Many of the people migrate towards work with established companies, because they desire the security that that type of work brings them. That is all well and good until the complaints about not being respected and not having the opportunity to be innovative and to learn begin. Very slowly, but surely, a change is beginning in the user experience world, and it is one that you as an entrepreneur or small business owner should not only be aware of, but should take advantage of.
User experience professionals are starting to talk about the joys of working with smaller companies and start-ups… and a very, very early migration has started towards that direction.
Joshua Porter, a name well known in the UX world, wrote a post earlier this month that caught my eye. Take a look at his piece on 52 Weeks of UX, Watch the Start-ups, and you’ll see why Josh talks, mainly to a user experience audience, about the need to watch start-ups for their innovative and new techniques and solutions. He thought it was so important that UXers know what start-ups have to offer that he devoted an entire post to it.
So why, is this important to you as an entrepreneur? I thought it was important to bring this topic up to this audience because, put simply, you have what we want. And because you have what we want, it would be beneficial to you to flaunt your assets in order to get the best UX talent on your team.
First, what does “you have what we want” mean? UX professionals want to be innovative. They want to come up with the next great idea, great experience and great whatever. They want the opportunity to interview, test and talk to users. We want to be able to use this data to create wonderful designs that delight customers. In order to do this we need a certain environment, one that is process agnostic, data driven, moves fast, iterates and uses the new tools that Users have been longing to try for.
So why does it benefit you to flaunt yourself as a Small business/Start-up to the user experience world? Basically, if you have someone besides you that is looking at your users from a psychological and behavioral perspective your site will be 10x more engaging and user friendly than your competitors. It just makes sense right? If I hire someone to take care of my users, who are my customers, then I’ll be ahead of the game.
The moral of this one: Use what you have as a start-up to attract the top UX talent. Once you have them allow them to do their job, and they’ll do it well... Very well. By doing so your customers will be happier, and that will make you more money.
