As a founder or early employee at a SaaS startup, design decisions can make or break your product adoption and growth trajectory. Yet most startups struggle with when to invest in design, who to hire, and how to evolve their design practice as they scale. Drawing from experience leading research and design at Fuego UX, this session unpacks practical frameworks for implementing effective design processes at each stage of your startup journey.
We'll walk through the essential design milestones that align with your funding rounds and business goals - from DIY design in the earliest days to building sophisticated design systems as you scale. You'll learn when to hire your first designer, how to leverage fractional design talent, and when to build an in-house team. We'll explore practical methods for sharing and testing designs with real users, documenting feedback, and transforming insights into actionable product improvements.
For founders without design backgrounds, you'll gain actionable strategies to develop your design intuition and vocabulary, helping you make informed decisions even before you can afford dedicated design talent. For technical teams, we'll cover collaboration models that integrate design thinking throughout your development process.
By the end of this session, you'll walk away with:
A stage-appropriate design roadmap aligned with your current growth phase * Hiring guidelines for design talent based on your product maturity * Simple but effective user testing methods that won't break your budget * Strategies to evolve your design system as your product grows * Frameworks for cross-functional collaboration around design
Bring your specific design challenges for the Q&A portion, where we'll tackle real examples from the audience.
