The Inevitable Rise of Design: What Hardware’s Past Tells Us About Software’s Future

But what most critics missed was the reason Dyson could make the move in the first place: his value no longer lay in the motor or the moulded plastic. It lay in design.

The cyclonic technology was patented. The aesthetics were recognisable. The user experience—clear bins, ergonomic handles, that satisfying click—was carefully orchestrated. The physical object might be built overseas, but the real IP, the thing people were paying £400 for, was generated in a design lab back in Malmesbury.

That was the moment when hardware began to mirror fashion. You weren’t just buying suction—you were buying identity, status, belonging. You were buying taste.

And here’s where things get interesting.

Today, a similar transition is happening in software. And if you want to understand where it’s headed, Dyson is a cautionary—and instructive—tale.

When Everyone Can Build, What Do You Own?

Let’s wind back a few decades. At the turn of the millennium, building a product—any product—required ownership of the entire stack. If you wanted to launch a piece of consumer electronics, you needed tooling, factories, logistics. A startup was basically a supply chain with a marketing department.

But globalization changed all that. Suddenly, manufacturing could be unbundled. Chinese factories offered contract manufacturing at a fraction of the cost. Just as importantly, they offered flexibility. You didn’t need to run a factory. You just needed a good idea and a solid CAD file.

So what remained, once you stripped away production? Design. Not just how something looked, but how it worked. How it felt in the hand. How it communicated. The “why” behind the “what.”

This is how you got companies like Beats by Dre—minimal IP in the audio engineering department, maximum IP in the branding and industrial design. It’s how Jony Ive made Apple the most valuable company in the world without writing a single line of code. It’s why Nest could sell a thermostat for $249 in a category where competitors charged $20.

Once manufacturing became cheap, commoditised, and invisible, the locus of value moved up the stack. From atoms to aesthetics. From factories to feelings.

The Software Parallel

Now, consider software.

For the past two decades, Silicon Valley has lionised engineering talent. “Move fast and break things” was a proxy for technical acceleration. Founders were often ex-engineers. CTOs ran the show. Product design was sometimes, if we’re being honest, an afterthought.

But in the last few years, the economics have shifted. Fast.

AI co-pilots like GitHub Copilot or Replit Ghostwriter can scaffold an MVP in days. Tools like Retool, Vercel, and Bubble let you build products with minimal backend expertise. Even complex frontend frameworks are abstracted away through component libraries and design systems.

Suddenly, the hard part isn't building the software. It’s making someone care about it.

This is where design steps back into the spotlight. Because when every SaaS tool can be spun up with the same stack, the difference isn't the code. It’s the experience.

Who understands the user better? Who can design an onboarding flow that actually works? Who can turn a tool into a habit, a product into a brand?

The next generation of breakout SaaS companies won’t win by shipping faster. They’ll win by resonating deeper.

Design as the New Scarcity

In economics, scarcity drives value. And in an environment where code is plentiful, design becomes rare.

Not interface design, narrowly defined. But the kind of strategic design thinking that understands behaviour, nudges adoption, and builds loyalty. The kind of abductive reasoning that lets you intuit the real problem before users even know how to articulate it. The kind of product sensibility that creates a Calm, a Figma, a Notion.

Design becomes the thing you can’t outsource to a bot—at least not yet.

Just as Dyson kept the design studio in the Cotswolds while outsourcing the production line, modern SaaS companies are learning that the engineering stack can be commoditised—but insight, taste, and experience remain proprietary.

What This Means for Founders

This shift has enormous implications.

If you’re a founder today, your technical stack no longer differentiates you. Your speed to MVP no longer impresses. Everyone’s fast now. Everyone’s cheap.

The question is: can you design a product that people genuinely love?

In other words, we’re entering a world where the primary mode of competition is no longer engineering—it’s empathy. Not velocity, but vision.

Just like Dyson’s decision in 1999 revealed where the real value lived, the AI-powered tools of today are revealing the same thing in software.

And that should be a wake-up call—for engineers, investors, and especially designers.

Because in a world of infinite code, good design is the last true differentiator.