Screw that. What founders and entrepreneurs should really do is learn how to build a great, usable, useful product. And that means learning the fundamentals of research and design.
Don't believe me? Here are 10 reasons you should learn to be your own UX designer (or at least learn enough about UX design to fake it).
- You can't build a great product if you don't know what problem it solves for which people. UX design and research helps you figure that out.
- The only thing harder to find than a great designer is a unicorn.
- It is almost impossible to judge somebody else's UX design skills unless you have designed things yourself.
- The only thing more expensive than a great designer is a faberge egg. Sitting on top of a unicorn.
- It's much easier to manage somebody who is doing a job you truly understand.
- Jason Putorti already has a job.
- UX design is a team sport. You don't want to get picked last for the team, do you?
- You have a million fabulous feature ideas. It's easiest to communicate them to your team and customers through design.
- You should already understand your product and users better than anybody else. This just takes it to the next logical step.
- Adding extra people to the Build>Measure>Learn loop does not make it faster.
Convinced? Great! First, share this list with people!
Now, here's a book to help you learn how to do enough user research and design to get your product into the hands of people who want to buy it.
It's called UX for Lean Startups. It's by me. It will help you learn how to build great products. I promise.