Design partners
Nothing counts until someone commits.
A commitment is a person who wants what you are making enough to help you make it. Some founders turn those people into a round. Others turn them into revenue. Product teams turn them into a decision to scale. Either way it comes first, and this page is how you get there.
What a design partner is
- A user
- tries what you built
- A lead
- said it sounded interesting
- A signup
- is waiting to be shown
- A design partner
- tells you what to build next
Rule of thumb: most founders need five to ten design partners. A product team usually starts smaller, with a few named customers or stakeholders, and widens as the evidence builds.
A trade that pays both sides.
They give you
- Time, on a schedule you both keep.
- Honest reactions instead of polite ones.
- The problem as they actually live it.
- The right to tell you it is wrong while it is cheap to hear.
They get
- The product shaped around their problem, months early.
- A say in what gets built and in what order.
- The problem gone.
Founders who ask for it as a favor tend to get a yes and then silence.
Building is cheap now. Getting someone to build it with you is not.
If you have nothing built, the risk is that you build the wrong thing beautifully.
If you have been building for months, the risk is that you already did.
Two ways it plays out
For founders
Your design partners are prospects. They are the people who would pay, use or back what you are making, and they commit before you are finished. Landing them changes what becomes available to you. You stop explaining what you intend to build and start describing who is already waiting for it.
See the founder pathFor product teams
Your design partners are real customers and the stakeholders who own the outcome. They agree to shape each prototype while the work is still cheap to change, so the backlog gets built from evidence and not from opinions. The team learns to run that cycle itself.
See how I work with teamsHow the work runs
Each cycle ends with something in front of your design partners and a decision about what happens next. I run it with ProtoVibing™, my validation method. Coaching is built into the work, so the people doing it are learning the cycle, not watching someone else run it.
About ProtoVibingQuestions people ask
How is that different from a beta user?
A beta user tries the thing you finished. A design partner changes what you finish.
I have not built anything yet. Is it too early?
No, and it is the cheapest moment to find out whether anyone else wants the problem solved.
I have been building for months. Is it too late?
No. Many founders arrive able to ship and carrying one question: is anyone waiting for it.
Should I wait until I have revenue?
No. That is the cycle this is meant to break. Your first paying customer and your first design partner are, in the ordinary case, the same person. Waiting for revenue before getting anyone to commit is waiting for the outcome before doing the thing that produces it.
Do you work with teams inside larger companies?
Yes. The method is the same: one real product taken to people who commit to it, built alongside your team so they can run the next one without me. See For Product Teams.