Designers should ask themselves, is the company solving a problem customers care about? And do they have a differentiated approach? Also, who are the founders and what are they about? What are their backgrounds and track records? Do they have strong moral codes? You'll want to research their investors and board members. Is their evaluation in alignment with their progress and stage? I think that's like a really big one right now. The founding team will set the culture for the rest of the company.
Tome CPO and co-founder Henri Liriani and Katy Amaya of the Greylock talent team discuss the rising importance of founding designers at startups and share best practices for building strong design teams. While past generations of startups could get away with focusing purely on the technical aspects of their product in the initial stages and bring design teams later, today's startups are living in the age following an explosion of consumer apps (and the subsequent push for consumerization of enterprise software) that has resulted in a heavy focus on the end user experience. Good design is now a critical part of a company's success.
You can read a transcript of this interview here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/designed-with-purpose/
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