Dive Club 🤿

This week's episode is with Chris Abad who has led design teams at companies like Google, Square and Dropbox so needless to say he's given a lot of design presentations over his 20+ year career. So this conversation is a deep dive into storytelling and everything you can do as a designer to effectively share your vision and persuade stakeholders. He shares every step of his process including a ton...

Systems thinking is often mentioned as the #1 trait teams are looking for in designers. But what does it look like to be great at it? This episode answers that question by highlighting stories from Notion, Anthropic, and more 👇

This week's episode is with Anthony Menecola who is a longtime staff product designer at Shopify so we’re going to do a deep dive into ways you can make a bigger impact at your company as an IC. One of the big themes of this episode is Anthony’s journey becoming more technical and contributing to the Shopify code base so if you’re interested in building your ideas I think you’ll get a lot out of t...

When I say high stakes design project, what comes to mind? How about Ryan Scott redesigning the Airbnb checkout flow right before a  $3.5 billion IPO? Now THAT is a big time project… So this episode is all about tactics you can use to make big ideas happen at your company (even as an IC). And if you want to go even deeper you can use these links to get $100 off Ryan Scott’s top rated Maven courses...

What does it take to create a product worthy of winning Mac app of the year? I interviewed the founder of Craft Docs, Balint Orosz, to find out… So this episode is a deep dive into how they work and what it takes to achieve this level of design excellence, including: What Balint looks for in systems thinkers Craft’s plan to differentiate with personalization What it looks like for designers to tak...

I’ve interviewed a lot of staff designers to figure out what it takes to have real influence at companies like Shopify, Github, Airbnb, etc. One thing is clear… if you want to make strategic impact as a designer then you have to get to a place of altitude that allows you to see the bigger picture. This episode is designed to help you do just that. Catt Small (Staff Product Designer at Dropbox) Mia...

How do the best staff designers influence and lead as individual contributors? I interviewed Catt Small to answer that question and it turned into one of the most practical episodes yet. She pulls from her 14+ years of experience designing products like Etsy, Asana, and Soundcloud to share techniques you can use to level up your influence and scale your impact as an IC. Some highlights: Ways to ge...

What are the best teams looking for in design candidates? That’s become one of my favorite questions to ask so this episode shines a light on some of those traits and what you can do to stand out. It includes insights from: Diego Zaks (VP of Design at Ramp) Soleio (2nd designer at Facebook) Pranathi Peri (designing v0 at Vercel) Maheen Sohail (Gen AI at Meta) Mariana Castilho (Designer at Poolside...

This week’s episode is with Tyler Angert who was the first design hire at Replit . So we get a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like designing for a hyper growth startup. However in early 2024, Tyler left to pursue a startup of his own, so a good chunk of this discussion focuses on his vision for Patina and the future of “spontaneous software”. Some highlights: Why the camera roll is pivotal fo...

I’m designing a new product and a few months ago I would’ve confidently said it’s not an AI product. But I was wrong. This new technology creates endless opportunities… we just have to be able to see what AI makes possible. And that’s what this episode is all about. Maggie Appleton (former design lead at Elicit) Joel Lewenstein (head of product design at Anthropic) George Kedenburg III (designer a...

I’ve followed Mike Smith ever since he designed the Perplexity brand identity and quickly realized he’s one of the most creative designers I’ve ever seen. Turns out his wife Chara is a positioning mastermind too so it makes sense why Smith & Diction is one of the hottest agencies in the game today. So this week’s episode is a deep dive into brand strategy and what it takes to stand out in 2025...

Being able to think like an engineer helps you collaborate with developers more effectively, design UIs that make sense, and empowers you to build your ideas with AI tools like v0, Claude, etc. So this video is going to break down a few traits of designers who I believe are already doing this at a high level. It includes insights from: Mariana Castilho (designer at Vercel/Pierre) Julius Tarng (pre...

We've heard a lot on this show about designers becoming builders using tools like v0 and today we get to do a deep dive with Pranathi Peri who is leading the design of v0 at Vercel. We discuss: Growing your taste and intuition quickly How Pran thinks about the design language of v0 Pran’s personal experiments using 3D and physics Why Pran wants to bring “onboarding roulette” to v0 How Pran showed...

Craft is so much more than a shimmering landing page or micro animation… It’s sweating all of the tiny details and having a thorough understanding of the edge cases in your product. But there’s one detail most designers miss… 👀 So this episode highlights one of my favorite ideas ever shared on the show from Raphael Schaad (founder of Cron and now the Head of Calendar at Notion). It’s a fantastic...

This week's episode is with Sam Peitz who quickly became one of my favorite designers to follow in 2024. He regularly shares experiments like TextOS , his scribble running app , and assorted letter prototypes . So this conversation is a deep dive into his creative process and how he’s redefined his career path over the past ~10 months. We go deep into: Sam’s go-to source of design inspiration The...

Designers have become servants of “the process” so this episode features stories of people who are breaking the mold in the way they explore and prototype ideas. It includes insights from: Gabe Valdivia (Fractional design leader): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/gabe-valdivia Dennis Muller (Designer + founder of Amie): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/dennis-muller Gavin Nelson (Designing Linear...

Did you know that the very first interface designer at Adobe was also the first designer to work on Figma? 🤯 His name is Andrei Herasimchuk and he knows a lot about design tooling… So this week’s episode is jam-packed with stories about designing the earliest interfaces for Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as what it was like seeing the original seed of an idea that became Figma. Not only that…...

Many of my favorite episodes are when we get to hear from the earliest designers at companies like Linear, Perplexity, Ramp, Facebook, etc. So this episode pulls out the key insights so you can learn what it takes to thrive as a startup designer: Nate Parrott (Founding designer of Arc): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/nate-parrott Adrien Griveau (Founding designer of Linear): https://www.dive.clu...

Imagine joining an early stage startup as the first senior designer and within a few years, it becomes the fastest growing company ever . Well… that's the story of Diego Zaks who is now the VP of design at Ramp . This week’s episode is all about how they were able to win with design and what makes their culture so special. We go deep into: Why velocity is the key to quality The impact of “truth se...

Imagine you’re asked to lead the design of a new project. It’s complex, open-ended, and full of interconnected problems… How do you attack that ambiguity and get momentum quickly? This episode is an attempt to answer that question by unpacking tactics used by designers like: Jenny Wen (Original designer of Figjam): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/jenny-wen Michael Wandelmaier (Former head of desi...

2024 was the year the Perplexity brand took over the design community. And a big reason why is because of Phi Hoang . So this week’s episode is a deep dive into brand experience design and creativity with AI tools. We get an inside look at: Phi’s creative process with Midjourney Why Perplexity thinks of the brand in “seasons” Phi’s tool stack for creating marketing videos with AI Behind-the-scenes...

It doesn’t matter how good your designs are if they never get built. So this episode breaks down specific tactics you can use to become a better storyteller and get people excited to build your ideas. Michael Wandelmaier (former Head of Design at Metalab): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/michael-wandelmaier Gavin Nelson (designing the Linear mobile app): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/gavin-nel...

A little over a year ago, Joey Banks and I were DM’ing each other in Slack about leaving our W-2 jobs and going independent. So this week’s episode is a reflection on his journey working for himself and it’s as human and relatable as any conversation I’ve ever had on this show. We go deep into: Managing your pipeline of clients Creating a personal knowledge system in Notion Finding companionship a...

The pendulum has swung too far with design systems. Somehow they’ve become synonymous with scale. But I believe they’re the perfect first step for startups. So this episode looks at stories from Perplexity and Cron to reframe design systems as the key to speed in the early days. Henry Modisett (Head of Design at Perplexity): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/henry-modisett Raphael Schaad (founder o...

After writing a viral article called “ The Missing Tool ” I was fortunate to meet Gab and Nim who are the co-founders of a startup called Dessn . Dessn is a new way to ship design changes without having to write code. Their extension overlays a Figma-like interface on your live web app so designers can easily make changes. Their AI then writes the code and pushes it to your Github. That means desi...