Design for Startups

Before a Series A, Tan says a startup usually needs a design-minded co-founder, with consulting as a supplement. By Series A, most companies with a user-facing product should hire a designer; by Series B, they should consider building a team. Waiting until a company has 10 or 15 engineers can make the first design hire feel isolated.

Tan suggests searching portfolios on Dribbble and Behance, using LinkedIn and AIGA, and reaching out to designers at companies with strong work. He names CCA, CMU, NYU, MIT, RISD, Parsons, and Stanford as schools that have worked well for him, while noting that many good designers never attend design school. For consulting, he recommends referrals and says a short contract can also help founders assess a potential hire.

Tan says early consumer startups may need a design co-founder, while a three- or four-person team may be able to recruit a senior designer. As engineering teams grow, he advises planning for a designer’s day-to-day experience and hiring colleagues who understand design work. He also recommends defining whether the role centers on product management, interaction design, or visual design, and writing publicly about the company’s design culture.

Tan recommends using the phone screen to assess communication, then asking candidates to explain difficult decisions, trade-offs, users, and priorities in their past work. Founders should walk candidates through product problems they have already spent time solving. In an interview exercise, a candidate who starts drawing before asking who the users are may be missing essential context; if the team lacks a design leader, Tan suggests asking a trusted expert to review the candidate.

In the Q&A, Tan argues that an About Us page can help founders tell their story and build customer trust, pointing to Brian Armstrong’s public presence at Coinbase. For user interviews, he recommends open-ended prompts such as asking someone to describe their day and paying attention to emotional frustrations. He also says openness can help startups overcome obscurity, though secrecy may make sense for easily copied or enterprise-focused products.