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
2. HI, I’M SASH CPO & Cofounder of Tradesy @thesash
3. Why Design?
   
4. 2000 2014 5M+ HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, ETC PAY AS YOU GO, OPEN SOURCE, ETC.
5. $140M ACQUISITION SHUT DOWN 2010 PIVOTED TO API 15% LAYOFFS IN 2012 $778M IPO, NOW $5B+ $100B IPO SOLD FOR $30M IN 2011
6. Startups with designer founders are increasingly common in the $B club
7. THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
8. OLD Go off into the wilderness, design pixel perfect mockups Throw designs over cubicle wall at some developer guy
9. NEW Sketch. Lo-fi mockup. Prototype!
10. DESIGN IN THE BROWSER
11. SKILL 1 Learn to code.
12. BUILDING STUFF IS EASY Solving problems is still really, really, hard.
13. Startups fail by building products that nobody uses
14. USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN
15. Why will people use your product?
16. SKILL 2 Get out of the building.
17. STARTUPS ARE BUSINESSES
18. Great products are supported by great business models.
19. SKILL 3 Understand the business.
20. STARTUPS ARE SCIENCE
21. Build. Measure. Learn.
22. SKILL 4 Learn to love data.
23. DESIGN IS COMMUNICATION
24. Communicate with users, communicate with your team
25. SKILL 5 Learn to write.
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.
27. Stop trying to be perfect.
28. Focus on learning as quickly as you can.
29. THANKS! Sash Catanzarite @thesash