Why Founders Should Think About Design from Day One

By that point, the most valuable opportunities to influence direction have already passed.

Design isn’t just the final layer. When done right—and brought in early—design helps founders uncover the right problems, shape the right product, and move toward product–market fit faster and with less waste. That’s why I believe founders should treat design as a strategic advantage from day one.

Good Designers Don’t Just Execute—They Discover

In the early stages of a startup, you don’t need pixel polish. You need clarity.

That means understanding the problem space, identifying your ideal customer, mapping out workflows, testing hypotheses, and refining the product’s shape. This is what strong UX designers do best. They're not there to decorate your idea—they're there to help you define it.

Founders often focus on shipping features. But people don’t switch to a new product just because it has more functionality. They switch because the experience is better—because it fits more naturally into their workflow, reduces friction, and helps them get to value faster.

Designers help uncover those moments. They understand how people move through a product, where things break down, and what needs to change. They make invisible pain points visible—and fixable.

Design Isn’t Just UX—It’s Growth

Since joining Seedcamp, I’ve spent a lot of time helping early-stage founders get to product–market fit. And the more I do this work, the more I see design as a growth lever hiding in plain sight.

In The Growth Equation, I outline seven core factors that influence startup growth—things like audience, motivation, value delivery, stickiness, friction, and competition. Design has a direct impact on nearly all of them:

• Struggling with onboarding? That’s a design problem.

• Users not returning? Design can improve retention by helping people build habits.

• Confusing UX killing your viral loop? Again—design.

Great designers help you build products that aren’t just functional, but intuitive, addictive, and worth talking about. And those are the products that grow.

Ignore Design Early, and You’ll Feel It Later

Through my coaching work with design leaders, I’ve seen what happens when startups treat design as an afterthought. Designers get brought in late, expected to patch over strategic decisions they had no part in, and then get frustrated when they’re not listened to.

Meanwhile, founders wonder why the UX still feels clunky—and why no one is using their product.

When you delay design, you pay for it in rework, friction, and missed opportunities. But when you embed design into your product thinking from the start, you gain a powerful ally in uncovering what works, what doesn’t, and what users actually need.

That’s one of the reasons I moved into venture. I wanted to help founders realise this earlier—before they made years of decisions without a designer in the room.

What Founders Should Do

If you’re building a startup right now, here’s how to approach design with the seriousness it deserves:

• Bring a designer in early. Ideally before you’ve written a single line of code. Use them to help frame the problem, explore solutions, and validate assumptions.

• Make them a partner, not a pixel-pusher. The best designers don’t just execute—they think. Invite them into strategic conversations, not just visual ones.

• Use design to reduce risk. A designer’s job isn’t to make your product pretty. It’s to make it usable, useful, and valuable—as quickly as possible.

• Recognise that design impacts growth. From onboarding to retention to word-of-mouth, design touches every part of the user journey. Don’t underestimate its ROI.

From Day One Means Less Waste, More Clarity

Involving design early saves you time. It prevents costly missteps. It gives you clearer user insight, tighter product loops, and a stronger shot at building something people actually want.

You don’t need a full design team in the early days. But you do need someone who can help you understand users, shape the experience, and guide you toward product–market fit. And the sooner you bring them in, the better.

Don’t wait until Series A to take design seriously. If you're building a startup today, start with it.

Want to go deeper into the role design plays in early-stage growth? My book The Growth Equation breaks down the seven factors that drive traction—and how to fix the ones holding you back.