Writing
Startups and Investing

How to Write Genuinely Helpful Investor Updates (that Don’t Suck)

As a Seedcamp Venture Partner, start-up advisor and occasional angel investor, I’ve found myself looped in to an increasing number of investor updates of late. While I’m by no means an expert in managing investor relations, I’ve spotted a few common patterns that make these updates a joy to read from an investor perspective, while allowing founders to get the most out of their investor and advisor networks. Let’s start with the basics…
Design Practice

How to Write a Job Ad that Doesn't Suck!

As a Seedcamp VP from a design and product background, I'm regularly asked for hiring advice. Especially from folks who have had an open role for several weeks (sometimes even months), but haven't been getting the quality or volume of candidates they've been hoping for. The first thing I usually do is ask to take a look at the job ad, as this is generally where the problem starts.
Design Practice

Where to Find The Best Design Talent

The design recruitment market is really hot at the moment. Largely because founders and leadership teams are beginning to understand the importance of a well designed and well conceived product. As such I’m constantly being asked by leadership teams to help them find early design hires. 
Tech Culture

Why I'm Still on the Fence About Crypto

As somebody who has been lucky enough to not only experience a number of online trends—early Web adoption, The Web Standards Movement, the emergence of UX Design, Web 2.0, the Mobile Web—but to benefit from them, I can see why folks are excited about the rise of Crypto. 
Design Practice

The 7 Ways Designers Make Money (and why most of us are only doing the first three)

While this article is titled “The 7 Ways Designers Make Money” it’s fair to say that it’s really about how people in general make money. It just so happens that I come from a design background, so this article has an inevitable design slant. It’s also safe to say that this article is pretty basic. In fact I suspect a lot of people reading this will be thinking “duh, yeah”. However I wanted to write it because while the contents may be a little business 101, it’s also stuff I didn’t really think about when I was a practicing designer or running my own design studio. Had I thought a bit more systematically about how designers make money, it’s possible I might have made different life or business choices. As such I’m writing this in the hope it’ll give people a little more perspective on some things they may currently be taking for granted.