After investing in multi-billion dollar companies across industries and advising hundreds of design leaders at Designer Fund, one of the biggest opportunities I’ve seen for designers to increase their influence is to demonstrate how their work aligns with the success of the business.

Often as designers, our natural tendency is to emphasize the importance of our craft, instead of focusing on the impact it has on the bottom line. For example, if you approach your manager and propose moving from a static style guide to a component based design system, that sounds expensive. …

As a founder, you need to hire the right people for the right roles to accomplish your business goals. Recruiting is expensive. It comes at the cost of your most valuable resource: time. And when it comes to hiring your first designer, the stakes can feel even higher. This person will give form to concepts that might exist only in your imagination or as a sketch on a whiteboard. Designers have the gift to bring your ideas to life.

The key to finding the right person for the job is to clarify your company’s needs. This guide will help you…

Nearly every startup needs creative help at some point in their lifecycle — often during key inflection points, such as raising funds, up-leveling into a new market, or communicating who they are to the world for the very first time. Freelancers, studios, and agencies can also be more than just an extra pair of hands; they can be strategic thought partners, helping you create work that is core to your business.

At Designer Fund, we have seen many productive, inspiring pairings between our portfolio companies and their external creative partners. …

Design critiques are an essential part of the design process. If run effectively, critiques can elevate a team’s work and contribute to a team culture of trust and collaboration. Continuing to make effective use of this time can be challenging as organizations grow and responsibilities shift. We spoke with design leaders at Facebook, Asana, and Medium to learn how they’ve maintained a productive critique process over time. Although there is no one-size-fits-all model, their insights provide a great blueprint for any growing design team.

The impact of design is notoriously difficult to measure. We know intuitively that great design leads to great products, and understand that it can influence business success in a multitude of ways, from strategy to market expansion to brand expression. For many of us, this alone can be strong justification to invest in the discipline even in the absence of success metrics.

“Most of us as design leaders have come up practicing craft. We idolize well-designed products and form opinions about what makes a good experience,” said Brian Beaver, Eventbrite’s VP of Design. “If you think about the genesis of…

There are countless books, seminars, conferences, and programs to teach you about business leadership, but design leadership requires an entirely different skill set and is not nearly as well documented. It can take years to master the management complexities at the intersection of business and creativity, but many design leaders are forced to learn on the job. To shorten the learning curve, we’ve gathered some unique insights from top managers and design leads to help you become a better design leader.

A design team with an excellent job leveling system has an easier time retaining the designers they worked so hard to hire.

Practically speaking, leveling can be directly tied to career path, job titles, salary bands, and how valued an employee feels. And more broadly, it supports the everyday expression of company values, which provides the intrinsic motivation and purpose necessary for an individual to feel fulfilled by their work.

The main purposes of leveling are to:

• Clarify roles and responsibilities for more efficient collaboration within the design team and among company departments.
• Create an environment of growth where designers are rewarded with a sense of career…

When you’re at the theatre, you don’t often think about the backstage crew. Behind every actress on center stage are dozens of skilled supporters, running in dozens of directions, to bring every stage production to life. HR professionals are often the unsung heroes of organizations that keep teams operating on a daily basis. Gusto, an all-in-one provider of payroll, benefits, and HR solutions, makes these backstage players the stars of the show.