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Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#11

Post by blowski »

I really struggle with design, so one of the main challenges I have launching any product is the UI.

But I've been promised these things in the past, and wasted money on them. 99 Designs, Freelancer, ThemeForest (including asking the theme developer for customisations). I've tried them all, and they've never worked. So I approach this fairly sceptically.

But I'd love to see it work.

Usually the biggest problem is not the up-front design - there are some lovely ones out there. It's "how do I map this solution for this problem into a UI that makes sense?". And I can't imagine how you systematise that, but it would be amazing if you could.

Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#12

Post by alexray »

blowski wrote: post #11

I really struggle with design, so one of the main challenges I have launching any product is the UI. But I've been promised these things in the past, and wasted money on them. 99 Designs, Freelancer, ThemeForest (including asking the theme developer for customisations). I've tried them all, and they've never worked. So I approach this fairly sceptically. But I'd love to see it work. Usually the biggest problem is not…

Yeah, UI design is tricky. We haven't solved that yet, but would love to in the long run.

Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#14

Post by alexray »

bobberkarl wrote: post #13

Alwx, this is a huge pain point . Is your tool generating a css file that i can reuse for the webapp itself?

We're not yet, but we've explored it a bit. It seems like a great idea. We want to figure out a good way to make it work with a lot of the common frontend toolkits.

Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#15

Post by candiddevmike »

I like this a lot, I went through it and generated some assets. I ran into a couple of issues though:

- I don't trust myself picking colors, fonts, etc, and I'm worried that when I go to buy a UI template or whatever my terrible decision for colors won't be "fixed". I'd much rather pay you to go through this with me based on my inputs and trust your expertise.

- For typography, do people really use custom typography? Not only does it add bloat to your bundles, it seems defaulting to the system UI provides a better UX?

- For colors, I really want an entire palette for both light and dark mode. I don't see an option for dark mode at all, is this possible?

- I was worried your pricing would be obscene since you can't get to it without going through the process, but it's actually very reasonable. I think you should let people know up front what the pricing is, don't be afraid of showing it.

Great idea though!!

Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#16

Post by easton »

This is really cool. I'm bad at making anything look good, so the more things like this the better.

I noticed you had Google Slides support (presumably for making themes based on the generated brand kit). Any chance of that coming to PowerPoint too? Making PowerPoint themes by hand is the worst, so anything to alleviate that would be welcome.

Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#18

Post by swyx »

very cool! what can you disclose about plans for pricing model/revenue? first thing i look for in any startup that I'm about to try/evangelize. i see that "there's no subscription" in the FAQ - so you're like an asset marketplace?

suggestion - dont make me signup just to try you out - see if you can bring out at least part of your process from behind your login wall.

Re: Launch HN: Parade (YC S20) – Launch your company without hiring a designer

#19

Post by mitchdoogle »

artembugara wrote: post #4
artembugara wrote: post #3

I think you nailed a big problem. My co-founder and I were 2 engineers when we started our bootstrapped venture. One thing I knew for sure: our "design taste" is awful. It took me one full day to find a website builder that would have pre-built options of design. I found Landen (now called Umso: https://www.umso.com/ ) Our website ( https://newscatcherapi.com/ ) is still on Umso, and I'm happy with it. However, fonts…

One thing to add for the first-time founders: Your customer problem understanding has to be great. Your product has to solve a problem. These things cannot be neglected. But, your design, logo, fonts can be awful, so do not spend time/money/efforts on that when you just begin. Use product like Parade and start solving a problem. No one will care about your design as long as you solve a problem, but NOT the other way…

I tend to view design as a signal of legitimacy and competence. Whether it's a website, or a brick and mortar establishment, I will leave if it looks like no attention was given to the way things look.
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