Building a co-founder team with product and design capabilities, and the future of UX in the no-code/low-code era :: with Perry Azevedo

In this episode of Ventures, designer/developer Perry Azevedo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/perryazevedo/) and I discuss the importance of a co-founder team having product and design capabilities, the important nuances between “product” and “design”, examples from products that Perry and I have built together, and the future of UX design in the era of low-code/no-code applications. 

Visit https://satchel.works/@wclittle/ventures-episode-35 for detailed notes and links to resources (videos, articles, etc…) mentioned. 

You can watch this episode via video here. 

In this episode we cover the following:  

1:43 - Perry introduction. From “Webmaster” to designer/developer over the last few decades.

10:31 - Going back to when Perry was first in his government job, from an education standpoint, what was “design” and “tooling” for the web back then in the late 90s?

14:30 - How did Perry’s understanding and development of the design/development craft from Perry’s experience in formal education? 

18:56 - In startup land, there is typically a business person, a technical person, and ideally a product/design person -- i.e. a Hustler, Hacker, and Hipster. What is Perry’s advice for Business/Technical founders looking for Product/Design help? 

24:04 - What should the business and technical person be aware of when picking a co-founder - and if they had to lean one way or another, which way should they lean? 

26:53 - A word of caution to business/technical people out there (hint: you probably aren’t very good product people). 

30:40 - Walking through product examples and the Design/Product: VendorHawk https://www.geekwire.com/2018/servicenow-snaps-vendorhawk-help-customers-manage-saas-spending/ 

35:35 - Another example of a product that Perry and Will built: https://www.startuprocket.com/ 

39:50 - The story behind the hexagon logo for Startup Rocket - and the story behind logos in general.

41:22 - More about the history and founding story of Startup Rocket

41:56 - What is the next stage of learning for Perry as a world-class designer? (No-code/low-code; we may not need to write code anymore soon)

45:41 - Going from design to coding up a product - are there any downsides to this personally for Perry?

48:51 - The “T” analogy for people; how founders should identify people to fill out their team.

49:50 - Where can people find Perry online? @perryazevedo on the socials, or go directly to https://www.protaventures.com