Dive Club 🤿

Lovable has quickly become the go-to way I build my ideas with AI and this week we get to hear from their first designer Nad Chishtie . We go deep into what it takes to succeed as a founding designer and all of the ways AI is shaping modern product teams. Some highlights: Nad’s tips for collaborating creatively with AI tools How designers can be enablers instead of bottlenecks How Nad balances Fig...

My #1 source of imposter syndrome is when I see designers prototyping beautiful interactions like this or even this . It’s one thing to create gorgeous interfaces, but crafting complex interactions from first principles is designing on expert mode. And it’s a big reason why Linear lists interactions as a requirement three separate times in their job description for principal designer . So this wee...

I use Granola every single day and it’s quickly become a beloved product in the tech community. But it was a winding journey to get there… So in this episode their co-founder and designer, Sam Stephenson , gives a behind-the-scenes of what it was like going 0 → 1 with Granola : How to navigate the idea maze for an AI product What Sam has learned about prompt engineering What it takes to succeed as...

I’ve spent a lot of time studying how the best design teams operate and two of my favorites are Ramp and Plaid . So this episode shines a light on specific practices they put in place to create a culture of craft 👇

What do Raycast, Daylight, Amo, The Browser Co, and Mainframe all have in common? They all hired Ellis Hamburger to help tell their story. So this episode is a bit different... We're going to get away from the pixels and go deep into how you can use language to tell a compelling story about your product. Some highlights: How to tell a story that people care about Lessons from the Language team at...

AI introduces an opportunity for all kinds of novel interaction patterns. But it creates a whole new category of design challenges too… And this episode breaks down the biggest challenge of all. Colin Dunn (Founder and Designer of Visual Electric) Maheen Sohail (Gen-AI designer at Meta) Tyler Angert (Founder of Patina Systems) Maggie Appleton (Design engineer at Normally) Ammaar Reshi (Head of Des...

This week’s episode is with Alejandro Matamala Ortiz , the cofounder and Chief Design Officer at Runway —one of the leading generative AI companies in the world today. The way they work is incredibly unique. So a big focus of this interview is digging into how AI is shifting the way products get built and what it all means for designers: How the lines are blurring between roles How AI flips the or...

Most designers fall into the same trap when presenting their ideas. So this ~5 min episode breaks down how to pitch your designs like a pro. Chris Abad Gabe Valdivia

This week’s episode is with Christophe Tauziet who is the Head of Design at Plaid —one of today’s leading fintech companies. We go deep into the ways he’s building a culture of craft and the rituals they’ve evolved to consistently sweat the details. There are a lot of practical processes and ideas in this episode. Some highlights: Keys to a great async video share out How to foster a winning CRIT...

You can have the greatest design concepts in the world, but none of that matters if they don't make it into production. So this episode is all about how to create an aura of inevitability around your ideas. It features stories from early Facebook, Webflow, and Figma 👇 Vincent van der Meulen (Design engineer at Figma) Soleio pt. 1 / pt. 2 (second designer at Facebook) Kevin Wong (Head of product a...

Palantir is one of the most powerful products in existence today. It provides critical government and enterprise infrastructure from the factory floors to the front lines. You can literally build your own Airbnb on top of their development platform. But with great power comes lots of complexity… So in this week’s episode, Design Lead Aashman Goghari gives us a behind-the-scenes of what it’s like d...

When comes to brand design, Mike and Cara from Smith & Diction are pretty much top of the game (you might recognize them as the ones who did the brand identity for Perplexity). During our interview, it didn't take me long to realize that these two have more hacks and mental models for creativity than just about anyone I’ve met. So here are a few of my favorites. Watch the full episode with Smi...

If you asked me “who has the best taste in design right now?” one of the first people I’d mention is Thiago Costa. His product Fey is in the S-tier of design and I’ve studied his visual techniques for many years. Finally, after over a 12 months of pestering he agreed to share his secrets in a interview 🙌 We go deep into: Mastering the finer details of craft Putting AI at the heart of the new Fey...

Today we get to hear from Ammaar Reshi who is the Head of Design at ElevenLabs —the AI audio platform that has come up multiple times in past episodes. So a big focus of this conversation is learning what it's like designing an AI-native product. We go deep into topics like: The backstory of Ammaar’s viral AI experiments Predictions for the future of voice as an interface What it’s like collaborat...

How do designers from today’s top teams collaborate with engineers? After many interviews I'm starting to notice a trend… The highest functioning product teams throw away a lot of code and it’s a good model for what the new “handoff” process will look like. So this video highlights how it works at teams like Figma, Vercel, Perplexity, Airbnb, and more. Jenny Wen (OG designer of Figjam now at Anthr...

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...