In any fast-moving product team, there’s a familiar pattern. A confident roadmap is shared. Timelines are tight but “doable.” Enthusiasm is high. Then, just as the meeting is wrapping up, a designer tentatively raises a hand and asks:“Have we thought about what happens if…?”
Design is changing. Fast.
AI is transforming the way we work — automating production, collapsing handoffs, and enabling non-designers to ship work that once required a full design team. Like it or not, we’re heading into a world where many design tasks will no longer need a designer.
If that fills you with unease, you’re not alone. But here’s the key difference between teams that will thrive and those that won’t:
Some design leaders are taking control of the narrative. Others are waiting to be told what’s next.
I recently watched a demo of a new AI-enabled recruitment tool. It used a synthetic avatar and voice to run a mock Zoom interview with a designer. Technically? Very slick. But something about the experience left me uneasy.
And no, it wasn’t the AI.
As thousands of designers settled into a cavernous event space on the outskirts of London—laptop bags slung over shoulders, Stanley cups of cold brew in hand, waiting to hear about the latest feature roadmap from Figma—it struck me how familiar this all felt. Not just the scale and spectacle, but the underlying dynamic.
You worked hard to raise money. You pitched. You hustled. You got the cheques. Now what?
For most startup founders, product velocity—the speed and consistency with which your team ships meaningful updates—is an obsession. And rightly so. In the early stages of a company, momentum is everything. The ability to move quickly can be the difference between winning early users or losing them to a better, faster-moving competitor.
But speed alone isn’t enough. High product velocity isn’t about frantic execution or cutting corners. It’s about consistently delivering value in a fast, focused, and sustainable way. And after working with dozens of early-stage startups, I’ve found it typically comes down to seven key principles.