Meeting with Raphael Schaad

Fri, 31 Jan 25 · raphael.schaad@gmail.com

Designers as Founders

• This topic is in the zeitgeist right now

• More talented people in general should be founders, not just designers

• Successful companies need three key elements:

• The magic happens at the intersection of these three elements

• Traditional archetypes: design focuses on desirability, business on viability, and tech on feasibility

• Feasibility is much more accessible now with AI tools

• Desirability remains the unique and challenging domain of designers

Designer Mindset and Role Models

• Engineering students know stories of tech founders like Zuckerberg, Google founders, Microsoft, etc.

• Design students don’t typically consider becoming founders

• Designers may not look up to founder-type role models like Brian Chesky

• Designers might be too anti-establishment to aspire to run large companies

• When asked about inspirations, designers often cite music, theater, or art rather than other designers or business leaders

Notion’s Hiring Approach for Designers

• Currently hiring for a design position

• AI skills not a formal requirement yet

• Some internal designers dabble with AI tooling

• Preference for more technical designers, but not exclusively design engineers

• Hiring criteria haven’t changed significantly

• Key skills: ability to keep complex systems in mind, high craft, and managing complexity

Design Tools and Processes at Notion

• Still heavily use Figma and Figma prototyping

• For a company like Notion, continuing with Figma feels appropriate

• Ryo (a designer) was doing significant work in Cursor and is now leaving to lead design at Cursor

• For startups, transitioning directly from design to code might be more advantageous

Challenges with Figma

• Figma has become increasingly complicated in the last 3 years

• Now feels like an “aircraft carrier” - overly complex for simple design tasks

• No longer ideal for design explorations

• Some designers, including the speaker, considering a return to sketchbooks for initial ideation

• 2018 Figma was the “sweet spot” - a super performant vector tool

• Current complexity can hinder the design process

• Some designers now prefer sketching ideas, photographing them, and moving directly to building the real thing, bypassing complex digital design tools

Chat with meeting transcript: https://notes.granola.ai/p/baa64b6a-327b-4b6b-bfd6-60cff160505a

On why there aren’t more designer founders

“There aren’t that many role models. Obviously we have the Brian Cheskys etc. but hundreds of thousands of young engineering students have very clear role models to go after whereas if you ask a class of design students about potential paths, the option of founder isn’t commonly mentioned, is my guess. Success cases have to trickle all the way down.” (from Twitter)

On fighting entropy

“Building software is a constant fight with entropy. The bigger the surface area, the more things will start to get inconsistent...every time you touch a file, try not to leave any trash by adding things to the environment, and try to take out a little more trash, even if it's as small as fixing a typo in a code comment. It doesn't impact the user experience, but it's like the broken windows theory. If you don't fix a broken window, there's instantly going to be more broken windows.” (from Dive Club)