A Story about Designing for Start-ups
Why should young designers work in start-ups?
“ So, you don’t know anything except your own module in the project?”
“ No, man. I don’t have a clue about the whole concept of what we (as a whole team) are trying to do.”
“ That is quite restrictive if you ask me.”
“ How different is your work? I bet you must be bombarded with a lot of insignificant work.”
As these two pals working on the two opposite ends of the industry spectrum met. One tried to explain to the other, why designing for a startup is the best thing for your career and personal growth. Let’s not be selfish — I believe your growth, is your company’s as well.
As the next generation of young designer’s lookout for jobs in big organizations. There is another set of designers who take the road less trodden and join start-ups.
In a world, where Amazon is competing with offline retail and Google knows more about you than your girlfriend. People still have doubts about joining start-ups as a full-time job. But the landscape is changing, as people of India accept technology with open arms. Technology start-ups seem an ideal opportunity for designers, who are starting out.
No job is too Small
“What you consider insignificant is making all the difference. Yes, I am bombarded with work but it enhances my learning curve multi-fold.”
A designer who is just out of design school or any other field wanting to pursue design — there is more to it than meets the eye.
Joining a start-up doesn’t necessarily mean your domain of work is fixed by definition. It often involves designers to work and explore various lateral of design:
Visual Design, Interaction Design, Brand Design, UX Design, UI Design, Product Design, Communication Design, and Motion Design to name a few.
This may sound daunting but the learning experience you get at such a young time in your career is unmatched. The opportunity to explore all aspects of design in a company is a rare one, especially when you’ve barely got a portfolio to show off.
Learning at the Speed of Light
In a world where you need the experience to get experience. Start-up is an organization where people are constantly failing and learning from their mistakes.
You can take decisions and then learn to accept the fruits as well. If you take a call and it turns out well, you get the confidence to put your foot down the next time as well. In case you fail, you must learn to own your faults and work on the next hurdle.
Bringing your designs to life is a tough task. As the bridge between imagination and reality is quite difficult to cross, but what’s even more challenging is designing for the real world. What works for you might not work for the rest of the people. Dissolving your thoughts to the minds of the masses and then designing, is something where you’ll have to fire from all cylinders.
Working with a small team of dreamers carrying the weight of trust and responsibility that is bestowed upon us by the founders and the investors. The feeling that people depend on you for something is one of the biggest motivators for learning.
Another major learning comes in the form of designing for practicality. Whether a freelancer or a design student or someone sitting at home designing top-class interfaces, we rarely consider the practicality of the solution our design provides. Once you’re in a start-up you witness what’s it’s like designing or the real world. You rarely get to follow your methodical process and are suppose to come up with solutions at the speed of light (If you’re not doing this, you might want to move fast and break things)
You get to work with a small team of people who are driven to change the world with their revolutionary idea.
See it Live
“ Okay. Now you are starting to make me feel bad about not being there. Not to add the fact that I saw someone from my office use your app yesterday.”
Walking into a restaurant and seeing the POS Dashboard application (which you designed) to manage table reservations and orders, will bring in front of you a priceless moment. As you see your product being used and appreciated by thousands of people, you will realize those nights of working hard were definitely worth it.
Building Relationships
“I get your point. But we go through so many rigorous training before every project. I do believe our learning curve is better because we have certified trainers.”
“There is a difference between trainers and mentors.”
Every designer — junior, senior, god-level, whatever tag you feel like giving, needs a mentor that can realize their true potential, weaknesses and make them expand their horizons to shine bright like a diamond.
With the design tools expanding at every day, and the importance of following the trends ever increasing. It’s always good to have fellow designers share their thoughts and experiences of using different products.
For designers, it’s always good to have their work reviewed by people coming from different walks of life. Your mentor will give you feedback based on the opinions of hundreds of people he has encountered in his years of working in this industry. This is especially important for a design team because all you ever want is some honest feedback.
People in start-ups develop much better apprentice-mentor relations that sometimes last a lifetime. In a close-knit family where you shout at each other when things go wrong to have a couple of beers after the storm settles down, making real bonds with people who can teach you a lot is much more natural.
With great power, comes great responsibility
“ The only thing I like about a startup is flexible working hours. You have so much control over your working hours and working style.”
“We have the right to make our own decisions but we also have to own up to them in case of any mishaps.”
As a designer, you can’t be expected to do brilliant work if you are told to stick to the company template. To achieve something that stands the test of time, it’s necessary that you break the bounds the box enforces.
While in start-ups you are either the only person working on design or you will be part of a small team. You get more authority to take your own decisions and implement them. If you think a layout isn’t working, change it, the color is too bright, change it. Having a sense of authority can be dismantling, but it’s up to you to set up that constant loop of feedback, learn, and execute again.
Even if people have disagreements, there is no hard feeling in letting it settle. This autonomy also brings in a sense of responsibility with the ability to experiment and put your insights to work. Who knows what might be the next big idea?
Ship like its Doomsday
“Our spirits normally last around 5 weeks”
“We do that in 5 days”
Since the design is a function of time and thought, it can cost a fortune chasing perfection. In start-ups where you’re supposed to perform like every day can your last. Time is a currency and you can’t waste time chasing an illusion called perfection.
Follow the path of working on an MVP and then moving ahead with feedback and iterations. You’ll be amazed at the kind of work that you have produced in a short duration. Don’t be saddened if your style sheets are properly arranged, layers aren’t nicely grouped, or you haven’t been able to develop a design system. There will be time for all this, but shipping fast on time will become your uttermost priority.
At larger organizations, designers often required to shift working with different engineers and product managers every time there is a new project. One of the biggest challenges with this is the need to adjust to the work styles of the new team. While this is not the case in start-ups, since we all are working only on one product, our product team remains intact the whole time.
Designing is one of the traits required for the team. Designers get this rare opportunity to work alongside with PMs and Engineers. This essentially means shipping a product (pixel perfect) isn’t just for the PMs and engineers but a responsibility of the designers as well.
Being the Misfit
“I get it now. You think you are one of the revolutionaries who changed the way the world saw tech.”
“Speaking of revolutionaries….”
As Steve Jobs said, It is the misfits who change the world. If Mark Zuckerberg had joined Orkut and worked as a developer his whole life. Facebook would never have been born and the world as we see it today would never have known the true power of Social Media. He took the plunge and changed the world.
Being a designer in this golden era is a rare opportunity. It’s time we got out of comfort-zones and changed the world for good. Nevertheless, the joy and pride of building something from scratch are sure to fill you up with positive energy which will not only make you feel good about yourself but also reward you in the long term. When the organization is well-established and steadily growing.
