Introduction

When it comes to design founder stories, Raphael Schaad’s is one of the best. So this episode is the first-ever telling of how Raphael designed and built Cron (which became Notion Calendar). We talk about:

• Sketching on paper vs. sketching in code
• Why shipping quality software is like camping
• How Raphael identified the MVP of the problem
• What it was like building Cron in YC during COVID
• Why you should design dialogues as first-class citizens
• Why Raphael didn’t invest much in the Cron landing page
• The differences between a design toolkit and a design system
• a lot more lessons from a successful first-time design founder

• Raphael’s Twitter
• The OG Cron website
• Screenshot of the Cron dialogues in Figma