WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#2Interesting fact: Mike Moritz was a journalist for many years before Sequoia.
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#3This article is really asking: Why haven't more designers become VCs and Angel Investors? He does a pretty nice job of answering this question.
I hire a lot of talented graphic design interns. We encourage them to think: "What skills can I learn to make myself more valuable?" The answer I always tell them is hacking. A suprisingly large amount of them don't know much about the hacker / startup world. They don't realize that being an awesome designer and an awesome developer could make them all-powerful.
This holds particularly true when thinking about this article's final point regarding "me-too products".
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#4BVP has a designer in residence.
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#5Did he miss intrinsic motivation? VC seems less related to what designers like to do and think about.
People often do tech work in order to build big things and make money, and VCs are right there in that game. Many engineers and programmers I've known speak of people who made a lot of money in the industry, and sometimes reference how they did things.
I don't recall that mindset in designers. They've far more often been pointing at some (anonymous) beautiful work or speaking about how great somebody's body of work is.. but personal profit isn't amongst the qualities mentioned. Market success is pretty rare too, and usually more related to the "clients don't know what they need, have no taste, are creatively barren, and have to be worked on/around" theme.
From my experience, I'd expect designers to be far more likely to end in groups supporting the arts rather than groups investing in tech.
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#6As a graphic designer, I hope to be an exception to this observation. Just give me a few years.
On a less personal note, it's pretty rare that you will find a designer who is also interested in tech startups or business in general. As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time reading industry blogs and such, you simply don't see that much cross over between the two. Which is surprising considering how business-minded a good designer has to be, both in the way they understand and interpret their client's problems, and in the inevitable challenges that come with running your own shop.
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#7The biggest problem with current design schools is that they completely focus on print design. When I was studying for my bachelor in design there weren't any interactive design course until the 4th year.
It was also the only web design course that year.
And it focused entirely on Flash.
Is it really such a big surprise that when designers graduate most of them go into print? The ones that do go into web design has this Flash baggage they need to overcome and forget. For proof of this just take a look at print designer's portfolios, they are mostly made in Flash and have terrible UX.
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#8Why isn't the answer to this question simply the bill rate of graphic designers? A standard web design project runs 10k-20k. A standard dev project runs 20k-100k. Also: the Internet is lousy with designers. Scarcity isn't the reason.
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#9As a graphic designer, I hope to be an exception to this observation. Just give me a few years. On a less personal note, it's pretty rare that you will find a designer who is also interested in tech startups or business in general. As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time reading industry blogs and such, you simply don't see that much cross over between the two. Which is surprising considering how business-…
Any industry blogs you'd recommend? I've got my share of tech blogs, but would love find some new hidden gems for design (especially interaction design).
Re: WHY aren't there more consumer Internet VCs w/ graphic design skills?
#10The biggest problem with current design schools is that they completely focus on print design. When I was studying for my bachelor in design there weren't any interactive design course until the 4th year. It was also the only web design course that year. And it focused entirely on Flash. Is it really such a big surprise that when designers graduate most of them go into print? The ones that do go into web design has t…
A part of the issue here is that most design schools require a Masters degree from their teaching staff, which flies in the face of working with talent in new media fields.
I spoke with the Chair of the design department at a decent school about this recently, and they basically had no intention of changing their policies on this.