Being part of a startup can be exciting! Things change rapidly and there is always work to be done. If you are the first design hire, get ready for a wild ride.

I’d like to share with you some of the lessons learned during my nearly two year run as an individual contributor and sole product designer for a Seed Stage startup. They are:

1. Embrace the Unknown

2. Advocate for Yourself (and Design)

3. Draw on Past Experiences

4. Ask for Help & Feedback

5. Expect the Unexpected

Let’s get to it!

Embrace the Unknown

Ever heard the expression ‘You don’t know what you don’t know’? That’s probably you. It was definitely me when I joined a startup. It was my first full-time, paying job as a designer.

There is going to be a lot you don’t know. And that is OK. Here are just a handful of examples that I wrestled with daily:

What does the tech stack look like?
What code base do the engineers work in?
How will that impact your ability to deliver on design assignments?

What does the roadmap look like?
What are the business goals design can contribute to?
What are the strategic goals?
Are these goals moving targets or has your company found product market fit and is in full-on growth mode?

You probably aren’t expected to know most of the above. And, unless you are a founder or a senior hire, you realistically won’t be expected to provide input on ANY of the above.

But you should. Embrace the unknown!

Dive into the code and stack. I am not an engineer and I am the last person I’d want writing meaningful code, but that hasn’t stopped me from using Inspect and various code editors to experiment with front-end design changes and quickly show engineers what I mean when I say, ‘Apply a consistent type scale’ or ‘The contrast of this background and text color don’t meet accessibility standards’ or users are telling me that ‘These buttons don’t make sense’. You know, the little things.

By learning what the engineering team considers to be limitations, you can design with those limitations in mind and by understanding the tech stack, you can push beyond those limitations.

Share your thoughts on the roadmap and direction of the company. You have a unique perspective. Looking at your company through a designer’s lens will reveal ways to improve that others have missed.

Startups should be willing to listen to every voice on the team. If they aren’t, find a new job. If they do listen, share your perspective! Design is more important today than ever. I was fortunate that the senior leadership at the startup listened and were open to constructive criticism and ideas.

Key word above. Did you see it? Constructive. Embrace the unknown, learn about the business goals of the company, and figure out how your experience and knowledge of design can be helpful in guiding the company toward success.

Advocate for Yourself (and Design)

Point Two really depends on Point One.

You’ve been in your role a little while. You know the engineering team and you all are cranking through sprints like a well-oiled machine. Great!

Now is the time to take stock and remember that you were hired for a reason. Design is important to the success of the company.

It is pretty easy to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty and pixel-pushing. Losing sight of the bigger picture and high-level design and business goals.

It can also be discouraging when engineering dictates what is possible and impossible.

It is critical that you advocate for design. Share your opinions, thoughts, insights, feedback, critique, and research findings (You are doing research, right?). You don’t have to have all the answers but you do have the tools and skills to find them. And once you do, it is up to you to be the voice of design at the company.

Besides, if you don’t advocate for design, who will?

Draw on Past Experiences

Your past experiences will be useful in your new role! Everything you learned as a student, intern, unpaid lackey, volunteer, camp counselor, coach, babysitter, lemonade stand owner … you get the idea, is relevant in some way.

I think I got lucky on this one. I’d worked for a large moving company in Boston during the summers between college years. The company I worked for builds software for moving companies. Lucky coincidence.

Find some way to connect these experiences to your new role. Perhaps you can empathize with the user’s needs or maybe business learnings from a past company are applicable to the growth of your current startup?

Whatever your experiences, there are ways of applying past learnings and even failings to your current role. Use these experiences to think outside the box and approach design and business challenges with a fresh perspective.

Ask for Help & Feedback

Just because it is up to you to advocate for design at the company does NOT mean you have to go it alone. The company should embrace design and listen to you but if you don’t know what to say or how to say it, it’ll be an uphill battle.

Be open to feedback and actively seek it. Tap into your network and get your work in front of trusted mentors and peers. Just as you should be willing to share constructive feedback with the company, you should gladly accept it from trusted sources.

Also, any company worth working for should be willing to help you grow and develop as a designer. Ask if they can cover or offset the cost of events, conferences, or classes that will help you grow and advance as a designer.
You get to learn something new and potentially expand your network, and the company you work for gets your expanded expertise and word of mouth advertising from you as an attendee! Winning!

Find conferences, classes, meet ups, or events that you feel would help you learn and push your skills to the next level. Found a free event? Even better! If not, hopefully your employer will pay for you to attend. If they don’t, think of it as an investment in yourself. Because it absolutely is!

Now, attending events and meet ups can be nerve wracking. Breaking the ice and getting a conversation started is a challenge for some of us. Myself included. Just remember: most people at the event or meet up are either designer, aspiring designer, or they work in a parallel capacity. So starting a convo is as simple as asking, “Are you a product designer as well?”

Expect the Unexpected

The world is a wild place. Now more than ever. And the world of a startup is no exception.

Be prepared to wear many hats and step outside your comfort zone. You are a designer, sure, but you might find yourself contributing to aspects of the company that you have no experience in. That’s OK. Just set expectations ahead of time and dive in. You’ll learn something new and help the company at the same time.

Also be prepared for things not to go as planned. Startups fail all the time. The failure rate in the early months and even years is staggeringly high. This isn’t to say you should have one foot out the door at all times. You should work as hard as you can for as long as you can and see what happens. But maybe pay attention to other aspects of the business other than design.

Remember Step 1: Embrace the Unknown? Get involved in knowing the business, and you should have a pretty good idea of how things are going.

Did the founders raise a round of funding that extended the runway 18 months? Has it been 18 months? What plans are in the works to raise additional funds?

Do the founders have an exit strategy? They probably do and you should ask about it.

What are sales numbers looking like? Do you have revenue? Should you have revenue? You have revenue, right? What is the burn rate?

Keep yourself informed at all times about the state of business. You are a member of the company and you should have access to some or all of this information. If you don’t: ask for it. If it isn’t given: leave the company. This is important! If the people in charge aren’t open to having a conversation about the health of the business, be it one-on-one or in a town hall setting, that is a huge red flag.

Finally, and most importantly, look out for yourself. Read your contract and the employee handbook carefully. Know the company policies. And be prepared to research employment law in your area should things go south. Some startups aren’t prepared to handle layoffs gracefully and you probably shouldn’t expect severance unless it’s in your contract.

Expected the unexpected and stay informed. This will hopefully help you avoid being blindsided.

In Summary

Being the first design hire and sole product designer at a startup can be daunting. There are new team members to meet, new technologies to learn, and a new business to understand. On top of all that, you are now expected to take the design from zero to one, or to the next level as the case may be.

Just remember, if you:

1. Embrace the Unknown

2. Advocate for Yourself (and Design)

3. Draw on Past Experiences

4. Ask for Help & Feedback

5. Expect the Unexpected

Everything will probably be alright! Good luck!