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 :)
Also, we specifically use the word co-founder in the title and say: "Nearly every designer founder has a technical co-founder and some have technical backgrounds which furthers the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration" and we're encouraging more hyper productive designer-hacker dyads...I think the reality is that most of brilliant people here in Silicon Valley are scared to get out of their comfort zone and work on really hard unglamorous problems, especially those of the other %99, because the feedback loops we've created promote the beautiful novelties and vanity consumerism versus sustainable businesses with positive social impact, so again I agree with you...
"Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works." Did you read previous comment citing Jesse Schell? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3359218 and specific skills we modern designers in tech need http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3358880
Have you read the software design manifesto by Mitch Kapor http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/1-kapor.html
Highly recommend exploring design ethnography and user research methods that focus on value discovery and value creation eg that's why places like IDEO thrive...
Also do you know we're related through Cookpad? I'm disappointed and surprised by our statements which seem at odds with your company values...
If you actually read the article the author basically says "Design enhances value, it does not create it." and there's nothing to argue about that - it's a fact. Another fact is that "programming enhances value, it does not create it".
In other words, the tools you use to create value are secondary to the actual value created. Talking about our tools we use is something we like to do. Too much talk about our tools, and too little thought on the end result, sometimes leads us to think that our tools are most important than the end result
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?
His concern isn't unreasonable. Look at the output of a lot of design schools and design agencies. The primary skills seem to be making things that look beautiful and appealing, without a whole lot of concern about end-user value.
That's unsurprising when you consider how many design-school people end up in advertising and marketing, the purpose of which is to manipulate consumer behavior without regard to actual value delivered. Indeed, a concern for end-user value is a positive handicap in that environment; I have friends who have had to eventually change careers because they started to think too much about the impact of what they did.
By all means celebrate companies with designers, but saying "designers created $billions of value" is a bit of a stretch when there are so many counter-examples.
If you agree with the flawed logic of Jon then you must substitute the word “Design” with any discipline concerning the action or behavior of creating value. Thus making a series of useless posts like “Engineering is Horseshit” and so on. You don’t see the design community getting mad at engineers who spend weeks designing an optimal database sharding strategy for building things like a daily-deal aggregator which has 0 users and a growth rate of “Divide by Zero Error” and no viable user acquisition strategy. Of course entrepreneurs should focus on value creation and finding product market fit before spending an inappropriate amount of energy on other activities whether that be visual design or backend infrastructure. Any entrepreneur I invest in should know that elementary lesson from experience or reading the Lean Startup etc.
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.
I'm also all for inspiring leaders. But in the startup context, I think the job of "designer" is as dangerous as its technical equivalent "architect". As Schell points out, design is a pervasive concern, just like software architecture is. A CTO who fancies himself chief architect is likely to drive off good talent, because talented people want to solve whole problems, not mechanically execute somebody else's vision.
I think the same applies for the visible sorts of design just as much as it does for the under-the-hood design: if everybody cares (which requires feeling empowered to make things happen) you'll get a better product.
Care to justify that statement with evidence?
Or do you think that only back-end code will make your hands dirty, and not research, requirements gathering, ensuring the product does what paying customers want and expect, customer support, analyzing, categorizing, prioritizing customer feedback, analyzing usage statistics to divine customer intent, creating and managing a/b tests, writing road maps, defining feature sets, managing development, html, css, wireframing, testing?
In companies I've worked with, the developers have been sheltered from most of the "real work" of turning their code into an actual business, but simultaneously believe that they are the only ones contributing value. It's cute.
What you're talking about goes well beyond the formal role of "designer". Consider, for example, what happens if you sign up with one of the many outsourced design firms. They won't do most of that. The good ones might do some user research. But that's not guaranteed; what they all promise to do is produce a very pretty document with a bunch photoshop mockups. Which an implementation team is expected to execute as written.
I definitely think developers should be active participants in all that work you describe. (I sure am.) Which is exactly why I encourage people not to have a formal "designer" role. If there's somebody who's officially responsible for X, then everybody else isn't. Design is a pervasive concern.
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.
2) Did you read previous comment: 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 -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)
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.
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[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
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?
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.
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.
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.
I've never had the word "designer" on a resume, but I kind of feel like I'd qualify. But not sure.
So if you're a product person (clearly yes), you qualify IMO.
-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.
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..
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.
Will add a meatier FAQ
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.
-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)
Lets see some articulate arguments and stop the hand-waving, yeah?
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
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'
"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.
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)
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.
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.
