Skills for startup designers.

Pushing pixels might just be the least important job startup designers do. Here are 5 key skills for anyone making design decisions in an early stage startup- founders, engineers, and designers alike.

Transcript

1. SKILLS FOR STARTUP
   DESIGNERS
   Uncubed LA Jan 23, 2014
   

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2. HI, I’M SASH
   CPO & Cofounder of Tradesy
   @thesash
   

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3. Why Design?
   

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4. 2000
   2014
   5M+ HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, ETC
   PAY AS YOU GO, OPEN SOURCE, ETC.
   

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5. $140M
   ACQUISITION
   SHUT DOWN
   2010
   PIVOTED TO API
   15% LAYOFFS
   IN 2012
   $778M IPO,
   NOW $5B+
   $100B IPO SOLD FOR $30M
   IN 2011
   

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6. Startups with designer founders are increasingly
   common in the $B club
   

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7. THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
   

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8. OLD
   Go off into the wilderness,
   design pixel perfect mockups
   Throw designs over cubicle wall
   at some developer guy
   

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9. NEW
   Sketch.
   Lo-fi mockup.
   Prototype!
   

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10. DESIGN IN THE BROWSER
    

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11. SKILL 1
    Learn to code.
    

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12. BUILDING STUFF IS EASY
    Solving problems is still
    really, really, hard.
    

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13. Startups fail by
    building products that
    nobody uses
    

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14. USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN
    

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15. Why will people use your
    product?
    

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16. SKILL 2
    Get out of the building.
    

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17. STARTUPS ARE BUSINESSES
    

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18. Great products are
    supported by great
    business models.
    

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19. SKILL 3
    Understand the business.
    

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20. STARTUPS ARE SCIENCE
    

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21. Build.
    Measure.
    Learn.
    

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22. SKILL 4
    Learn to love data.
    

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23. DESIGN IS COMMUNICATION
    

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24. Communicate with users,
    communicate with your
    team
    

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25. SKILL 5
    Learn to write.
    

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26. KEY SKILLS FOR STARTUP DESIGNERS
    1. Learn to code.
    2. Get out of the building
    3. Understand the business.
    4. Learn to love data.
    5. Learn to write.
    

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27. Stop trying
    to be
    perfect.
    

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28. Focus on
    learning as
    quickly as
    you can.
    

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29. THANKS!
    Sash Catanzarite
    @thesash
    

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