How Much Does Design Impact Success for a Start-up?
Start-ups are always busy. Shipping the product and getting it out into the wild for the market to see and play with is usually a key priority for start-ups. Often, this is why a well designed product, website or app gets compromised for speed to market. But especially throughout America, there is a growing trend for start-ups that have a strong design background to enjoy faster success. Is this a co-incidence? I think not…
To prove my point that design matters a lot, let’s look at some obvious examples. Firstly, Apple’s Steve Jobs was well known for being addicted to design to the point of insanity. He even studied typography at Reed College at one stage and this love for designed transpired into his products. People love Apple products because they are just as equally beautiful to see, feel and touch as they are to use. In more recent examples, AirBNB’s CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design. The mobile app smart journal, Path is also a good example of why good design attracts users. All are well designed and thus loved.
もっと最近の例では、AirBNBの最高責任者であり、共同創設者でもあるブライアン·チェスキーは、ロードアイランドデザイン学校で、工業デザインでの美術学士号を取得している。携帯アプリのPathも、デザイン性に優れていることでユーザーを獲得した一例だ。、パスも良いデザインでは、ユーザーを惹きつける理由の良い例です。全てにおいてよくデザインされており、このため多くから愛されている。
Visually compelling design is a powerful tool in attracting people to come and keep looking. Even if design is not at the core of the product, the layout, spacing, typography still contributes to the user experience. For a start-up like Dropbox, a cloud storage company, although cloud storage is not very sexy, their products in both website and mobile app are very well thought out. I believe for start-ups that ignore design principles, they do so at their peril.
Fastcodedesign featured a designer named Enrique Allen, who went from teaching start-ups how to design to creating an investment company called Designers Fund to invest in the next generation of designer start-up founders. Allen also leads the Accelerator 500Startups team of Design Advisors who coach start-ups how to maximise return on design. He understands that design is fundamental to creating great products and believes founders who are also designers have distinct advantages. From the article, Allen states that design is important in the tech world today because:
その理由として、
“1. As the consumer tech market becomes more crowded, brands and experience design–not just technical capabilities–are becoming critical to success.
2. Innovation is about radical collaboration. The critical mass of combined design, technical, and business skills enables product iteration to happen faster and at a higher resolution.
3. Designer founders have unique skills (not just visual) to understand human needs and discover unarticulated opportunities.”
WSJ, yesterday reported that Google Ventures, the venture capital arm of Google has also stepped up its efforts to help their portfolio companies realize and extract the value of good design. They have recently created a small group of designers called the ‘Design Group’ and have already seen success. A make-over of CustomMade Inc., a site that helps people find and hire people to make things for you, boosted the number of people logging into start projects by 200%. For Venture Capital firms that want to differentiate themselves and offer entrepreneurs more than money or advice, offering solid resources like design expertise is a key way to do this.
Famous entrepreneur turned angel investor, Dave McClure of 500Startups, says that ‘Design and marketing are way more important than code’ because marketing is the most critical component of success in consumer internet start-ups. He believes “The real challenge is finding designers and product managers who can build an awesome product experience, and marketers who can figure out effective, scalable, integrated distribution strategies.”
Chinese tech companies are often criticized for their horrendous design and cluttered layouts filled with a sea of text. There are some who argue that this is just cultural and people like ugly websites, but I disagree. I also see more Chinese start-ups and tech companies that are shifting their attention to high impact design that draw users in. Popular interest graph based social network, Douban.com or RenRen’s recently released social travel website, Fengche.com or Kickstarter.com clone, Demohour.com are good examples of the next evolution of Chinese start-ups that value design.
Clearly design which encompasses user interaction and experience, is playing a more and more important role in the success of start-ups. It also adds inherent value by people perceiving something with greater value which translates into justifiably higher prices and more profit margins. For this reason, very strong designers who understand design, engineering and business are mighty powerful and valuable.
活版印刷については、「 デザインについて」のほうが適切でした。すみません。
ありがとうございます。