I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately—there’s a lot of overlap between UX and entrepreneurship. The whole “Lean Startup” thing borrows from the User Experience world (user research, meaningful metrics, among others) and as UXers there is much to be learned the other way too (as Jeff Gothelf has captured wonderfully in his book “Lean UX”).
My question is—does every UX designer harbour dreams of one day applying all of the UX techniques they’ve refined to their own product? It could be argued that UX is a great foundation for starting a business that sells a digital product. So, why don’t more UX designers become founders/entrepreneurs/business owners?
What about you? Is the lure of creating the next Facebook always bubbling away there beneath the surface? Or are you happy designing for someone else?
Sounds like a loaded question but it’s not meant to be! I’d love to hear your thoughts.