final product. In that way, visionary is to designer as designer is to engineer.
- replicatorblog 17y ago
  You are right. designers can have vision, engineers can as well. A good product manager can do the same. I was curious about designers because they tend to come from more blended liberal arts backgrounds that has a more human focus. In addition they have technical skills to be able to produce assets that are useful at the early stage vs. a product manager who tends to join later in the cycle.
wgj 17y ago
"In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer." That on its own is a great one-liner.

replicatorblog 17y ago

Slightly OT, but I think the designer training is especially relevant to 2). The main method of assessment in design school is the critique. You design something, pin it on a board, then have to explain it to 20 classmates and your professor. If you slack it is immediately visible. You also start thinking about how you will communicate it while you work which informs the process. I'm sure this is more the case with CS folks now that the web is a central distribution channel vs. when project output was a compiled file shared on floppy.

pxlpshr 17y ago

I agree with your generalities but I think it comes down to the person more so, and this is why I stand behind the notion of investing in people. There are just as many programmers I would not hire for the founding team for the same reasons you've cited. If you have a bit of money/funding, you can have just about anything built in regard to a minimum viable product these days... This is a good article on hiring developers over programmers. http://www.ericsink.com/bos/Hazards_of_Hiring.html http://www.ericsink.com/bos/Hazards_of_Hiring.html So on that same note, if you're going to put a "designer" on your founding team then I feel he/she should be able to do more than just design pretty pictures... their roll should be moreorless a hands-on product manager who works with the founders/team to act as the voice of the customer and manage the experience.