SAN FRANCISCO–While startups are often on the lookout for new engineering talent, renowned hardware designer Yves Behar said that they need to place a similar priority on finding good designers.
As the founder and CEO of fuseproject, Behar partners with startups, like Maveron-backed home automation startup August, to take their designs to the next level. The way he sees it, more startups need to spend a similar amount of effort bringing designers onto their team.
“You need to surround yourself with the best possible talent,” said Behar, speaking today at the Launch Festival in San Francisco.
He’s speaking as someone who has built a notable career out of making well-designed products that go on to do very well. His design work at Jawbone, where he serves as the company’s Chief Creative Officer, gave its Bluetooth headsets and speakers an iconic look, and he recently designed One Laptop Per Child’s new XO tablet, which is designed to be the next evolution of the organization’s popular low-cost laptop.
While founders have told Behar about learning design tools in a couple of months, he said that they’re not nearly as comfortable doing the same thing when it comes to engineering talent. At a time when design has become a key part of product development, founders don’t have a choice to skimp on design. Especially as more companies start turning towards hardware and the Internet of things, he said it’s important to get things right the first time.
“There’s no beta on hardware,” Behar said. “You only have a single chance to wow people in order to convince them to keep it and you should put everything in your corner to get to that point.”
