#140 Tools to build in weeks, not months, All the stuff I got wrong in 2019, and some cool products from the African diaspora
Small Ask: Do you know anyone who has experience managing artists?
I would be super grateful if you could share this questionnaire with them
CupsPrinted
This week, after good feedback on our Shopify page we launched the first version of CupsPrinted online. This has been a journey… investing in DIY photography because we quickly found out how expensive professional photography is at this stage. We can also continue to serve the main personas we have identified and create content on Instagram, Pinterest and offer the best deals to our newsletter subscribers.
BTA Awards
Had a great time at the BTA Awards sponsored by JP Morgan. Now that we can see more rooms like this celebrating innovation, I hope to see more people creating in this space.
BTA Awards 2020
Design
A Beginner's Guide To User Journey Mapping
From one of my favourite design bloggers, checkoout this guide to user journey mapping. 👌🏾actionable and also shows empathy maps
The Magic of Paper Prototyping
Paper prototyping can be extremely helpful during the early-stage when you’re exploring a variety of different concepts and choose the one that will be used.
Lemme not lie, this guys versions much fancier than mine, but some good design principles a designer/non-designer can learn from. For anything lean, checkout this
Using Red and Green in UI Design
Color has a significant impact on our perceptions and emotions. Used correctly, color can evoke a specific reaction in your users. For this article, I want to focus on two particular colors - red and gree. There’s a reason why I want to do it:
Both red and green are
Insights
All the Stuff I Got Wrong in 2019 - Sharmadean Reid MBE - Medium
Here, Sharmadean Reid shares the lessons she has learned about raising too much money, and how being a CEO made her have to spend her time doing stuff that didn’t energise her.
👇🏾This will give you Goosebumps
I’m a Founder learning to be CEO. And being a Founder is what I love the most. I’ve always been someone who sets stuff up, started things, got people together. I always have a clear vision, I have product taste and I love building communities.
Transparent account of the journey Beautystack Founder has been on where she shares her wisdom + lessons from 2019 after raising money from investors, the pressures from investors
Focus on users/product not processes
Stay small as long as possible and do things that don’t scale
Hire the right people with track record
The the cost of hustling
The journey of serving 100k Users
I’m guessing you are not an engineering lead or a CTO, but one of the challenges I’ve seen budding bootstrappers have who are not from a technical background is the uncertainty around the limitations in serving 10 users, 100 users and 1,000 users.
If you are working with an engineer/CTO, here’s a transparent account from the Head of Engineering at a startup in LA, ex-Facebook and ex Yombinator founder.
Makers
My Lean Product Design Stack
Checkout my latest blog. What tools are you using?
In this post, I share the tools that I am using to ship in weeks, rather than months. This is a Product Makers lean stack.
Culture Chat
#CultureTags™ by Eunique Jones Gibson — Kickstarter
Eunique Jones Gibson passed her target of £15K with #CultureTags™ on Kickstarter!
✊🏾
A graphic designer from Ivory Coast 🇨🇮created 300+ emojis illustrating modern day Africa.
After struggling to find accurate and positive depictions of Africa for a university project, this self-taught graphic designer decided to show the world Africa through his eyes.
.@OPlerou has created more than 300 emojis illustrating traditional and modern-day Africa https://t.co/lsxMvLbt6U