sanj • thinkable

I think this is worth some nuance. In recent history, many companies have employed 'product designers' whose primary activity and output has been the creation of software interface facsimiles, e.g. mockups in a drawing tool like Figma. Those making mockups have of course been doing more than just that, to varying extents leading or more commonly participating in the process of deciding what to build and why. But there was value in that tangible output itself. I think @gokulr is directionally correct that the role of someone whose primary output is the creating of an interface mockup is quickly disappearing. But the role of someone who figures out what needs to exist, why, how it should work, how it should should be positioned, differentiated and made memorable has never been more in demand. I speak with founders on a near weekly basis (many of them in Gokul's own portfolio) desperate for this kind of person. His conclusions though I agree with almost entirely: there will always be an opportunity to specialize in the creation of visual interfaces, but more broadly most product designers who want to be employees (totally fine) should take on more responsibilities that have historically been done by PMs or Engineers, to varying degrees. From my POV, this is just what a product designer is and what we should have been doing the whole time, but that's another post.

Michael Seibel, Managing Director at Y Combinator, on why shipping a crappy product in under a month beats building a perfect one for a year: Michael starts with a simple challenge: "Do you remember the day Snapchat launched? Do you remember the day Instagram launched? Do you remember the day that WhatsApp launched? Remember the day that Uber or Lyft launched? Most likely you don't." His point cuts against how most founders think about launch day: "It turns out that launching is nowhere near as significant event to your users as it is to you. So, you should move up the launch as soon as possible." The reason comes down to validation. "Until you can get your product in front of customers, you can't validate whether it solves their problem. And so, it's much better to build a crappier product, release it sooner, and get it out there in front of customers, see if they want to use it." @mwseibel acknowledges the approach isn't universal: "There's some exceptions. In some extremely regulated markets like banking, for example, or lending, it's just really hard to launch. You actually have to get one s*** done before you're even allowed to get customers." But for most founders, the bar is far lower than they think: "In most consumer and B2B startups that we encounter, it's actually possible to get some form of MVP built and launched in less than a month. And so, that's what you should be thinking about."