A Guide to Being the First Design Hire Without Losing Your Mind

Being the first designer at a startup is exciting, but also messy. I hope this guide helps you focus and do great work starting day one

Recently, I posted on LinkedIn about hiring a junior designer for my team. Surprisingly, majority of the applicants were solo designers in startups.

Imagine that… an entire product’s responsibility thrust upon a young individual who hardly knows how to file taxes.

At the same time, I realized that first design hires (fondly known as founding designers) make a lot of mistakes. No one can blame them. The role is such.

As a first hire, you set the bar, you decide on the design language, you deal with founders directly—who often don’t know what design is all about. I’ve been there. I’ve dealt with being the first design hire more than once.

Tried to put all the lessons I learnt into this guide. I hope this helps you. For everything else, my LinkedIn is always available.

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Before you read further…

Just a small note…

I’ll be writing less often here. Probably once or twice a month. I’m making space for a new initiative I’ve been excited to work on for a while now.

This also means I get to spend more time on each piece and write about things that truly matter to me and hopefully to you too.

Thank you for reading and being here. It means a lot.

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Welcome to the chaos

First of all, there’s no playbook for this. You join, and by day 2, you’re expected to revamp the onboarding or bring that Apple-level polish. No design system, no research, not even clarity on who the real user is. Sometimes not even product–market fit.

You’re expected to figure it out.

0 to 1 is super scrappy, ambiguous, and often overwhelming. You’ll hear things like:

“Why is this taking so long?“

“Can’t you just fix the UI and be done with this?“

“Can you give me the company logo in high quality?“

“Make it look premium“ (on a shoestring budget)

“We don’t need research. The PM knows everything.“

Now that you feel understood, let me tell you an important realization after designing for several years—chaos isn’t the problem. Lack of clarity is.

Clarity on your part about the job, clarity on the team’s end about the product vision, clarity on every non-designer’s end not knowing what it takes to actually solve problems using design. The list is endless.

So, in your entire FDH (I’ll refer to you as first design hire going forward), your priority will be to find clarity, create clarity, collaborate to reach clarity.

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Navigating the people

As an FDH, you might report to a founder, a PM or... no one in particular. Either way, you’re probably surrounded by people who don’t know what a designer does.

A part of your job is showing what good design partnership looks like.

• Start with listening, not proving. Everyone’s invested in the product. Instead of telling them what’s broken, start by asking what’s not working for them. You’ll earn trust quicker this way

• Treat engineers like partners. You’re not their boss. They’re not your boss. You’re equals. A 15-minute handoff session can turn blurry ideas into something everyone takes ownership of

• Don’t get attached to every piece of feedback. You’ll hear a lot of opinions. Some useful, some… not so much. Learn to extract intent instead of reacting

• Respect urgency of the business. This isn’t Google or Facebook. There’s probably only 6 months of runway left. So, if you’re wondering why no one cares about typography at the moment, that is the reason. Help where you can

• Over-communicate your process. No one understood the effort it took to arrive at the stuff I delivered. So, I started showing people user flows, iterations, wireframes and research in every handoff call. A messy FigJam screen is all it takes for someone to respect the work you do

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Navigating the work

You’re probably designing onboarding, the dashboard, a new feature, the pitch deck, and the landing pages, all at once, sometimes in the same week.

That is the reality of 0 to 1. The sooner you accept it, the better you’ll fare.

• Don’t aim for perfect. Start with momentum. Progress beats polish in a startup where speed is survival

• Solve the real problems. Not only the exciting ones. Your homepage isn’t bleeding users, onboarding might be

• Keep documenting light. I made the mistake of starting with an extensive guideline list while creating the design system. Slowed me down quite a bit. No one will read a 10-page spec.. send a Loom or make a simple Notion page instead

• Make every decision a test. Try things. Watch what happens. Adjust and adapt. That’s how early stage products grow

• Care about the outcome, not the craft alone. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but you can’t always focus on craft. Measurable impact is super important to get funding, more social proof, etc.

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Navigating yourself

For the nth time in this post, early design days can be messy. You won’t have a design team to lean on, no formal rituals to follow, and barely any time to pause.

In this chaos, you are your own structure. If you aren’t a person of grit, 0 to 1 isn’t for you. Least of all 0 to 1 design.

What matters most is learning to hold your ground, and investing in habits that keep you steady when nothing else around you is.

• Titles don’t make you senior, decisions do

• Find smart people who will critique your thinking, not your work

• Talk to users even when no one is watching

• Protect learning time like it’s a deadline

• Growth here is measured in peace, not polish

The best days in my 0 to 1 journey have been spent being proven wrong, not knowing answers, breaking assumptions, arguing about the best approach for a feature—all of which result in a great product experience.

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A controversial opinion

This might sound harsh or pro-hustle culture, but you need your personal life squared away. A startup is putting a huge part of their business in your hands. That means something. There’s money on the line, livelihoods on the line, and if you have chaos in your personal life, it will trickle into work.

I like to get up early and work so that I don’t take time away from friends and family. I learnt to work with speed so that I can protect my time. I learnt to build trust so that I can take days off without being overburdened with work when I return.

It is simply unjust for you to not give your 100% to a business that just began. And it is definitely unjust for you to join someone’s dream just for the money and the inflation of title to “lead designer“.

Integrity should mean something to you.

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Major mistakes I’ve noticed

A few traps are almost universal. I’ve fallen into some myself. Here’s what to watch out for:

• Getting too attached to your designs before they’ve proved any value

• Confusing a flashy UI with good product thinking

• Being okay with extensive UX without putting a drop of effort into the UI

• Over-inflating your title without the experience to back it

• Designing for Dribbble, not users

• Forgetting that speed and scrappiness matter more than perfection early on

• Only working all the time without taking care of learning, health or rest

You’ll make some or all of these mistakes for sure. That’s okay. Ask better questions, take note, and move on.

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On making it sustainable

The hardest part is probably sustaining the speed and effort.

I’ve heard leadership take people out of 0 to 1’s every 2 years to let them rest a little bit. Not mandatory, but sustainable for sure.

You won’t always have clarity, feedback, or applause. So you have to create your own rhythm and set boundaries. Build habits that help you show up even when things are chaotic.

Consistency will keep you in the game longer than bursts of brilliance.

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Wrapping it up

Recapping it all here:

• You’re not just designing screens, you’re shaping how the team sees design

• Learn to manage up, sideways, and with empathy

• Don’t chase perfect, ship, learn, iterate

• Process doesn’t matter unless it helps you move faster

• Focus on habits that make the work sustainable

I’ve said enough.

Time to build cool shit. Let’s go!

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A repeat note… I’ll be writing a little less here to focus on a new initiative. Gives me time to write more thoughtful pieces here as well. Thank you for being a reader, I’m grateful.