

How to Hire a Great Web Designer, With Y Combinator's Garry Tan - transburgh
http://mashable.com/2011/03/27/how-to-hire-a-great-web-designer/

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rriepe
Another big issue: Respect. If you don't respect the design process, or
designers, don't ever expect to hire a good designer.

If you've noticed that most designers are either not good, or flaky, chances
are the problem is you and not the designers.

Topics to avoid: How engineers contribute to the valuation of a company but
everyone else detracts, how great 99 designs is, how HTML/CSS is "for people
who can't program," and my favorite: How easy design is, and how you're only
hiring because you don't personally have time for it.

When you say stuff like this, it's not really professional for us to get loud
and try to correct you. It's also not really professional for us to slowly
back away, and then run full speed as soon as you turn your head. But that's
what we end up doing.

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shib71
What about: How hard design is, and how you're hiring because you don't
personally have time to be good at it.

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sgdesign
Good read. In fact I added my name to Garry Tan's list, and was contacted by a
YC company a couple weeks back. But they were looking to get their site
designed and coded for under $1k…

I think that shows that not everybody practices what they preach, and a lot of
startups still consider design like a secondary expense, and not like a major
differentiator that needs sufficient funding.

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Turny
1k?! That's crazy talk. Totally agree with you. Side note: I'm looking for a
designer now for a new web app I'm launching late Spring/Early summer. Well
funded. If you're interested in learning more about the project shoot me an
email at turnbullalexander at gmail dot com.

Cheers,

Alex Turnbull

about me: <http://about.me/alexturnbull>

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citricsquid
Mashable's _thing_ is social media and how amazing it is and how amazing it
will be for you and your business and how it'll make you rich, yet here in
this article:

> Mashable: When you come across a web designer with a trendy-looking
> portfolio and a slew of social media profiles, does that send certain
> signals to you? If so, are those signals mostly positive, negative or
> neutral?

> Tan: I focus on the portfolio and the work they’ve done. Most everything
> else related to how much they use social media is not really an indicator.

I find this _ironic_ I guess, they're completely disproving the entire premise
of their blog.

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il
They might have been fishing for a different answer.

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danberger
A post on how to pick a backend dev (eg what questions to ask) would be just
as, if not more, interesting :)

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evancaine
Is there any chance YC will make the directory publicly available?

