Jane Portman - The Harsh Reality of Startup Design

2023-10-17

Jane Portman shares the twists and turns of becoming a founder, how it has changed her view on design’s value, and the role of writing in career success. Highlights include: Why is it best not to know in advance how difficult something is? What made you realise that UX is not a big part of startup success? Why is a product’s marketing website more important than the product? Why do designers need to understand their contribution to revenue? Why is it important for designers to also be ...

Jane Portman shares the twists and turns of becoming a founder, how it has changed her view on design’s value, and the role of writing in career success.

Highlights include:

Why is it best not to know in advance how difficult something is?
What made you realise that UX is not a big part of startup success?
Why is a product’s marketing website more important than the product?
Why do designers need to understand their contribution to revenue?
Why is it important for designers to also be good writers?

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Who is Jane Portman?

Jane is the co-founder of Userlist, an email marketing and in-app messaging platform that’s built with B2B SaaS in mind: enabling companies to onboard, engage, and nurture customers and leads.

Before Userlist, Jane was the founder of Tiny Reminder, a SaaS product that helps busy creatives and consultants to send automated notifications to their clients about the things they need from them.

She is also the founder and host of UI Breakfast, one of the world’s longest running and most successful design podcasts. The show has been on-air since 2014 and boasts over 260 conversations with a wide-range of industry experts.

Given Jane’s talent and track record as a podcaster, it’s no surprise that she hosts another podcast. This one’s called “Better Done than Perfect” and it explores email automation, marketing, content and product strategy for founders and product people.

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