5 things I learned about being a solo designer at an early-stage startup.
Solo designing can be daunting. Here are five things I learned during my time as a solo designer at a seed-funded startup.
Solo designing is much like foraging through the woods. There’s a bit of survival mode, a lot of learning, and a pinch of “Who made that decision? Oh, it was me.”.
I joined a small startup as their only designer and while I thought I knew what I could expect, I learned a lot more than I could have imagined. Lucky the team was (and is) truly made up of amazing humans. Here’s what I learned.
It’s only as fun as the team you’re with.
I learned a ton as a designer, but I learned more from the team that I worked with outside of design.
- The delicate balance between sales and product when there is no product (yet)
- Knowing what to make a big deal and knowing what to set aside for later.
- Efficiency and productivity workflows that may take time now, but save time later.
- Work with a team you can trust.
Fill the “gaps” and wear the “hats” but know your goals and limits.
Being a solo designer on a team very small team means you’ll wear hats in many different areas and usually that’s what you’re looking for. As your role evolves and deepens, know where you want to go and also know you might change your mind. Ask yourself:
- How much of my work energizes me?
- What drains me?
- Where do I want to go and how do I get there? Can I get there with this company?
- What are my long-term goals? It’s okay if they change and evolve over time.
You will make bad design decisions, no matter your seniority.
Moving fast at a seed-funded startup means you often have to make decisions quickly and sometimes that means making decisions that you won’t agree with next week. Here are practical tips that helped me through it:
- Be okay with change and completely scrapping an original idea that was implemented if it’s not scalable.
- Fast-paced environments may mean that pixel-perfect designs require flexibility. Ensure you have the freedom to come back and revisit poor experiences for the sake of the user, not yourself.
- Dare I say it, detach those components! Making a design system early can be challenging as things evolve quickly. Being okay with detaching components is an important part of an evolving design system!
- You are your worst critic. You’ve heard it before, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
Design through the lens of your value props. And it’s okay if those change.
If you’re part of the season of finding product-market fit, the product is going to evolve. Designs may start as conceptual and may never see the light of day. It’s okay!
- Talk to people in similar industries (advisors, people in your network) and truly listen to their thoughts.
- Trust your gut. When you are designing an app that doesn’t have users, feedback looks a little different. Trust your designer intuition, talk to people in the industry and accept that your design will evolve.
Building a design culture isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.
Being the first and only designer at a company has its ups and downs, but one major job that no one talks about is that it’s up to you to create a healthy design culture. Fight for a seat at the table, show and teach the importance of design, and shift as the company grows. Here are some ways to do that:
- Share work in progress in Slack of new ideas, and capture attention with .gifs or screenshots of key screens. Take 2 minutes to highlight what design decisions are important to other stakeholders (ie. sales vs customer success)
- Solicit feedback and ensure your team feels heard. While it’s up to you to implement ideas, you can make the team feel heard and allow for feedback from teammates.
- Advocate for end users. I find that early-stage teams often focus much of their effort on buyers (obviously, buyers are a big part of making a company successful), but lack focus on end-users. As a designer, it’s a special place to be able to talk and share learnings about users beyond buyers.
- Share often about why and how design has made an impact on the company.
- Share the design vision and how the team will change and evolve in upcoming months/quarters.
Being a solo designer has been the highlight of my career and I realize it’s often due to the company and people I’m doing it with. I’ve learned a lot about myself, how my design decisions have evolved, and where I can and want to grow. To all those solo designers out there, you’re doing great.
