In this episode of Ventures, designer/developer Perry Azevedo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/perryazevedo/) and I discuss the importance of a co-founder team having product and design capabilities, the important nuances between “product” and “design”, examples from products that Perry and I have built together, and the future of UX design in the era of low-code/no-code applications.

You can watch this episode below or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts (search for “Ventures”).

In this episode we cover the following:

1:43 - Perry introduction. From “Webmaster” to designer/developer over the last few decades.

10:31 - Going back to when Perry was first in his government job, from an education standpoint, what was “design” and “tooling” for the web back then in the late 90s?

14:30 - How did Perry’s understanding and development of the design/development craft from Perry’s experience in formal education?

18:56 - In startup land, there is typically a business person, a technical person, and ideally a product/design person -- i.e. a Hustler, Hacker, and Hipster. What is Perry’s advice for Business/Technical founders looking for Product/Design help?

24:04 - What should the business and technical person be aware of when picking a co-founder - and if they had to lean one way or another, which way should they lean?

26:53 - A word of caution to business/technical people out there (hint: you probably aren’t very good product people).

30:40 - Walking through product examples and the Design/Product: VendorHawk https://www.geekwire.com/2018/servicenow-snaps-vendorhawk-help-customers-manage-saas-spending/ 

35:35 - Another example of a product that Perry and Will built: https://www.startuprocket.com/ 

39:50 - The story behind the hexagon logo for Startup Rocket - and the story behind logos in general.

41:22 - More about the history and founding story of Startup Rocket

41:56 - What is the next stage of learning for Perry as a world-class designer? (No-code/low-code; we may not need to write code anymore soon)

45:41 - Going from design to coding up a product - are there any downsides to this personally for Perry?

48:51 - The “T” analogy for people; how founders should identify people to fill out their team.

49:50 - Where can people find Perry online? @perryazevedo on the socials, or go directly to https://www.protaventures.com