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18Sep startuptable
Design is integral to technology. You may have a really cool proprietary technology, but if you can’t get people to use it — it’s worthless. In the technology sector, design is essential yet under valued. But there are several key examples that show how powerful usability and design can beat out proprietary technology companies. 1) Youtube - leveraged Adobe’s flash video technology to create a seamless way to post and share videos all across the web and sold to Google for $1.6 billion. Youtube had no underlying proprietary technology but they did create a usable system to distribute videos to the masses, leaving Adobe high and dry. 2) Mint.com - a personal finance management system had no propertiery technology was recently sold to Intuit aka Quickbooks for 170 million smackers. They had a really slick design and merely licensed the financial aggregation system from another company called Yodlee who has yet to make a nice exit and has had to recapitalize several times just to stay alive. The point is to make sure that you give props to the design and usability of a product because it can make companies very very very successful… because people WANT to use them. Anyways, the above picture is just a representation of where designers fall in various categories - you don’t get God status until the designer becomes a hit. A) Gods - The guy that made Mint or the team behind Youtube. None had serious technology. They were just mashups. B) Servant - The designer working for the man from 9-5 or who is a slave to his company… ahem Kevin Nguyen. C) Prostitute - the freelancer who bounces around from project to project aka Nick Palacios and Andy Budd (j/k guys, you know I have mad rizpect for yall!) D) All three - well…I guess you could say they are the startup designer who worked for a company but did freelance work and then hit it big —- Chad Hurley of Youtube?

Design is integral to technology. You may have a really cool proprietary technology, but if you can’t get people to use it — it’s worthless. In the technology sector, design is essential yet under valued. But there are several key examples that show how powerful usability and design can beat out proprietary technology companies.

1) Youtube - leveraged Adobe’s flash video technology to create a seamless way to post and share videos all across the web and sold to Google for $1.6 billion. Youtube had no underlying proprietary technology but they did create a usable system to distribute videos to the masses, leaving Adobe high and dry.

2) Mint.com - a personal finance management system had no propertiery technology was recently sold to Intuit aka Quickbooks for 170 million smackers. They had a really slick design and merely licensed the financial aggregation system from another company called Yodlee who has yet to make a nice exit and has had to recapitalize several times just to stay alive.

The point is to make sure that you give props to the design and usability of a product because it can make companies very very very successful… because people WANT to use them.

Anyways, the above picture is just a representation of where designers fall in various categories - you don’t get God status until the designer becomes a hit.

A) Gods - The guy that made Mint or the team behind Youtube. None had serious technology. They were just mashups.

B) Servant - The designer working for the man from 9-5 or who is a slave to his company… ahem Kevin Nguyen.

C) Prostitute - the freelancer who bounces around from project to project aka Nick Palacios and Andy Budd (j/k guys, you know I have mad rizpect for yall!)

D) All three - well…I guess you could say they are the startup designer who worked for a company but did freelance work and then hit it big —- Chad Hurley of Youtube?

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