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Startup founders who’ve worked in tech know the value of design when launching new products, and they look to designers for user research, usability testing, strategy, and interface design. For those without a technical or industry background who may be wondering what design is good for in early-stage companies, my answer is clarity and character.
Clarity begins with documenting and articulating a product’s intent. As members of project teams, designers use wireframes, userflows, and prototypes to map out what we’re trying to make and why, so everyone can share the same expectations and understand the problem we’re solving. Clarity of intent facilitates internal decision making, accelerates engineering progress, and removes obstacles and uncertainty in strategy and development.
Externally, these investments in direction and focus translate to enormous value to a company’s customers in the form of superior functionality. A product designed with clarity will explicitly demonstrate its purpose and provide a direct and uncomplicated user experience that stands out among its competitors.
Design in general — whether the medium is architecture, branding, or book covers — implies a dual emphasis on utility and communication, and design at startups is no different. If clarity is concerned with what it does, a product’s character is why people should care. Character is expressed implicitly and explicitly through a variety of interactive details in the experience. It is a primary differentiator: No one would launch a minimum viable product that didn’t do what it promised, but it also can’t be so minimum that it doesn’t entice and engage its audience.
Startup Design in Practice
Because every project is different, DockYard’s design approach differs according to need. We often work with growth-stage companies preparing to scale a market-tested product — companies like Veeps and Kamana — who come to DockYard for product strategy and design systems in addition to the software development required to expand their business and meet customer demand.
Clarity of intent facilitates internal decision making, accelerates engineering progress, and removes obstacles and uncertainty in strategy and development.
That set of needs is pretty different from a couple of founders with a great idea and a dream. That’s why we offer promising early-stage startups a new service designed to quickly produce a solid, scalable minimum viable product that gets into users’ hands while also setting the stage for stable growth.
We do that by building a functional foundation built from known conventions, with a tightly-defined scope, and a DockYard-built open-source design system to jumpstart a project toward launch. As our engineers assemble the standard product machinery, it’s design’s job to apply clarity and character to reveal the product’s value to users and distinguish it from its peers in the market. Using this approach, the standard parts are the same, and the parts that matter are unique.
No BS Business was a fledgling notion when they partnered with DockYard to launch in the summer of 2022. Although this family business had launched a personal-wellness coaching product before, this time they were aiming for as streamlined an MVP as possible. During our discovery process, we scoped out the clearest version of their product: a sign-in screen, a landing screen with a list of upcoming and past events, and a training screen template. Infusing the product with character was easy in this case; we relied on the formidable charisma of the company’s CEO and public face for everything from product imagery to interface copywriting. We moved quickly and delivered their V1 with minimal back-end admin controls in only three months.
Character is a primary differentiator: no one would launch a minimum viable product that didn’t do what it promised, but it also can’t be so minimum that it doesn’t entice and engage its audience.
Prowler posed a different challenge when they approached DockYard to help them launch a partially built SaaS product on top of their popular open-source cloud security tool alongside their current team. DockYard’s product design audit revealed specific, high-value opportunities to improve the existing web application’s user experience and interface. We identified their core service — to simplify the monitoring of multiple streams of complex data — and built a reliable and consistent design system around it, using fundamental UX principles to bring clarity to a complicated user workflow. The result was a logical, powerful dashboard experience that extends and fortifies their existing reputation as leaders in the open-source software community. Shortly after launch, Prowler signed a major new SaaS client; a few weeks later, they secured another $6 million in funding.
Value of Startup Design
Clarity and character are the essential services design provides. Designing for clarity delivers value for product teams as well as users; the value of designing for character in an early-stage company is proven by engagement and forms the foundation for a product’s brand and reputation in its industry.
Design teams working with early-stage companies are successful when they cater their approach to the project at hand. No two projects are alike. Every product startup presents a unique set of opportunities and challenges, and flexibility has to be the cornerstone of the relationship when founders partner with an agency. Depending on their market, some teams need more character than clarity or vice versa.
Design in general — whether the medium is architecture, branding, or book covers — implies a dual emphasis on utility and communication, and design at startups is no different.
When choosing an agency to work with, startup founders deserve a design approach that inherently understands a product’s need to offer something useful that is also understandable and delightful to use. An MVP that doesn’t communicate appeal beyond its core utility won’t gain traction in a crowded marketplace.
