Design has been too settled for too long
The odd thing about product design over the last decade is how stable it became. Not easy. Not boring. Not without progress. But stable.
The odd thing about product design over the last decade is how stable it became. Not easy. Not boring. Not without progress. But stable.
I keep seeing this line floating around the internet at the moment:
“If you can’t be bothered putting the effort into writing the article, why should I be bothered reading it?”
It’s a sharp, pithy phrase. Exactly the sort of thing that does well on social media. And I understand where the sentiment comes from.
I was recently asked to join a local conference panel about what investors are looking for in 2026. The session ranged from angel and seed investing to scale-up capital, bank lending and company valuations. But the question I kept coming back to was narrower: what has changed over the last 12 months, and why does the old early-stage fundraising playbook feel less reliable than it used to?