There has been some chatter in recent days amongst the design and startup communities on the topic of designers as founders. Fuelled partly by Enrique Allen’s recent article.
Here at Every Interaction we are startup focussed, having helped many transition from infancy through to maturity and profitability, becoming shareholders on select projects and also started our own projects/IP becoming entrepreneurs and founders ourselves. We think this unique combination of perspectives puts us in a good place to contribute our two pence.
The designer as founder who stays at a startup for more than 3 years is a rare thing. Creating things is in our DNA. Running things isn’t.
— Mark Boulton (@markboulton) January 17, 2012
We agree that not every designer was made to be a founder. Being a ‘product’ person who is objectively focussed enough to know when to compromise and be a great manager are a rare combination of qualities to find in an individual. But they do exist. Often forged by the experience of seeing-through and being involved in many projects both from the inside and out.
The ever-increasing quality of web products and services in today’s market means a product with a poor user experience cannot compete and an excellent user experience is key to success. It’s just expected. Whether a business can always justify a full-time in-house designer is another question. Often these responsibilities can be fulfilled by external UE Design experts (ahem, such as ourselves) who specialise in helping startups get off the ground, develop and succeed. This can often work out more cost-effective than trying to find a designer either as a co-founder or full-time. At the opposite end of the scale some businesses have a need for a large dedicated design team in-house at all times, but this level of requirement exists only once a product is proven successful and/or is very well-funded. Not all startups are lucky enough to find themselves in this position in their earlier years.
The term ‘founder’ can mean many things, and does not necessarily mean tied to work at a company full-time, forever. To found something simply means you have the passion and drive to be one of the people to make the idea happen. Anyone creative who has a desire to build things will inevitably eventually want to move onto other projects, designer or not. Some see the only way to fulfil their creative desires to work on a variety of projects is through client work at agencies. But sitting on both sides of the fence we get to see the benefits of both and understand the greatest passion can come from having a sense of ownership with a product. This is why we will sometimes consider a work-for-shares deal for part of the fee to get startups off the ground, making us ongoing value-added shareholders/consultants, whilst continuing to deliver paid design work for the same client (now a partner).
As part of founding a company the goal is to get that business up, running and profitable. Once this has been achieved you can define the rulebook on how the business (and design) should be run, leaving you the freedom to either stay and manage this yourself (by hiring skilled but possibly junior people to do the day-to-day for you), or go and do it all over again with a new idea. Having had the passion to start a project you’ll forever be connected, wanting to contribute when important decisions need to be made, but if you want to cut all ties this is always possible.
There definitely used to be an agency-based snobbery of looking down upon those considered to have fewer opportunities in their career to be creative, stuck in a “client-side job”. We were all guilty and there were certainly true examples. But times have changed and more creative opportunities can often be found outside of agencies bringing with it a new breed of entrepreneurial designers, who may very well make suitable founders. Not to bad-mouth agency based client work as this is our core business and we love very minute of it, there are just other options out there to achieve the same level of creative fulfilment and being a startup founder is a great place to look. Here’s a great list of successful start-ups all founded by designers.
As more and more startups realise the value of User Experience Design we hope that our industry will grow. Also the number of designers involved directly with startups as founders of shareholders continue to expand helping take the next generation of products and service we all use to a new level of quality.
Designers as startup founders | Every Interaction http://t.co/uMSEnUvK via @EveryInteract
Insights like this liven things up around here.
Thank you for the insightful post, I’m really happy you see that it’s “yes and”…so tired of seeing false dichotomies…
“But times have changed and more creative opportunities can often be found outside of agencies bringing with it a new breed of entrepreneurial designers, who may very well make suitable founders. Not to bad-mouth agency based client work as this is our core business and we love very minute of it, there are just other options out there to achieve the same level of creative fulfillment and being a startup founder is a great place to look.”
Thanks Enrique. Probably wouldn’t have written it if it weren’t for your article & project. Congrats on hitting the kickstarter goal! Can’t wait to see how things turn out.
I am forever indebted to you for this information.
I wanted to spend a minute to thank you for this.
Good read, Jon. I must say, when I read the title of Enrique’s post doing the rounds, I did immediately think of you, and knew you would have something to say on the subject!
(Well tbf, I thought of @andygoodridge first, whom I have been working with on our startup(s) and who is a designer by trade.)
With UX often being cited as the ‘new IP’, it does strike me as fairly obvious to tap the design/UX community for co-founders, and so as a techie founder myself I have. Not everyone is cut out to be a founder though as you say, however I honestly believe the statistical probability of finding a great co-founder or being a successful founder from within any network group (designer/UX, strategist, business, techie, or whatever) is the same.
If this assumption were held to be true, it would be foolish to exclude designers (either as a third party or designer oneself) from the joys of getting involved in a startup simply by virtue of being designers, however in the same token, it would be silly now to start thinking all designers are or should be good founders.
I realise I’m merely iterating what you’ve said – it’s conditional (lame) -however in an effort to have not wasted my time writing a boringly neutral response, I will emphatically agree with your statement that it behooves designers/creatives to look at startups more as a conduit for their creativity than perhaps they are used to doing (at least this side of the pond).
I firmly believe agencies in their current form will go the way of the dodo (I see EI as being a break from the mould for the obvious reasons, so not ribbing!), so it’s probably a good move for designers to make themselves more visible within the startup community, for this reason alone!
Lot of smarts in that post!
Great article and love the Twitter redesign, beautiful!
I have been a “start up” designer since 1999. Although I love design, as a small business, I have to wear those hats and keep all the balls in the air. I learned that a certain amount of pressure or stress can help you break through to an awesome design.
That’s a smart way of thikning about it.
all that, it’s a good thing I’m not the piersdent of an ivy league university. I would no doubt be out of a job in short order.
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Superb Website, Keep up the good job. Thanks!
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