We’ve learned a lot at Aesthetic about how early stage companies can best leverage design to become more valuable. We’re excited to share our learnings from working with 100+ companies over the last 18 months. We hope this will be helpful to the entire startup community, especially founders that are just getting started on their journey and are new to design.Design: One size does not fit allDesign is a highly diverse discipline, with dozens of different fields and specialties. Similar to soft...

We’ve learned a lot at Aesthetic about how early stage companies can best leverage design to become more valuable. We’re excited to share our learnings from working with 100+ companies over the last 18 months. We hope this will be helpful to the entire startup community, especially founders that are just getting started on their journey and are new to design.Design: One size does not fit allDesign is a highly diverse discipline, with dozens of different fields and specialties. Similar to soft...

When Snapchat launched Stories in October 2013, no one could have anticipated the ripple effect this would have across the software ecosystem. In the 7-years since its launch, every major consumer internet company has adopted its own flavor of Stories to give its users that familiar, lean back content consumption experience that they’ve grown accustomed to. Even though there’s no singular app that has monopolized consumer attention, it’s clear that the Story content format is the real winner ...

When Snapchat launched Stories in October 2013, no one could have anticipated the ripple effect this would have across the software ecosystem. In the 7-years since its launch, every major consumer internet company has adopted its own flavor of Stories to give its users that familiar, lean back content consumption experience that they’ve grown accustomed to. Even though there’s no singular app that has monopolized consumer attention, it’s clear that the Story content format is the real winner ...

The next wave of $1B+ crypto companies will disrupt incumbents by keeping an existing consumer experience in web2 while rebuilding its back office in web3. Disruptive technologies create transformative business models when they enable a 10x better consumer experience (ie, Netflix with streaming tech vs. going to Blockbuster) or a 10x cheaper back office (ie, Instacart with mobile tech vs operating a grocery store). Today, the blockchain is arguably a 10x+ worse consumer experience for anyone ...

The next wave of $1B+ crypto companies will disrupt incumbents by keeping an existing consumer experience in web2 while rebuilding its back office in web3. Disruptive technologies create transformative business models when they enable a 10x better consumer experience (ie, Netflix with streaming tech vs. going to Blockbuster) or a 10x cheaper back office (ie, Instacart with mobile tech vs operating a grocery store). Today, the blockchain is arguably a 10x+ worse consumer experience for anyone ...

When mobile apps entered the scene in the early 2010s, sensationalist industry pundits exclaimed, “the web is dead!”. A large debate ensued about the role of the web and native apps, and people loved talking about which one would prevail. A decade later it’s clear that the answer is, “both”. It turns out, they weren’t competing in a zero sum game. With social media’s rise, we’re now in round 2 of the, “web is dead” argument. There’s a whole new generation of internet users for whom the intern...

When mobile apps entered the scene in the early 2010s, sensationalist industry pundits exclaimed, “the web is dead!”. A large debate ensued about the role of the web and native apps, and people loved talking about which one would prevail. A decade later it’s clear that the answer is, “both”. It turns out, they weren’t competing in a zero sum game. With social media’s rise, we’re now in round 2 of the, “web is dead” argument. There’s a whole new generation of internet users for whom the intern...

For the least few years I’ve written out my own tech industry predictions, but I’ve never been bold enough to publish them externally. After spending the last 9 months going down the web3 rabbit hole, I thought it’d be worthwhile to call out 5 ways I think web3 will influence the software industry in 2022:At least 2 of the top 10 projects on OpenSea will be powered by on-chain SVGs.Most NFTs’ image assets live off-chain using something like IPFS. While this makes sense in many cases where the...

For the least few years I’ve written out my own tech industry predictions, but I’ve never been bold enough to publish them externally. After spending the last 9 months going down the web3 rabbit hole, I thought it’d be worthwhile to call out 5 ways I think web3 will influence the software industry in 2022:At least 2 of the top 10 projects on OpenSea will be powered by on-chain SVGs.Most NFTs’ image assets live off-chain using something like IPFS. While this makes sense in many cases where the...

Originally published May 24th, 2015 In URX’s first 2 years, we grew from 4 co-founders to a 20-person engineering, product and business team. With this growth, many of our internal processes and communication channels broke. It didn’t feel like we were moving as fast as we were before, and it took longer to get everyone on the same page.How can we grow startups as efficiently as living organisms?After analyzing our current processes, I came up with a new set of tenets that guide how I operate...

Originally published May 24th, 2015 In URX’s first 2 years, we grew from 4 co-founders to a 20-person engineering, product and business team. With this growth, many of our internal processes and communication channels broke. It didn’t feel like we were moving as fast as we were before, and it took longer to get everyone on the same page.How can we grow startups as efficiently as living organisms?After analyzing our current processes, I came up with a new set of tenets that guide how I operate...

On May 2, 2016, we announced Pinterest’s acquisition of URX and began the next step in our journey. In that moment it was hard to comprehend how different this chapter would be from the one before it, and I’m grateful that I’ve gained some of this perspective in the first year being, “on the other side”. In short- my biggest learning about product strategy from URX is the importance of aligning your vision with your business model. As with so many things in life, there’s a big difference betw...

On May 2, 2016, we announced Pinterest’s acquisition of URX and began the next step in our journey. In that moment it was hard to comprehend how different this chapter would be from the one before it, and I’m grateful that I’ve gained some of this perspective in the first year being, “on the other side”. In short- my biggest learning about product strategy from URX is the importance of aligning your vision with your business model. As with so many things in life, there’s a big difference betw...

As a startup founder, it's mission critical to know what decisions you should make quickly, and which you should make slowly. It's common to think that at the earliest stage your approach should be to, "move fast and break things", but not only did Facebook ditch that approach, there's mounting evidence that it was never a good idea in the first place. Going into 2020 I was familiar with Jeff Bezos' Type 1 / Type 2 decision making framework, but I was less sure about how t...

As a startup founder, it's mission critical to know what decisions you should make quickly, and which you should make slowly. It's common to think that at the earliest stage your approach should be to, "move fast and break things", but not only did Facebook ditch that approach, there's mounting evidence that it was never a good idea in the first place. Going into 2020 I was familiar with Jeff Bezos' Type 1 / Type 2 decision making framework, but I was less sure about how t...

Spring has sprung, and the smell of fresh YC applications is in the air. It’s that special time that happens twice a year where thousands of budding entrepreneurs vie for a spot in the upcoming Y Combinator class. For those among you who are preparing for your interviews over the next few days, I wanted to share some of the best practices that helped Andrew, Nate, James and me pass our interview and earn URX’s place in the Summer 2013 batch.Quick, concise answers are keyEach interview lasts a...

Spring has sprung, and the smell of fresh YC applications is in the air. It’s that special time that happens twice a year where thousands of budding entrepreneurs vie for a spot in the upcoming Y Combinator class. For those among you who are preparing for your interviews over the next few days, I wanted to share some of the best practices that helped Andrew, Nate, James and me pass our interview and earn URX’s place in the Summer 2013 batch.Quick, concise answers are keyEach interview lasts a...

Crypto Mullets are the next wave of multibillion dollar web3 companies, and one way they’ll come to market is through on chain conglomerates powered by annuity-bearing NFTs. Traditional conglomerates are, “a combination of multiple business entities operating in entirely different industries under one corporate group, usually involving a parent company and many subsidiaries” (source). I believe this same model will come to fruition on chain to fund and create niche DAOs that generate on chain...

Crypto Mullets are the next wave of multibillion dollar web3 companies, and one way they’ll come to market is through on chain conglomerates powered by annuity-bearing NFTs. Traditional conglomerates are, “a combination of multiple business entities operating in entirely different industries under one corporate group, usually involving a parent company and many subsidiaries” (source). I believe this same model will come to fruition on chain to fund and create niche DAOs that generate on chain...

Natural language is the new interface for the web, and in 2023 I predict we will see it become increasingly prevalent across many of the tools and software that we use every day. From virtual assistants and chatbots to general purpose search products and creative tools with sophisticated editors, we will see a wide swatch of existing and new use cases for natural language interfaces (“NLIs”) not dissimilar to the wave of new mobile interfaces we saw in 2008 after the App Store was introduced....

Natural language is the new interface for the web, and in 2023 I predict we will see it become increasingly prevalent across many of the tools and software that we use every day. From virtual assistants and chatbots to general purpose search products and creative tools with sophisticated editors, we will see a wide swatch of existing and new use cases for natural language interfaces (“NLIs”) not dissimilar to the wave of new mobile interfaces we saw in 2008 after the App Store was introduced....

People consume more digital content than ever before across a wider number of discovery surfaces, and tools for content creation continue to make it easier to express your creativity: whether it’s a blog post, a podcast, a video or a photo, new tools make it easier to create and distribute content than ever before. However, the same bottleneck still remains: time. How much time we have to invest into content creation is, and will always be, the limiting factor for content creators. With a lim...

People consume more digital content than ever before across a wider number of discovery surfaces, and tools for content creation continue to make it easier to express your creativity: whether it’s a blog post, a podcast, a video or a photo, new tools make it easier to create and distribute content than ever before. However, the same bottleneck still remains: time. How much time we have to invest into content creation is, and will always be, the limiting factor for content creators. With a lim...