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The Future of Designer Founders in Tech
designerfund.com
designerfounders.com
@enriqueallen
We All Want the Sweet Spot
Photo: What’s Next, A Design Bubble? FastCompany
Awes
ome
Desi
gn
Time
client/startupconsultant
Long Term Change?
# of
Des
igne
rs
Roles
Different types of designers
consultants
founders
contractors
employees
So I got out of the building...
And started interviewing everyone I knew who might know something about being a designer founder...
Mitch Kapor
Public school
Summer Science Program
Radio DJ & Meditator
MIT Mangement Science
Yale Cybernetics
Founder of Lotus 1-2-3
Electronic Frontier & Mozilla Foundations
Mitch Kapor
DesignEngineering Business
Software Design Manifesto
Despite the enormous outward success of personal computers, the daily experience of using computers far too o!en is still fraught with di"culty, pain, and barriers for most people, which means that the revolution, measured by its original goals, has not as yet succeeded.
More Than Interface Design
Today, the so!ware designer leads a guerrilla existence, formally unrecognized and o!en unappreciated. There’s no spot on the corporate organization chart or career ladder for such an individual.
More Than Interface Design
The so!ware designer is concerned primarily with the overall conception of the product.
The look and feel of a product is but one part of its design.
Firm Grounding in Tech
Many people who think of themselves as working on the design of so!ware simply lack the technical grounding to be an e#ective participant in the overall process. Naturally, programmers quickly lose respect for people who fail to understand fundamental technical issues.
But...
What’s the di#erence between a so!ware designer and a designer founder?
John Lilly
Ran Toyon Eating Club
Stanford Computer Science BS/MS
Stanford CS198 Section Leader & Coordinator
Trilogy
ATG Apple Labs
Reactivity
Mozilla
John Lilly
DesignEngineering Business
Ryan Freitas
USD Cog Sci/HCI
Interval Logic GUI Developer
Sapient Sr Info Architect
MetaDesign Interaction Design
Adaptive Path Director
Plinky Director Product Design
Second Verse Principal
About.me Founder
Director of Product
Ryan Freitas
Engineering Design Business
Christina Brodbeck
Urban Programs Resource CenterWeb Designer
Keynote Systems Communication Design
Giant Campus Design Instructor
SFSU Flash Teaching Assistant
NASA UI Designer
MRL Ventures Web Designer
YouTube Founding UI Designer
Founder
Christina BrodbeckEngineering Design Business
Dave Morin
DM Design Studios
University of Colorado
Apple Product & Marketing
Facebook Platform & Connect Co Inventor
Path Founder
Dave Morin
Engineering Design Business
Daniel Burka
Silverorange
Mozilla
Digg
Tiny Spec Design Director
Pownce Founder
Canadian Gov’t Art
Daniel Burka
Engineering Design Business
Jason Putorti
Freelance Web Design
3N2 CTO
College Prowler CTO
Novaurora CEO
Fitting Group Consultant
Mint Lead Designer
Intuit Creative Director
Bessemer Venture Parnters DiR
Jason Putorti
Engineering Design Business
What do future designer founders
look like?10 startups founded by designers we invested in...
Melissa Miranda
Darmouth & Stanford GSB
d.Light
IDEO
MUBI
SkinnySkoop
ListCharming
Melissa Miranda
Engineering Design Business
Thushan Amarasiriwardena
NC State
The Boston Globe
LongJaunt
Digital Divide Data
Thushan Amarasiriwardena
Engineering Design Business
Khoi Vinh
Otis College of Art and Design
Subtraction
Rare Medium
Behavior
NYT Design Director
Lascaux Co.
TechFellow
Khoi Vinh
Engineering Design Business
Aaron Perry Zucker
RISD
Selbert Perkins Design
Westside Today
Students for Barack Obama
Design for Obama
Big New Ideas
Aaron Perry Zucker
Engineering Design Business
Anab Jain
Royal College of ArtNational of Design
Black Pepper Images
CBS Products
Microso! Research
Ted Fellow
Nokia
Anab Jain
Engineering Design Business
Tracy Osborn
CalPoly SLO
Remilon
Limedaring
Tracy Osborn
Engineering Design Business
Nina Khosla
Stanford Product Design
fuseproject
Empire Attack
IDEO
Lokho Design
Betaworks
Nina Khosla
Engineering Design Business
Maurice Woods
U of Washington
Zimmerman Design
AIGA
Inneract
Studio Hinrichs
Pentagram
Maurice Woods
Engineering Design Business
Jennifer Lopez & Abby Sturges
Dartmouth
Stanford Product Design
Hopkins Center for the Arts
Carnegie Mellon
Stanford Product Design
Radius Product Dev
Newmark Industries
Jennifer Lopez & Abby Sturges
Engineering Design Business
Matt Sullivan
Middleburry College
Elepaio Enterprises
DragonBridge Capital
ChipIn
IDEO
Yummrs
Matt Sullivan
Engineering Design Business
All these companies have designer
founders
Summary
So...
What Do We Mean by Design (not just visual)?
PRIVATE
Visual Design
Interface - Navigation - Info Design
Info Architecture - Interaction Design
Functional Specs - Content Reqs
User - Product - Biz Hypotheses & Objectives
Underlying Tech - IP
What Do We Mean by Designer Founders?
DesignEngr BizVisual
IA
User ResearchIxD
What Do We Mean by Designer Founders?
DesignEngr BizVisual
IA
User ResearchIxD
Designer founders need to continuously guide their product & organization through
the design stack cycles
What Do We Mean by Designer Founders?
DesignEngr BizVisual
IA
User ResearchIxD
Front end
Platform speci$c
Back- end
Tech DNA & Product Mngt.
Customer Support
Customer/Biz Development
Sales
Biz model & Operation Mngt.
What Do We Mean by Designer Founders?
DesignEngr BizVisual
IA
User ResearchIxD
Front end
Platform speci$c
Back- end
Tech DNA & Product Mngt.
Customer Support
Customer/Biz Development
Sales
Biz model & Operation Mngt.
Designer founders need to continuously move horizontally with skills
in engr & biz stacks
Critical Mass of Engineering,
Design & Biz Skills
Don’t worry so much about de$nitions & titles...let the product impact speak for itself...
Assertion #1
As the consumer tech market becomes more crowded, di#erentiated brand & experience design is becoming critical to both short & long term success
Assertion #2
Successful designer founders will attract the remaining distribution of aspiring design talent
Aw
esom
e D
esig
ner
Fou
nd
ers
# of Designers
Assertion #3Designer founders have unique skills (not just visual) to understand human needs, make products that people actually want, & communicate persuasively
Visual Design
Interface - Navigation - Info Design
Information Architecture - Interaction Design
Functional Specs - Content Reqs
User - Product - Biz Hypotheses & Objectives
Underlying Tech - IP
Assertion #4Having a multi-disciplinary designer founder that can lead & model design practices is a competitive advantage especially when combined with engineering & business co-founders
Jason Putorti, Designer Founder
Visual,Interaction,
Engineering,& Biz Skillz
Assertion #5
Partners have an appetite for designer founders who are capable of leading product innovation within their companies
Lastly
“The most important social evolution within the computing professions would be to create a role for the so!ware designer as a champion of the user experience.... What is design? ... It’s where you stand with a foot in two worlds—the world of technology and the world of people and human purposes—and you try to bring the two together.”
-Terry Winograd
Lastly
“The most important social evolution within the tech startup professions would be to create a role for the designer founder as a champion of the user experience.... What is a designer founder? ... It’s a person who stands with a foot in two worlds—the world of technology and the world of people and human purposes—and brings the two together.”
-Enrique Allen
The Future of Designer Founders in Tech
designerfund.com
designerfounders.com
@enriqueallen
