What can a startup do when it's cash-strapped? This post will show you some design tools to help you "cheat" a bit.
Of course, hiring a professional designer is the only way to go. They may only be a temporary solution, but they can help you get to the point where you can be financially stable.
Advice For Startups - What You Can't Afford To Miss
Define Yourself Clearly
Experts say that when starting a business, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. "Everyone will try to tell you what you should do." You can only surround yourself with like-minded people if you know who you are and what you want to achieve.
You must also "be open to changing that idea." They say that you should take stock and recognize what's working and what's not.
Don't be afraid to make changes. This advice applies to all industries. Your vision and mission should always be the foundation of your business, no matter what it is.
Ask yourself, "Does the plan help achieve our mission?" Will it help me achieve my goals? If not, it may not be the best use of resources.
Get Your Books In Order And Then Properly Report To Investors
Experts have worked on several startups and even founded a few. In his early years, he struggled with the accounting issues associated with startups, namely "the different regulations and requirements which spring up along with the actual business aspect of things." Kashflow was created by an expert to solve his problem.
An expert knows that not everyone is an accountant and that it's beneficial to use a service that can help with financial and accounting matters.
Expert's second important advice to startups is to report progress to investors regularly and properly after selling Kashflow to invest in multiple startups.
Experts found that many entrepreneurs struggled with creating regular investor reports. An expert, who had solved his problem before, founded Supdate. He believed that entrepreneurs should be able to produce detailed monthly reports on time.
We could not agree more. You'd better keep investors informed if you want them to give you their hard-earned cash.
They will want to know how you are progressing (or not), and they deserve to be informed. Keep the lines of communication wide open, lest your investors decide to withdraw their investment.
Join The PR Train Now
You've just created your business. You have done all the legal work, created a Facebook page and Twitter account, and posted photos on Instagram, but customers still aren't pouring in.
The phone doesn't ring. People are not aware of your existence.
The CEO of Transcription Outsourcing recommends getting as much publicity as possible as quickly as possible. Some entrepreneurs find PR intimidating, but it doesn't need to be.
Plenty of online resources will teach you how to use the "PR Engine". You can hire a PR agency if you don't want to deal with it yourself. They can do the legwork.
Hire People Smarter Than You
If you want your startup to succeed, you must hire people to assist you. CEO at CareDash, recommends hiring people who are smarter than you.
This means you should look for people who will make a meaningful contribution to your business.
Find people who can help you with your problems and know more than you do. It may be time to admit that you are terrible at organizing.
You might be good with customers and even better at getting them to sign contracts. Hiring an office manager with experience in managing an office is important.
It's not uncommon for someone to have multiple responsibilities in a startup because they are cautious about hiring.
If you're not a Twitter expert, ask your new office manager if they can handle social media marketing.
Saying No Is Okay!
Entrepreneurs tend to accept almost anything. It's a piece of advice that startups are given: "Say yes, and figure out later how you'll make it work." Accepting any job is acceptable.
You may never get it back if you reject it.
The CEO of Weberous wishes someone had given him this advice when he was a startup. They believe the most important part of starting a company is learning to manage your time and energy.
You don't want your time to be wasted.
Romis offers a great idea for entrepreneurs: "Some opportunities and clients are not worth the effort." This may sound counterintuitive, but it is good advice.
Many entrepreneurs are too busy to think about their future. They take on any contract that comes their way and work themselves to exhaustion to pay for the bills. This strategy has merit, but it may not be the best way to spend your precious time and resources.
Also Read:
Ten Tools For Startups That Can't Afford To Hire A Graphic Designer Yet
Noun Project: Free Icons
Good icons will be essential if you want to give your brand a professional appearance. There's an easy place where you can find tons of free icons.
The Noun Project, a site dedicated to "creating, sharing, and celebrating the visual language of the world", allows you to search through its database of professionally-designed icons. They're free to download, and you can use them under Creative Commons Attribution.
Pexel: Free Stock Photos
Need stock photography? All images on Pexels have a Creative Commons Zero license (CC0). All photos on Pexels are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
It is unnecessary to ask permission before you modify, copy, or distribute photos. Even attribution is not required. Only identifiable people can appear in an offensive or negative light unless they consent.
PSDDD: Free UI Assets
Need to design a user interface? PSDDD has a lot of free resources to help you. These include web and mobile UI Kits, wireframe templates and UX/style guide templates.
You can also find icon sets, fonts and mockup templates. It searches Dribbble, an online design community of best ui designers who show and share their work, to find reliable, high-quality resources.
Also Read: What Is A Mobile UX/UI Designer
Simple Graphic Design: Canva
If you are not a motion designer, you might feel intimidated by software such as Photoshop or Illustrator. You don't have time to waste on YouTube videos on how to use these programs' features.
Instead, it would be best if you were working on your business plan. Canva may be the answer to your prayers. It describes itself as an "Amazingly Easy Graphic Design Software" and allows you to create web and print designs using a simple drag & drop interface.
It's also free.
Simple Image Editing: Pixlr
Photoshop is overkill if you only want to do simple image editing. It can be a hassle in terms of cost and learning curve.
Pixlr is a free, easy-to-use program that can do most of what you want. Although its interface is very similar to Photoshop, it is run in a web browser. It has powerful features, including blending mode, masks, layers, styles, curves and levels.
Simple Typography: Whatthefont
Inexperience in selecting fonts? You can cheat by using fonts that others have already used. If you're interested in a particular font, you can easily find its name using the WhatTheFont web app.
It will suggest the closest font if it cannot find the exact one you want.
Squarespace: Simple Website Creation
It can be a daunting task to build a website if you are not familiar with web design. Squarespace makes the process easy.
Squarespace is a site-building tool that's aimed directly at creatives. It allows you to build a high-quality website quickly and without coding experience. It's ideal for startups where "Launch quickly and often" is the common mantra.
Squarespace is not free, but the costs are ridiculously low compared to hiring an expert web designer. You can also try it out for free before buying.
Simple App Prototyping: Invision
You don't need a finished app to present to investors if you want to pitch an idea. But you will need a working prototype showing how the app will function when fully developed.
Invision is our favorite tool for this. This free prototyping tool, used by Disney, IBM, Apple, and Verizon, allows you to drag and drop your designs into interactive prototypes.
UX Archive: Help With UX Workflows
Unsure of how your app should function? Are you having trouble deciding on the best user flows? Many UX pattern libraries on the web bring together user flows from successful apps.
These can be used to inform and inspire your own. The UX Archive is our favorite, as it groups user flows by tasks like 'Booking,' 'Getting Directions', and 'Logging In'.
When All Else Fails, 99 Designs
You may need to hire a freelance designer for a specific project. 99 Designs is a great way to get a custom logo, T-shirt or website created for you if you don't want to hire a full-time graphic designer.
This is a contest website, so you can submit a brief to the site and select your prize value. Creatives from around the globe then submit their entries for the contest. Then you choose a winner to receive the prize.
99 Designs claims that you will have 30 logo designs to choose between for the lowest price of PS229 in order to design a logo.
You get what you paid for, and the quality will not be as good as a professional designer's. It's a good option for those who can't afford to hire a senior designer or design the piece themselves.
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Tools To Make Your Startup Accessible
- You may start your first business out of your home. You can also rent space in a startup incubator for a few days each week. It's scary to put your cell number online for the whole world to see, but customers need to be able to contact you. Email isn't always an option. Many experts used Grasshopper to obtain an 800 number to make his company more accessible. They can provide a toll-free number to their customers and transfer calls to other cell phones to ensure that the customer can reach who they are looking for.
- Skype may seem obvious, but it is essential for startups. Skype is great for many reasons (it's easy to operate, free, and allows international calls), but our favorite feature is the ability to screen-share. Screen sharing can be a great way to communicate, whether you're giving an important presentation, showing a colleague something new or guiding them through a difficult problem.
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When Is It Time To Hire A Designer?
Every day without this vital team member, you feel an acute sense of urgency. You don't understand why your product prototypes aren't right.
You may have met your initial milestones with or without a designer. However, you realize that you need a streamlined product and a brand of the highest quality to continue your business' growth.
It's not about if but when you will bring a digital designer to your team.
Setting a universal time frame for hiring your first designer is impossible. Every company is different, from the founders to the most urgent needs.
Blake Reary has worked as a first designer at RelateIQ, now SalesforceIQ, and Mode Analytics. There's the type of business, type of product, and who the founders and their product and design sense are.
A design hire early on can help you make decisions about your foundation if you do not have the necessary design expertise in your team.
If you already have design expertise in your team, you may be able to wait longer to hire ui designer. A first designer can help you to move more quickly and produce better work.
Who Is The Right Person For The Job Position?
Anyone who has worked in a fast-paced, ambiguous startup environment knows that the skill sets required for success differ from those needed at more mature companies.
It is especially true if this is their first hiring in that discipline. You can learn a lot about candidates' motivations by observing their previous work and talking to them.
- Entrepreneurial Many qualities that make successful entrepreneurs are also valuable for your first employees. Look for resourceful designers, willing to try new things and excited by the thought of creating something from nothing. These qualities are often evident in designers who have self-initiated their projects. They've had to think about whether there is an audience for the product they're creating. Answering these questions shows they understand what it takes to start a business.
- First, designers are more than just designers. Stephanie Engle explains that a first designer is a "change-maker" responsible for establishing the internal design processes. Experts say, "You have to establish a culture of design so you can hire more designers. Designers interested in joining the company will want to know if there's buy-in for design."
Many early hires and founders have described the same traits of those team members that had a large impact. As a Designer Fund Advisor, they advise early-stage founders to look for designers with "curiosity and motivation" and "humility".
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What Kind Of Designer Should A Designer Be?
Imagine that you have hired a designer who is already a team member. What are their key deliverables? What design skills are required to deliver these deliverables and bring maximum value to our users? For example, do you need clear and intuitive UX to solve a technical problem? You may be looking for a unique brand that stands out on the market.
Or you could do something completely different.
You have many different design requirements when you want to get your product on the market or in the hands of consumers.
It is important to have a designer with diverse expertise. You'll want a designer who can handle these large projects from beginning to end or a generalist if you have only one person to hire.
A generalist is a designer who has the experience and knowledge to master each phase of the process. Generalists are not likely to be experts in every design area.
Still, their interests and aptitude will allow them to dig deeper into certain parts of the design process. The skills of generalists will vary. They can, for example, work on the core product flows, conduct user research to understand the audience better, or design the pitch deck you need to get your next round of funding.
Generalists
- Efficient: A single person can easily transition from stage to stage and iterate.
- Adaptable: They can be used for any design problem you may have, including those you do not know enough about. This person can adapt if your company's design needs to change in the future.
- Autonomous: Because generalists are familiar with various design disciplines and design trends, they can prioritize their efforts while working autonomously. They also know the requirements beyond their capabilities so that they can hire and manage contract support.
Remember
The work of generalists may have to be redone in the future. Your first designer can help you reach many milestones in your early stages: a public beta product, early customer acquisition etc.
This early work may need to be revisited and sometimes redone. Consider the ego of your first designer and their pride in being an author if you want them to be successful. Look for someone who has a collaborative nature and is willing to share past experiences with future colleagues.
Who will be the ones who will inevitably reimagine early contributions from the first designer?
The generalist is not a specialist in every design discipline. Generalists can handle design projects from start to finish, but they won't produce the best work in all areas.
It would be best if you ensured that their strengths match what you require for your core product and your team's skills. As your team grows, you will likely need to hire specialists for specific projects.
Consider hiring an expert for your first designer in certain scenarios. A specialist designer has a deep understanding of a particular design area.
It's misleading because, for many startups, design refers to digital product design with the digital design. This includes a variety of specializations, including research, UX and UI, interaction design, front-end engineering and brand.
There is a lot of overlap between these specializations, and it's rare to find designers specializing in User experience design. Most (digital product) designers can run the entire design process. A specialist can go deeper into one part.
Hire a specialist to be your first designer if you feel that a certain design deliverable is so important to the success of your business that it is worth prioritizing.
You may also need to hire someone with deep domain knowledge, like an industrial designer working on a hardware product. You may need to hire a designer with specific skills, such as those in gaming, mobile, AR, VR and other tech platforms.
Specialists
- Innovative: The domain experts bring their expertise to the field, which can be especially useful when looking to innovate and set yourself apart from your competition.
- Focused: Specialists maintain their focus without the need to switch contexts constantly. Specialists may deliver fewer projects than generalists who can handle more work concurrently. Still, their projects will be of higher quality.
- Process-led: They will be more knowledgeable about their field of expertise than other team members. This means that they can lead the process. They will need guidance to manage other dependencies and prioritize tasks if they don't have a broad understanding of the work happening simultaneously.
Final Thoughts: How To Get Your Startup Off The Ground
Startups can be a difficult business. Many entrepreneurs, even those who become successful, wonder at first why they decided to start their businesses.
They had times when they wanted to give up. They stuck it out. Entrepreneurs enjoy running their businesses, for better or worse. Solving problems for others comes naturally.
Remember the advice given here for entrepreneurs when you find yourself struggling to stay motivated. An expert advised us to stay true to ourselves and our goals.
You can hire ui designers who are smarter than you and share your vision if you feel burned out.
Yahir, a certified C#.net Web Developer, offers a decade of experience in creating dynamic, high-performance web applications
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