Steve Vassallo, general partner at Foundation Capital and author of 'The Way to Design', discusses why the 21st century will be the decade of design, the true meaning of empathy, and the struggles designers face when becoming entrepreneurs. He also analyzes Google's AdWords business model and emphasizes the importance of empathy in product design.

Dr. Sudy Majd, customer experience research lead at Candid Co., discusses how to do proactive user research rooted in business challenges. Topics include mixing qualitative and quantitative research methods, finding the right profiles for research questions, and common mistakes beginners make.

In this episode, Bobby Ghoshal, co-host of High Resolution podcast and co-founder of Candid Co, shares insights on doing user research rooted in business, measuring and presenting design results, and training designers to be more business-savvy. Topics include his journey into design, the importance of selling in design, research as a profit center, and uncovering solutions through operationalizing research findings.

Marc Hemeon has a truly impressive CV. He has lead design at YouTube, Google Ventures, Oakley, Digg, Design Inc, Fflick and lately Ease Central. He has been designing since 1996 and is a true veteran in the design community.  In this episode we spoke about: the distinction between art and design, how ugly design can beat beautiful design, how to explain the value of your work to non-designers by finding the metrics they care about.    Show notes: 2:10 How did Marc get into design in 1996? 4:50 How to sell design services? 10:20 How to show the value of your work by finding the metrics that organisation cares for 16:30 How Marc presents his designs to get buy-in from stakeholders 21:30 Asking for information and feedback from stakeholders? 25:30 Finding the balance between user goals and business goals (defining your design ethics) 29:40 Examples of balancing user and business goals 36:05 Marc's biggest design mistake (aka YouTube player disaster) 39:00 Design Inc's story (and what clients want from designers) 42:40 "Career exercise" that each designer has to do 50:00 Why Design Inc did not succeed 56:00 Marc explains why "design is not art" 1:02:30 Success = 80% Sell, 20% Design 1:08:35 What advice would Marc give to young designers? 1:12:20 What is one thing about design Marc has changed his mind about?   

Joel Califa, senior product designer at GitHub, discusses subverted design, the importance of putting users first, and the need for designers to learn about business. They explore dark patterns used by popular platforms, measuring performance at GitHub, and balancing user and business needs in design.

Joe Gerber is a business designer and a managing director of IDEO CoLAB. After studying biology, taking an MBA, and working as a product manager, he joined IDEO as the first business designer in the New York office.  In the episode we spoke about: how to systematically test your design so that it achieves users and business goals, the role of vocabulary in bridging different design disciplines,  how do you use design approach to reduce risks in highly risky business situations,  and Joe's favourite business design questions that you can use in your project.

Trent Huon is a business design director at IDEO Munich. After finishing his MBA, he first worked as a management consultant. As he never went through official design training, he had to learn design on the job when he joined IDEO. We talk about his transformation into designer and about the relevance of business in design. Some of the topics we covered in this episode are: how to show non-designers the value of design, why spending some time thinking about business is super valuable and, how you can start thinking about the business side of design even if you know nothing about it. If you want to learn more about business, visit beyondusers.com where you can take a 5-day email course - A mini MBA for designers. In these emails, I present five business concepts that are relevant for designers.