Carving a path as a creative entrepreneur is becoming very attractive these days. Because as a designer, this means turning our dream product into a dream job. And even though entrepreneurship tends to glorify programmers, the design aspect plays an enormous role in defining the early start up's positioning as well as mitigating potential challenges.
However, as our roles as designer and founder blurs, our priorities can look vastly different from working freelance or at a mature company. Our design works can start to encompass more than the visual aspects, such as cross-disciplinary efforts, marketing & sales, and project management. In fact, if we recall Julie Zhuo's experience as FB's first design intern, many of her tasks (back when FB was an early-stage start up) floated towards organizing and managing teams.
A Closer Look
In LavaLab, we put a lot of focus on building an ecosystem for our talented designers, developers, and product managers to develop into "founders." And more often than not, it means pushing them out of their comfort zones to take risks and develop impactful businesses.
In her LavaLab semester, Sahar Rohani founded Rheya Beauty, a line of environmentally sustainable makeup products. In her interview, Sahar shares her experience in going from idea to reality, and how design played an important role in transforming a team project into a team of founders.