Last week, our friends at The Designer Fund (disclosure: we are investors) moved the needle again to bring design to the forefront of the startup experience. Some might argue that design has always been at the forefront of startup which is true for some. By our observations, there is a shortage of true startup designers. True startup designers are versed in user research (customer development), information architecture (IA), interaction design (IxD), visual design, and storytelling (copy writing and messaging). They also possess back-end skills and have a thorough understanding of the technology stack that the product is being built on. Just as importantly, they get the big picture and realize that user experiences are built around business models as well, including marketing, distribution, customer support, sales, business development and operations. We interact with founders in and out of our portfolio everyday. Top of mind for them, is building a better product/customer experience. However, they struggle with finding and hiring true startup designers. Mainly because these designers are scarce, either they don’t posses the total skill-set they’re seeking, or they are too risk-adversed to take the leap into startup.

We also hear the other side of the argument where building design into the product before proving value is premature. That makes no sense. This point of view says that design isn’t part of the value creation. There are many companies that built around experiences first in order to provide value to an existing or nascent market (Mint, Instagram, Tumblr, Path, Vimeo, Pinterest, Etsy, and Flipboard to name a few). When we invested in The Designer Fund, their value prop was very easy for us to understand:

1. Create awareness in designers that, for them to take their value to the next level, they must posses the right mix of skills to add value to a startup. And when they get that bench depth, they’re ready to make that leap into startup.
2. Help them start their own companies or help pair them with the right startup who is desperately looking for a startup designer (as 90% of them are)

Did you know that billions of dollars worth of value have been created by tech startups with designer co-founders? Check out this interactive infographic from The Designer Fund which is a great step to amplify the impact of designers with various backgrounds in the context of early-stage tech startups. As they, we, and many others unpack this new thesis, they’re also getting out of the building to interview every designer founder they can find who’s made a venture-backed tech startup. The collection of interviews will be published as a non-profit book (called Designer Founders) that will be free for students with the goal to synthesize reoccurring patterns and lessons to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurial designers.

The bottom-line, The Designer Fund is helping to foster a more frictionless environment for founders to recruit or find startup designers, or for designers themselves to start their own companies. Amen to that!

User-centered design for the agile process is creating a new generation of startups. Design is no longer considered tactical in startup. Instead, it is recognized as a strategic component of the startup process by the tech mainstream. While it’s generally been strategic, it’s only recently that the perception has caught up with the reality (consider Apple, IDEO, Target, Design Within Reach & Coca Cola). This new breed is whole-minded; leveraging the right brain to create experiences and the left to analyze the experiential data in order to iterate and improve.

Today’s startup designers are not just building visuals in Photoshop or Fireworks anymore. They are experts in user research (customer development), information architecture (IA), interaction design (IxD), visual design and storytelling (copy writing and messaging). They also posses back-end skills and have a thorough understanding of the technology stack that the product is being built on. Just as importantly, they get the big picture and realize that user experiences are built around business models as well including marketing, distribution, customer support, sales, business development and operations.

At Venture51, we’re high-centered on design/user experience-driven startups. Part of the core strategy is to align with the best design founders globally and expose their expertise to this unique opportunity in the high-tech startup ecosystem. It’s not a matter of if or even when these changes will take off; it’s here now, and for the foreseeable future we are betting big on this design-driven thesis. This new frontier creates a competitive edge we like to refer to as the Unfair Design Advantage.

To support our design-driven thesis, we recently made an investment in The Designer Fund. The Designer Fund is a community of designers who invest in designer founders through mentorship, angel funding, and access to our network. Enrique Allen (the Designer Fund Founder) has compiled an exceptional group of investors/mentors like 500 Startups, YC , i/o Ventures, AngelPad, Google Ventures Startup Lab, Rock Health, WebFWD, Kapor Capital, Harrison Metal, SoftTech VC, Quest VP, KPCB, Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures. We are honored to be considered as part of this founding group, but even more excited to help drive this design thesis into the startup fabric of tomorrow.

Portfolio company ecomom shared the first in a series of infographics on news that may shock, anger, and/or affirm beliefs that you’ve held thus far about conventional products in your home with the data visualization masters over at Column Five.

Here’s the Surprise Toxins In Your Home:

Portfolio company InboxQ analyzed millions of Twitter user profiles and spun up an Infographic with the data visualization masters over at Column Five.

Here’s America According to twitter. Oh yah, the Bird City (home to Venture51) made it!

We are pleased to announce the creation of our new fund, aimed purely at investing in the best new startups in the Information Technology space. Our focus is on the seed- and early-stages where we’ll provide initial funding ranging from $51K to $500K.

We’re very excited to announce our first portfolio companies. Since our closing we’ve made 7 investments. They are:

1. Graphic.ly
2. EcoMom
3. Life360
4. WebMynd
5. InboxQ
6. Daily Worth
7. Etoro

Along with partnering with great companies we’re also investing in promising, like-minded funds. This strengthens our investment platform by leveraging due diligence and improving access. READ MORE »