I’ve talked to several startups who have an amazing, well thought out product that simply works better than the competition. These products range from web apps to robots – but the core team is continuously thinking about end user experience. Design is the lifeblood of these companies.
What’s funny is that many of these companies have an issue when it comes to raising capital. Their product is well received, they have paying customers, they have a strong team, but at the end of the day – the investor is struggling to add capital because “their tech isn’t defensible.” The investors think that these ideas can be duplicated because the design can be copied. Design is an afterthought, and it’s not a core need. Defensible tech should be the focus.
But why is that…?
I believe that tech replicated as easily as design. If you get enough intelligent people in a room with sufficient capital, you can rebuild any impressive technical feature just as you can duplicate the design. We do, after all, live in a time where patents are virtually useless to a majority of early-stage companies.
But… if Airpods, iPads, and iPods have taught us anything, it’s that design is just as much of a strong defense as the core technology. The story iPods taking over the MP3 space is legendary at this point. Apple made a fantastic leap forward in the ease of downloading and listening to music. Yet – they did not invent the MP3 format. Nor did they create a revolutionary peer to peer sharing system or breakthrough chip technology.
All they did was make listening to music easier than it ever was before.
Airpods are lauded as the greatest thing since sliced bread. And yet they are just overpriced, bluetooth headphones. A technology that is 20 years old, and can be bought for $15 off amazon.
But they made the process of connecting into your phone more accessible than ever before.
I’m not saying that startups should equate themselves directly to Apple or other tech giants in the early stages. A case for “design worked for Apple so it should work for me,” isn’t a strong case to make. But – it’s been proven time and time again that people pay a premium for the best-designed things. And if a team can consistently stay ahead of the game on design, this is a defensible strategy.