Product
Does Your Product Have World-Class Design?
From the Jason Calacanis startup checklist.
"World-class design" sounds like a high bar, but it's more achievable than ever:
- No-code platforms like Webflow offer great templates as a starting point
- Sites like Dribbble let you draw inspiration from professional designers
- Design awards are a useful benchmark — find the best and learn from them
Some legacy companies (Craigslist, Amazon) have mediocre design grandfathered in at massive scale — they simply can't overhaul their UI without millions of complaints. But first impressions still matter enormously, and today's users will notice janky design instantly. If the product is clunky, slow, and hard to navigate, you'll have trouble getting users to engage.
Robinhood used a great interface and no-fee trading to upend the entire stock brokerage industry.
Designer co-founders have an exceptional track record building massive consumer companies:
| Founder | Company | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Joe Gebbia | Airbnb | ~$100B market cap |
| Cameron Adams | Canva | ~$40B valuation |
| Mike Krieger | Sold to Facebook for $1B (2012) | |
| Evan Sharp | ~$30B market cap | |
| Chad Hurley | YouTube | Sold to Google for $1.6B (2006) |
World-class design isn't just for consumer apps. Stewart Butterfield — a designer — built Slack and launched the "Consumerisation of SaaS" movement. Use the best-designed products in the world as your reference point.