Design

Dear bootstrapped founders: set aside 2% equity and build an advisory board. Here’s how and why. Why: it turns out boards (when done right) are helpful. They put people in your corner who have seen the game played 100 times and can help you see around corners, avoid mistakes, etc. There are lots of great things about not having a formal board, but lack of experienced advisors is a huge downside. But you can fix this. How: - set aside a small pool of equity. We did 2% at stacker. This is for advisors, all time. - think - what are your blind spots? Where do you wish you had someone to call with burning questions, or poke holes in your strategy. This is different for everyone. For stacker we wanted someone with media operating experience, someone with corp dev experience, etc. - start networking. Do not meet someone, like them, and immediately grant them equity. Find people that are excited about your business. Be upfront you’re looking for advisors. Work on problems w them. The right people will be excited to work on problems at the start without pay, becayuae they love your business and are passionate about what you’re solving. - pick some advisors. We used the FAST framework to help choose the right equity and time commitment. Google this. - use them well. I meet w each of our advisors for 30 mins monthly(separately), and then as a group once a quarter. They hold no power, but call me on my bs. It’s so great. We didn’t do this until two years in, and we would’ve avoided so many mistakes had we started earlier. Swallow your pride, go get some amazing people in your corner.

Since you're viewing this on social media, this post is for you. It's for everyone who posts on social media. Many folks — including diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) leaders and those in the disability and accessibility space — don't realize how easy it is to make social media content accessible. Here's a reference guide to help you remember. Pick one thing. Start there. Make it a habit. Once you do, move on to the next thing. I suggest starting with hashtags. Super easy. I'm always learning and evolving my accessibility efforts. I used to be a little more freewheeling about using animated GIFs and emojis. Animated GIFs can be a problem for me. Now, I only post them on social media platforms that don't automatically play them. (Facebook and Twitter.) Another thing I used to do was add an opening line to arouse curiosity. Then, I'd enter a few blank lines after that. Thankfully, I quickly learned this is a problem for some disabilities where a lot of scrolling is a challenge. Here are the dos and don'ts in the image. (If you need an image with larger text or different color background, please reach out. A black or white background doesn't work for some folks. So, light purple it is.) - Skip the fancy font generator. Don't use fancy font generators or unreadable fancy fonts. - Be thoughtful about using emojis. Don't overuse emojis. - Be descriptive yet concise in describing images (alt text). Don't fill alt text with useless keywords. SEO. Blah. Blah. Blah. - Describe images in alt text. Don't use automatic alt text. - Limited use of animated GIFs. Don't use them in signatures, avatars, or comments. The motion is sickening for some folks. Add alt text, too. - Use one blank line between paragraphs. Don't use a lot of blank lines or omit blank lines between paragraphs. - Use sentence case. Don't use all caps because it has no visual shape. Please stop yelling. - Capitalize the first letter of each word in hashtags and user names. #CamelCaseRocks. The other hashtag is #YouCannotReadLowercaseHashtags in all lowercase - Check the color contrast on your images and text/background with a free tool. Don't assume an image or text/background pairing is accessible for everyone. - Caption your videos accurately. Don't let autocraptions do all the work. Edit them. - Provide transcripts for podcasts and videos with short paragraphs and speaker identification. Don't publish transcripts with big blocks of text. I hope this image is an improvement based on feedback. I changed the font. I change the light grey to light purple. P.S. What will you do differently after reading this? Comment below. Want training on how to make your content accessible? ✉️ me 🔔 Tap the profile bell now 👉 Find more #MerylMots content #SocialMedia #DigitalMarketing #Accessibility Image: Dos and don'ts for accessible social media with the left side listing what to do and the right side showing what not to do to make social media content accessible.

I asked a nonprofit CEO one question that made her go silent for 30 seconds. The organization: $8M budget. Beautiful mission. 80+ employees helping families in crisis. The question: "If you accomplish everything in your strategic plan, will these families still need you in 5 years?" Her answer broke my heart: "Well... yes. They'd still need our services." That's when I realized the uncomfortable truth: Most nonprofits accidentally design themselves to be permanent. Think about it: → We measure meals served, not families achieving food security → We count shelter beds filled, not people permanently housed → We track program attendance, not life transformation Success = more people receiving a service Failure = running out of clients I watched this Executive Director's face change as she realized what I was getting at. "So you're saying we should measure how many people graduate OUT of needing us?" Exactly. The nonprofits creating real change? They're designing themselves out of business. While they provide essential day-to-day supports, they're doing everything they can to ensure their services won't be needed in the future. The rest are running programs that meet immediate needs but may unintentionally sustain systems of dependence. Here's the test: If your organization executed its programs perfectly, would the problem you're solving disappear? If not, you might be treating symptoms instead of causes. I get it - people need meals today, housing today. Those services matter deeply. But without addressing root causes, we risk creating well-intentioned cycles of dependence. And that's why our sector struggles to break cycles of generational poverty. Uncomfortable truth? Sometimes.

Most people skim the final contract. They assume it’s what they already agreed to. But one overlooked sentence could cost you everything. You know that moment, rushed signature, eager to close. It’s called “efficiency,” but often, it’s just a matter of taking a risk. There’s a smarter way: Protect your work, your rep, and your bottom line. 5 checks before signing any contract: 1. Re-read the full document ↳ “If it’s been edited, treat it like a brand-new agreement.” 2. Check for last-minute clauses ↳ “Small print can carry big consequences. Don’t skim, scan.” 3. Confirm key terms haven’t changed ↳ “A single word swap can shift all the power.” 4. Loop in your legal support ↳ “It’s cheaper to get advice now than fix a mess later.” 5. Watch for vague or one-sided language ↳ “Clarity now prevents conflict later.” The fastest way to lose leverage is to assume instead of verify. Smart business starts with sharp attention. What’s one clause you always double-check before signing? Follow Justin Donald For More

I’ve been the first marketer at two companies now worth over $2 billion. If I did it again, here’s 9 things I’d do differently: 1️⃣ Start with brand as a scalable system Build a modular design system early with components you can combine instead of create. A Figma system, Canva templates, Google Slide layouts. Pair that with a messaging doc, your "copy-paste" bank of positioning, beliefs, and product language. It becomes a foundation for consistency and a knowledge base for AI. 2️⃣ Prioritize the 95%, not just the 5% LinkedIn & search ads worked early, but only because we caught the 5% already in market. The "demand capture" pool dries up fast. Invest early in "demand creation." Reach the 95% who aren’t ready yet, but will be. 3️⃣ Build in public People trust people more than companies. Let internal voices share what they’re building and learning. In the AI era, content is easy. Opinion & stories are valuable. 4️⃣ Know your customer so well the strategy writes itself I used to sit on every sales call and write every piece of copy. That proximity helped me hear what customers cared about, what words they used, where they hung out. Be close enough to "hear the music," and messaging & growth channels become obvious. 5️⃣ Start community early Create spaces where early customers can connect: Slack, Reddit, meetups, certification. It fuels your roadmap and scales support when customers can help each other. Even better if it creates user-generated content that is indexable/shareable. 6️⃣ Create the problem Don’t build the whole funnel on day one. If you don’t have traffic, don’t worry about conversion. Solve the problem you actually have. Let the next one emerge or you'll be building and rebuilding as things inevitably change. 7️⃣ Look bigger than you are Design clean & consistent. Logo small (bigger companies don't oversize their logo). Feature your biggest customers, your compliance certifications. Use big company channels but use them small (buy one billboard, get one great PR story, speak on one well-known podcast). Make big company content but do it small (like a single high production video). 8️⃣ Build lightweight systems You don’t need full-blown infrastructure. A Notion board or copy-paste doc can carry you farther than you think. Build systems for speed, not scale. 9️⃣ Protect your focus Get used to working with an infinite backlog. I used to start each day with a sticky note on my laptop of my 3 to 5 most important tasks. You weren’t hired to do everything, you were hired to make impact. If you've done this - what would you add?

The Secret Language of Level designers?? What if I told you that Level designers have a secret language we use to communicate with players? Ever wonder how you always know where to go, even without a map? Maybe you felt tension without a single word of dialogue. That’s not luck. That’s the hidden language of level design at work. As level designers, our job goes far beyond just building spaces. We craft experiences. And we do it through a subtle, intentional language made up of light, shape, rhythm, and space. Most players don’t consciously see level design, but they feel it. Every hallway, staircase, shadow, and prop is carefully placed to guide behavior, evoke emotion, and support the narrative. We don’t issue commands. We suggest, nudge, and invite. Here are just a few of the techniques we use to communicate through the world itself: Landmarking – Large structures, unique shapes, or color contrast that help players orient themselves and build mental maps. Lighting Cues – Warm, soft lighting signals safety or narrative importance. Harsh or dark areas introduce tension and uncertainty. Framing – Using geometry to subtly direct the player’s eye toward points of interest, similar to how cinematographers guide attention in film. Breadcrumbing – Placing pickups, enemies, or environmental details in patterns that subconsciously guide players toward their goal. Affordance – Designing elements to suggest their function: a waist-high ledge invites traversal, while a flickering exit sign implies urgency. Echoing – Repeating familiar layouts or motifs (like U-shaped corridors or blocked paths) to build rhythm, recognition, or suspense. Forced Perspective – Aligning objects and environmental elements to lead the eye, encouraging movement or curiosity. Even the smallest details — the tilt of a camera, the curve of a hallway, the placement of clutter — all contribute to an unspoken conversation with the player. We’re not just designing gameplay. We’re shaping emotion, behavior, and storytelling — all through space. and remember if you are interested in learning about these techniques and more the next cohort of Game Design Skills level design course taught by Nathan Kellman and yours truly will be starting up in a few weeks so if you are interested nows the time to reach out!!! #LevelDesign #GameDesign #NarrativeDesign #EnvironmentArt #UXDesign #GameDev #SpatialDesign #PlayerExperience

If you’re new to the complexities of color accessibility standards — like I was at the start of this project — here’s a distilled cheat sheet that can help you make the most of our new tool in Figma. We know this can be a bit daunting at first, so we put a lot of care into this feature, trying to make it as simple as possible for you. Whether you’re brand new to this concept, or a seasoned a11y pro, you can start leveraging this right away. Here are the basics: → Strong color contrast makes your designs more inclusive by improving readability for users with visual impairments. → A contrast ratio is simply the foreground compared to the background, the higher the number, the higher the contrast, the more inclusive it is. This ratio is automatically calculated in real-time and displayed in the top left corner of the color picker. → We built everything using the WCAG 2.2 standard, which is widely accepted and most commonly used. That standard has categories and levels defined, which are available to you in the settings menu. → Figma will automatically detect the appropriate category of the layer you have selected, but you can override this if you need to from the settings menu. → Level AA is good for most projects, and is the Figma default. → Level AAA is considered above and beyond, and is good for projects that have enhanced needs. → Large text is considered at least 24px or Bold 19px. → Normal text is considered below 24px or Bold 19px. → Graphics are considered icons, controls, and other elements that have meaning. (BTW Level AAA does not exist for this category, so if you see your level changing on you, this is probably why.) → You’ll see AA or AAA in the top right corner, alongside a pass/fail icon. This is your stable place to find the status at any point. → You’ll see a pass/fail boundary line on the color spectrum, use this as a visual aid to choose a color that meets your goals. → You’ll also see a dotted pattern on the color spectrum, this is the fail zone. If your color is in this area, you can click on the fail indicator in the top right corner to auto-correct it to the nearest passing color. → If you need to know the background color that was auto-detected, click the contrast ratio in the top left corner to open a flyout with more color info. We blend together any transparent background elements as well, so this value may be technically undefined in your file, but we’ve done it this way to be as accurate as possible to what you see on the canvas. → In more complex layer structures (such as overlapping elements), or complex color scenarios (such as multiple colors, gradients, or images), the calculations may not be possible. If you find that’s the case for your design, we recommend duplicating and isolating the foreground and background elements you want to evaluate onto a clean part of the canvas. Let us know if you have questions, and happy contrasting!

If brand strategy is so important, why is it so confusing? Some say brand strategy is about defining purpose and values. Some say brand strategy is a marketing plan for how to grow. And others say it’s about making you recognizable. I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to tell heads from tails 🙃. I’ve found that founders and marketers at growing companies tune this all out. They don’t have all day like me to wade through the info and build frameworks. So they say: “This sounds like it’s for big companies. I’ll deal with the brand stuff later. Let’s get straight into design and marketing. If you do that a lot, over time that’s branding right?” Hmm. Sort of? But your brand might feel like Frankenstein. One day, I accidentally said this to a founder, and instantly found this more helpful: Brand strategy is your customer-facing business strategy. How so? Well, business strategy is some combo of this: ↳ The market gap ↳ Customer segments ↳ Unfair edge ↳ The solution / the offer ↳ Channels (marketing, distribution) ↳ Revenue structures ↳ Cost structures (beautifully put into charts, decks, and models) Then this is unearthed: ↳ The Unique Value Proposition (UVP) Brand Strategy is: ↳ How to make the customer give two hoots about the above. In conscious and unconscious ways. In an emotionally resonant way. Foundational brand strategy is a simple idea with an emotional hook. It makes business sense AND has creative potential. And it informs design, copy, campaigns, messaging, and channels. It gives you rich material to create a culture around your brand. You want to land on this early, so that your design & copy are more impactful, your marketing is more creative, and every part of your customer experience feels intentional. You could grab your UVP and rush straight to market. But you’re going to be doing a lot of telling, without the power of showing. And you might pay a huge tax for that lack of clarity. Check out 4 examples below ⬇️ If you’re responsible for brand building at a growing company, what would make foundational strategy work more obvious to do earlier? Would love to hear thoughts.

We all know we're supposed to "show instead of tell." But most design portfolios fail to do this and here's why. 👇 Designers love showcasing their raw work in their portfolios including outputs or deliverables such as: → Sketches → Diagrams → User flows → Wireframes → Sticky notes → Journey maps But to be honest, 90% of the time, I have absolutely no idea what is going on in those images. For example, I'll often come across a screenshot or picture of 25+ sticky notes, but: → They are too zoomed out. → If I zoom in, they're too blurry. → Even if I can seem them, they're too overwhelming. Then I start asking myself questions such as: → Am I supposed to read every sticky note? → What's important about these sticky notes? → Is this worth my time and attention to decipher? This is where storytelling comes in. What if instead of showing a raw zoomed out screenshot of sticky notes, we instead pulled out the key highlights and takeaways? Then we can guide the reader's attention to what's actually important, and optionally include a link to the original raw image afterwards. This creates a far more compelling narrative for our audience (hiring managers and recruiters), and ensures we're showing the right level of detail that is necessary to understand the story. Now to be clear, I'm not saying you should entirely avoid raw images or assets (or even raw Figma files). For example, these can be effective during the interview process because the designer can use their voice to guide their audience through the image. But when it's an online written case study submitted with an application, then you won't be in the room when a hiring manager first sees it. In that moment, your story will need to stand on it's own. It will need to communicate the right level of clarity and detail to compel the hiring manager to offer you an interview. In summary, when we want to "show instead of tell", that doesn't mean slapping a raw screenshot or image in our portfolio. It means reflecting on how we're using our words and images to give context, clarity, and tell an impactful story. Use it effectively to your advantage. What are your thoughts? #ux #design #portfolio #casestudy #storytelling

The first strategic decision for any startup isn't pricing or positioning. It's whether you're chasing rabbits (thousands of small customers) or hunting whales (few large enterprises). Most founders get this wrong because they copy what worked for someone else. But it's your product's inherent characteristics that determine the right path, not your peers’. Here's how to decide what path is best for your company: 1. Start with how value gets created If users can experience meaningful value alone in under 10 minutes, you're built for rabbits. Think Figma, Notion, or Gamma - single-player mode works before anyone else joins. But if value only emerges after integration across an organization, you need whales. Workday and Palantir require company-wide commitment to deliver any ROI. 2. Let physics drive your tactics Choose rabbits and you need transparent pricing, growth engineers, and universal messaging. Your north stars are activation rate (percentage who reach their first success) and K-factor (how many new users each user brings). Choose whales and you need enterprise sales, custom pricing, and ROI calculators. Your north stars are pipeline coverage and contract values. The tactics aren't interchangeable. 3. Know when to expand According to a16z research, successful rabbit companies typically add enterprise sales around $20-30M ARR. That's when organic pull from multiple Fortune 500 domains justifies the investment. Whale companies rarely add successful self-serve unless they discover a true single-player use case. Timing matters more than most realize. 4. Understand the hidden risks Rabbits can destroy unit economics if support scales linearly with users. We've seen companies lose money on every customer while growing rapidly. From a user growth perspective, they're succeeding - but each milestone only tightens the noose. Whales create concentration risk - when one customer is 30% of revenue, they effectively own your roadmap. Both paths have failure modes many founders don't see coming. 5. Commit fully or fail Companies that try to serve both segments from day one almost always fail. You can't optimize for velocity and enterprise procurement simultaneously. Pick your path based on your product's nature, then build everything - team, metrics, culture - around that choice. The irony is that total commitment to one path is what eventually lets you transcend it. Slack went all-in on rabbits first, then eventually served everyone. Atlassian built through self-service before adding sales. Figma reached $34B through rabbits. Salesforce built an empire on whales. The path mattered immensely for each of them. Startups fail far more often from trying to serve everyone than from picking the wrong path.