Introduction

I’ve written this article based on my recent conversation with Nick - the Co-Founder and CEO of Seam AI - a customer data SaaS on a mission to democratize the Modern Data Stack. Seam gives business users the power of data analysts without writing SQL. Operations teams leverage Seam to retrieve, transform, analyze, and activate relevant data from a central, simple to use natural language interface. 

The value of design from the Founder’s perspective

One of the first things I was interested in learning from Nick was his perspective on the value of design from a startup founder’s perspective. Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of founders and have been exposed to differing perspectives on the main value they wanted out of product design. In Nick’s case as it turned out the decision was obvious. He believes that product design is an important growth factor for any company.

“I actually look at product design as a growth lever. When you look at traditional software, specifically in the enterprise, a lot of it isn’t that fun to use day-to-day. As a startup you can create beautiful experiences and separate yourself from the rest of the pack - incumbents specifically.”

Nicholas Scavone

Co-Founder, CEO

As systems leveraging artificial intelligence become increasingly prevalent, we’re entering a new era of product design. The traditional way users are interacting with software through point-and-click interfaces is likely to become outdated when technology like Large Language Models gains more adoption in the coming years. 

AI native interfaces

Nick has touched on a topic I’ve also pondered (not only) in one of my articles. (Link to the article) Because computer systems are becoming increasingly intelligent, their role in our lives is evolving towards companions and advisors rather than operators. New technologies enable computer software to make decisions without the user’s explicit instructions which creates room for confusion and friction in the experience. To create profitable products leveraging AI, product designers like us need to consider new use cases around handling errors and the relationship between humans and computers (I’ve written about this aspect of building AI products here: Link to the article). 

Great product experiences are more valuable than ever, especially in the age of AI, which while advanced is still an emerging technology. User experience patterns around AI are still very new, and good product design can create a significant competitive advantage for software companies that “get it right”.

“The people who are going to figure out these new experiences are going to define interface moats for themselves. So that’s why I was really excited to work with Semiflat early on and invest in this at the early stages of the company. We’re at the cutting-edge and we want to be the best at it.”

Nicholas Scavone

Co-Founder, CEO

Why some founders treat product design as an afterthought

I was really happy to hear Nick say that and agreed with every word. Good product design is all about creating experiences that users get consistent value from, which has obvious business implications and can make or break a company. This is especially true for AI products targeted at non-technical users. The dominating narrative in society seems to label artificial intelligence as “scary,” “unpredictable,” and “misunderstood.” This can create a barrier to adoption, which can be removed with an appropriate user experience that builds trust and uncovers value early on in the interaction.

On the other hand, startup founders face a daunting task. In the early stages, nearly all products develop features that are eventually discarded after testing. This creates a significant risk of investing in features that never make it into the final product. While on the surface, this logic seems sound, it only partially captures the value of product design. Many founders tend to equate “design” with polished visuals or, at the very least, low-fidelity Figma prototypes. Although these are part of the design process, viewing them as the entire process overlooks the substantial business impact design can have. The true value of design lies in its ability to map out a frictionless user experience rooted in understanding both business and user needs. A robust design process prioritizes validating hypotheses, which helps reduce the time to achieve product-market fit and attract paying customers. These crucial steps occur early in product development, often without producing visual deliverables. However, their outcomes are invaluable, laying the groundwork for building products that effectively meet market needs and meaningfully impact users' lives. Research and hypothesis validation are core tenets of design thinking. In this sense, many founders naturally engage in foundational design activities without realizing it. 

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Seam’s design journey

Seam practiced founder-led design for the first months of operation, which is consistent with most of the companies we work with at Semiflat. Nick took a lean approach to building a product dedicating his time to learning Figma and building out the very first prototype on his own. This approach wasn’t sustainable as it took significant time out of his schedule, and led to multiple inconsistencies in the experience. Once he tested his core business assumptions with prospective customers and gained confidence in the features he was building he decided to bring on professional help (enter Semiflat). 

“We’ve built the product in pieces, so as we built new features they felt like they were just getting tacked on from a design perspective. I’ve built what I would call a Frankenstein application over the last year. I thought it looked okay but the experience was broken, certain features were highlighted that should’ve been more in the background. Some of our best features needed to be brought to the forefront. I realized that it couldn’t continue like this. It was impacting the user experience, our ability to ship new stuff, it was slowing us down. It was pretty natural to want to hand it off and bring some talented folks like yourself.”

Nicholas Scavone

Co-Founder, CEO

We’ve started our design journey with Seam by auditing the early product the team has built internally. Our immediate goal was to fix the information hierarchy and minimize user friction in the existing prototype. After tackling the “low-hanging fruit” improvements, we’ve focused on designing new functionality into the app, and then creating a new, polished visual identity for the interface. You can read the full story behind designing Seam here (Link to the case study).

The importance of speed

Speed was one of the most important factors for Nick, and he reiterated that multiple times throughout the process. Being able to understand the vision, domain knowledge, and target user groups was key to successfully completing the redesign and adding new functionality to the product. 

“Speed is the startup's most valuable asset. Moving slow means death almost. It’s the only way you can displace incumbents, bring new technologies to markets, or iterate on problem statements. So without it, you’re dead.”

Nicholas Scavone

Co-Founder, CEO

Founders often wear multiple hats. From figuring out how to sell the product, creating pitch decks, and supporting the customers to (at least in Nick’s case before working with us) designing new features in Figma on the side. The more areas they try to cover at their company, the more diluted their focus becomes, which leads to worse outcomes and multiple bottlenecks. Nick has faced this problem before approaching Semiflat. The product wasn’t getting better fast enough, which became a problem for existing customers whose product expectations grew the more they incorporated Seam in their day-to-day workflow. Growing customer expectations and Nick’s limited time resources meant the situation needed to change. He knew that not delegating product design would only continue to slow his team down. 

Nick was faced with a dilemma that many founders are familiar with. He considered three options: 

• Continue handling design by himselfBeing the sole person responsible for product design led Nick to the situation he was looking for a way out of, so this was more of a motivation to change rather than a feasible alternative. The entire Seam team suffered from decreasing user satisfaction and huge opportunity costs. Nick knew that if he wanted to scale the product and sell it to his target customers, he couldn’t afford to release a subpar product.
• Hire a senior designer in-houseWhile tempting at first, this alternative came with a huge risk around the timeline. Finding a designer who’s ready to join immediately, has great and well-rounded design skills, and is a good culture fit for the company could take anywhere between a week and six months (with the latter figure being far more likely). Seam was aware of the huge opportunity cost of delaying a solution. They needed to find someone reliable fast.
• Find a design consultancy like SemiflatThe third option proved to be the most time and cost-efficient compared to all alternatives. We’ve used our experience designing enterprise SaaS software to identify and correct all poor user experience patterns quickly. We’ve reduced time-to-value for Seam by redesigning and updating their product with new features in just 10 weeks. 

Then I asked Nick about the main value of our collaboration; he hesitated, trying to think of just one thing, but was happy to give multiple examples of how Seam benefitted by working with the team at Sefmilat: 

• Revenue upside from existing and prospective customersImproving the product contributed to increased satisfaction in existing customers, which led to more upselling opportunities. Selling the product has also become easier. People are naturally attracted to software (and more broadly things) that are visually appealing and automatically associate that with high quality.
• Opportunity gainHaving a trusted, dedicated design team freed Nick up hundreds of hours of his time. He could focus more attention on growing the business, identifying new opportunities for growth, selling, and supporting his existing customers.  

“You have given us revenue upside, we’re able to drive more revenue not only from our current users being happy with the product and being able to upsell them but also when I give demos - our software is beautiful and people want to try it just based on how it looks and functions which is a superpower.”

Nicholas Scavone

Co-Founder, CEO

Learnings from the process

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Nick about advice for other founders who might be earlier in this process and general thoughts on what he would’ve done differently if he had to embark on the journey of building Seam again. He emphasized the scarcity of the founder’s time and the importance of intentionally managing it to ensure success. In teams that rely on founder-led design, the bottleneck risk is high. Even with a small engineering team, every day they don’t receive designs for a new feature they’re working on is equivalent to significant losses drastically impacting the company’s chance to be successful. While giving up control carries certain risks on its own, in Nick’s view, finding talented people to help you grow in the early stages is critical. 

We’ve ended the conversation by discussing the problems with the traditional process of purchasing software. A typical software sales cycle has multiple touchpoints and requires the prospect to schedule multiple calls before they can even try the product themselves. Modern users prefer being able to test the experience for themselves and only book a demo after seeing the initial value. Seam wants to sell its software differently. Instead of limiting access and hiding the actual product behind a demo call, the team has built an interactive, live demo that anyone can try for themselves. This way customers who reach out have already seen the value of the product which makes selling that much easier. Go ahead, give it a try:

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