Never Too Early: Building Your First Design Org w/ Sally Carson - podcast episode cover

Never Too Early: Building Your First Design Org w/ Sally Carson

Oct 03, 202418 minEp. 8
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Episode description

In this episode of 'Never Too Early,' Lauren Ipsen, Talent Partner at Decibel, hosts Sally Carson, an experienced design leader with a background at LinkedIn and Duo Security. Together, they explore the top five questions founders have about building their design organizations from scratch. Key topics include the timing and type of first design hires, the roles of product and brand design, introducing user research, and the benefits of hiring generalists versus specialists. Sally also shares her personal experiences and offers practical advice for effectively growing a design team in a startup environment.

00:00 Introduction to Never Too Early

00:19 Meet Sally Carson: Design Leader Extraordinaire

02:05 Diving into Design: Top Questions Answered

02:22 Question One: How should founders think about their first design hire? Sally and Lauren talk about when the right time to invest in design is and what investing in design looks like in the early days.

06:01 Question Two: How important is seniority for your first design hire? What’s the right level? Lauren talks about her own experience hiring designers and how she struggled to find designers for a startup that successfully balanced strategy and execution. Sally also talks through why it might make sense to avoid marquee names like Meta and Google early on.  

09:09 Question Three: Sally discusses how she personally feels that it’s important to invest in product design first, especially before finding PMF. Pouring fire on the brand component and the marketing funnel should come after.

11:02 Question 4: When is the right time to invest in user research? Sally talks about how user research has really moved away from the academic connotation it came with 15 years ago and has become far more pragmatic today. She talks about how the right person in UX can be great to hire sooner rather than later.

14:49 Question 5: Should founders be hiring Specialists early on or Generalists? Sally talks about why she feels it makes sense to introduce specialization later in a company’s growth cycle.

16:59 Sally’s Final Advice for Founders

18:51 Closing Remarks and Contact Information

Want more of Never Too Early? Find us on Tiktok, @nevertooearly1  and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.

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