Yesterday night a taxi driver asked for directions to a destination a bit away from our current place. I assume he doesn’t have a phone or maps at that time. I gave him the route in full detail, it goes like this; take a left and in the second signal take a right, then left, and so on. Within a moment, I could see his face, looks like he might drop the plan of going there. Then I just gave him the next two turns. Take a left and in the dead-end take a right then ask someone. His face turned bright.

I believe this is true in life, design, and entrepreneurship as well, even though we know in full detail and we might need to tell less.

The problem is not at the information-sending end, but it is at the receiving end. Our human brain is tuned for patterns and abstraction. Energy is required to consume information; detail works only when the incentives are clear.

Designers call it Minimalism, but many think it is a trend. It is not a trend, it’s a way of life.

Let’s say we want to design a brochure for a B2B product event. A standard way is to use the brand identity and create a professional-looking design. To stand out in an event, we might need a playful design to attract the audience to our booth. Both have their own merits and demerits.

Most real-life problems have more than one solution. Arriving at an optimal solution without hitting anyone’s ego is key. This scenario is typical in the creative field.

I recently came across an anecdote from Buddha’s life. It’s about a hare and a wolf. One day Buddha and his disciples saw a wolf chasing a hare near them in a forest. And the conversation goes like this.

Buddha: What do you think will happen next?
Disciples: It’s obvious; the wolf is a more capable animal with better running skills, so it will eat the hare in a moment.
Buddha: for what they are running?
Disciples: Wolf is running for its food and Hare is running for its life.
Buddha: So what do you think now?
Disciples: hmm.
Buddha: Hare will succeed because it is running for its life. But the wolf has many options, so its intentions are not as aligned as the other.

As they speak, the hare went inside a burrow.

I believe it’s true in life and entrepreneurship. If we are fighting for a solid purpose, then privilege doesn’t matter. Let me know your interpretations. I believe it’s a story worth sharing.

Welcome to Sivi's blog. I’ll start with my personal experience and the influence of design in my previous startup. Finally, I’ll cover the use case of Sivi.

I am a computer science engineer turned entrepreneur. In my last 6 years as a founder of a product startup, I have got the opportunity to hire and work with more than half a dozen highly skilled designers. The product was in the area of visual analytics and automation for e-commerce, so the scope for designers was high. In the initial days, while we were working on the product-market fit, designers helped us to paint a picture without much engineering effort. Customers loved it.

Coming from an Engineering background, I believed only in reality and logic. This gave me a new perspective to look at the world. Aha! Eureka moment, design is problem-solving. My interest level went high, and I started learning the basics of design and tools in 2012. Then designed a few websites, marketing materials, and brand identities. I firmly believe in design-driven product management.

Sivi logo and the design process by me. Feel free to leave your feedback.

For my previous startup, we interacted with digital marketers and designers of top e-commerce firms across the globe since the product was in the area of visual merchandising. In this process, I have worked with designers to understand their workflow and their design process. Sona worked on the UX, UI, and interaction design.

We found many areas of improvement (use cases) in the design workflow.
1. Every design requirement is unique and finding an appropriate design template is hard
2. It takes a long time to bring distinct creative options
3. Coordination between marketer and designer is a hassle. There is no easy way to express a design idea by a non-designer.
4. Device adaptations across the fragments of resolutions are time-consuming and tedious.

We have started working on some of the problems I have mentioned above. Our team has the right mix of design and engineering talent to understand this space and execute the vision. I have a firm hold on engineering and mathematics, thanks to the companies I worked for.

We are very proud to showcase what we have built so far, please signup for the Private Beta release here. Currently, we are working with design agencies and freelance designers to refine the product.

Follow our blog for more updates and exciting news.