0:00

in order to provide more value, you need to,

0:03

um, The improve

0:05

the, And in order to provide more value, you

0:07

need to, improve the,

0:10

improve your skills or be able

0:12

to, yeah, essentially just become

0:14

better at what you're doing. And you

0:17

can only do that if you

0:19

spend the time and

0:21

investigate the time and effort. and usually the

0:24

people that are willing to invest that

0:26

much time and effort are people that are passionate

0:29

about a certain, topic in

0:31

this case design. But it applies to everything.

0:34

Because if you just wanna

0:36

do it for the money and you don't

0:38

enjoy the work, then it's

0:41

going to be excruciating to dedicate

0:43

that amount of time to become good at something.

0:45

And I think I do. I'm not idealistic. I

0:48

know there's a balance between, being

0:50

passionate about something and

0:53

being, doing something that you're good at. If

0:55

you're good at something, you are more likely

0:58

to enjoy doing it. If

1:00

you're frustrated and struggling and not

1:03

getting results, then it's not an enjoyable

1:05

experience. And even if it's something

1:07

that, or an yeah,

1:09

an area of interest or something

1:12

that you enjoy seeing doesn't

1:14

mean that it'll automatically translate.

1:17

Trying to better your skills and find

1:19

that sweet spot between Doing something

1:21

that you enjoy and doing something

1:24

that provides value to others and

1:27

being willing to put in the work. There's

1:30

no shortcut, no, no hack.

1:32

At least that I found. Overall, I think that's

1:35

the key. Then we can get into specifics

1:37

like don't know, tactical Decisions

1:40

or what exactly to do at

1:42

a certain point in your career. But

1:45

if that's one piece of advice that I

1:47

would give it would be that

1:48

like that. Yeah. The shortcut in

1:50

life is to realize there are no

1:52

shortcuts and stop looking for shortcuts and

1:54

just do the work. Yeah. I like that.

1:57

So let's talk about brand identity. For

2:00

a startup, what are your thoughts on how

2:02

somebody that's I guess brand identity can go to

2:05

not only a startup, any type of business or

2:07

social media, whatever, like the

2:09

brand specifically. What are your thoughts around maybe

2:11

what are people doing wrong? What

2:14

is the common mistakes and what

2:16

do you see that people could benefit

2:19

from your expertise on that?

2:20

Brand design is a very wide

2:23

topic, but if

2:25

I would have to pick something to

2:27

point out, I think a lot of startups

2:30

are struggling to find

2:32

a happy middle when it comes to brand design.

2:35

Some of them, ignore it almost

2:38

altogether thinking that it's a,

2:40

they need to focus on the product or

2:43

solving a problem. And brand,

2:46

brand design and their brand identity

2:49

is just it's a luxury at that

2:51

point. And they ignore it.

2:53

At the end though, at the other end of

2:55

the spectrum, there are people that invest

2:58

too much time in crafting a

3:00

beautiful brand iden visual brand

3:03

identity or to a

3:06

lot of marketing around their brand.

3:08

And in the detriment of developing

3:11

a product that people actually want. So

3:14

For a startup, I think identity is

3:16

important because that is

3:19

what sets you apart. And

3:21

by brand identity, we don't, I'm not

3:23

referring only to, the visual

3:26

aspect like their logo or

3:28

their visual identity. I'm

3:30

referring to the perception

3:33

they Are helping

3:35

shape in the minds of their customers. Because

3:38

essentially that's, that, that's what

3:40

brand identity is is what

3:42

people think about you not your

3:45

visual identity. I think, for

3:48

the most part you need to invest

3:51

in understanding your customer. On,

3:54

on one side and on the

3:56

other side is defining who you want

3:58

to be. That's where

4:00

brand identity, I think needs

4:02

to be. If you're just thinking about who

4:05

you are and what you wanna express. Then

4:08

and not thinking about the customer, then you're

4:10

not going to design something that's attractive

4:13

to them. And on the

4:15

other end, if you are too concerned with what

4:17

people think about you, and trying to design

4:19

something that doesn't really state

4:22

anything or isn't polarizing in any

4:24

way, then again it is going to be

4:27

very bland and With brand identity,

4:29

you want to have character. You want to stand out

4:32

in a certain way. You want to create a

4:35

an impression. For example I

4:37

was listening to a podcast. It

4:39

was I'm blanking on the the

4:41

name at the moment but. It

4:43

was this marketing pundit that

4:46

was giving the example of a

4:49

of a hotel. A lot of hotels are

4:52

somewhat branded visually. They

4:54

have a logo, they have a website

4:57

but they don't really have a brand identity

4:59

because you don't have any expectations

5:02

on. What you

5:04

will, how your experience with that

5:07

hotel is going to be before you

5:09

book the hotel. So that's

5:11

why a lot of people are just sorting

5:13

by price. Whenever you are looking

5:16

for a hotel you set some

5:18

minimum criteria do you want what

5:21

type of rumor do you want the dates and so on.

5:23

Then you sort by price and then you try

5:25

to find, The lowest price for

5:27

the quality you want. But

5:29

if you would have a hotel that

5:32

is designed, built, and

5:34

run by Apple or by

5:36

Nike, then you

5:39

already can imagine what that hotel

5:41

will look like how it

5:43

will run, what types of features

5:46

or amenities it would have, and so on. If

5:49

you imagine

5:50

the most importantly, the standard

5:52

of quality across the board, right? Standard

5:55

of quality. And in

5:57

the case of apple, for example, you

5:59

would imagine a very high tech place, right?

6:01

Where everything is very user-friendly,

6:03

very easy to use and so

6:05

on. Filled with Apple devices, of

6:08

course. But the overall experience would

6:10

be high tech would be automated

6:12

for the most part, and so on. Organized,

6:15

clean, intuitive, elegant. Yeah. If

6:17

on the other hand, if you are checking in at

6:20

a Nike Run hotel, you expect that

6:22

to be much more energetic focused

6:24

on sports, having an amazing

6:27

gym maybe having a community

6:29

of people there that are all into working

6:31

gout and so on. You will have

6:34

a healthier breakfast filled with,

6:36

I don't know With nutritious food that,

6:39

that, that's tailored to your

6:41

macronutrients or whatever. So you

6:43

can imagine what you would

6:46

experience there. You already have some

6:48

sort of expectations. that's what branding

6:50

is. So that's what we

6:52

create the expectation visually,

6:55

but also with the quality of whatever service or

6:57

product the person gets used to we

6:59

delivering. Sure. So it gets part of

7:01

the part of the branding comes from the actual product

7:04

and service experience.

7:05

Exactly. So a lot of people are

7:08

especially designers, focus on the

7:10

visual aspect of a brand. But

7:13

everyone is branding the company from

7:16

the c e o all the way to people

7:18

in at Cust doing customer support.

7:22

They're influencing the

7:24

People's perception of the brand. So

7:26

they're essentially doing branding. That's why

7:28

they're thought they're they

7:31

re receive a lot of training

7:34

into how to talk to people, how

7:36

to solve issues how

7:39

to I don't know, deal

7:41

with tense situations and

7:43

so on, because The customer's

7:45

experience reflects on the brand, on,

7:48

on their reputation. So

7:50

it's not just what marketing

7:54

materials you put out and how they are designed. It's

7:56

everything. It's your product, it's the

7:58

team the the culture

8:00

that you're building as a company also influences

8:03

the brand because the the

8:05

company's reputation is, largely

8:08

influenced by the people

8:10

working there by the by

8:13

their values and what they're building. Yeah.

8:17

That's perfect. I like that.

8:19

So let's talk a little bit

8:21

about what is scope creep

8:24

and how can we avoid it?

8:26

So scope creep is usually it's

8:29

an unfortunate practice when

8:32

you are designing something and

8:35

deciding what features to build. You start

8:37

off with an idea of what we wanna build,

8:40

and then you just add more and more

8:42

to it. So the

8:45

Why do you add more to it? why

8:47

do people add more to it? What, is there a temptation

8:49

or the idea they have in their head that

8:51

makes them do this?

8:52

I think it comes down to not

8:55

fully understanding what the

8:57

customer actually wants or what the

8:59

user wants. Because if

9:01

you are certain you

9:03

understand the problem the

9:06

user need. And your goal is

9:08

to solve that need, then

9:11

it's very easy to distinguish between

9:14

what's a must have and what's a nice to

9:16

have. And scope creep

9:18

happens when, because

9:22

for the most part, people don't wanna impose

9:24

their will and Spend

9:27

a lot of time and resources on

9:29

something that's just a nice to have that's just

9:31

something that can, it

9:33

would be a good feature, but not critical

9:36

at that point in time. But when

9:39

you're not sure what's the right answer,

9:42

then you start Being

9:44

tempted to add on more

9:47

and more features onto a product

9:50

that may contribute to self

9:52

solving the problem. I think

9:54

that's the simplest definition

9:56

of scope creep. And how to

9:58

fix

9:59

it called scope creep. Like Wes, what

10:01

I, can you explain the why

10:03

the word scope creep?

10:05

So you are referring to the

10:07

scope of a project, what exactly

10:10

that project is about and creep

10:12

because more and more ideas creep

10:15

in and it start expanding

10:17

the scope of a project. So

10:20

it's like moving the goalposts

10:22

all the time or widening

10:25

them and so on. That's

10:27

what I think that's the simplest

10:29

way to explain it. So people

10:31

sometimes think that more is better,

10:33

more feature, and yeah, some, and

10:35

it's very difficult for, I think, humans in almost

10:37

every aspect of life to reduce,

10:40

simplify, that was why Apple,

10:42

the Steve Job era was so amazing. Everything,

10:45

nothing Too many buttons,

10:47

confusing people, too many things

10:49

that don't even work well. 'cause there's so many that

10:52

they're not focused on making something

10:54

really good.

10:55

Exactly. And people

10:57

have good intentions when they're doing this. They

10:59

want to solve the problem, but they're not fully

11:01

understanding what the user needs. And

11:04

it's not easy. I'm not blaming people.

11:06

I know how hard it is to Figure

11:09

out what exactly the right

11:12

solution is because, it

11:14

takes a lot of effort to do the

11:16

research. And it's also, it's

11:18

both a science and an art form

11:20

in a sense because people

11:23

will try to explain what

11:26

the what their problems are and

11:28

what they think the solution the ideal

11:31

solution is. But People

11:33

are not experts in solutions.

11:36

They're experts in their problem. You

11:38

can interview them and

11:41

do user research through

11:43

different methods to try

11:45

to understand the problem. But

11:47

even there, it's not so

11:49

easy to identify because, This

11:51

is a, again a wide topic, but

11:54

people, have a hard time expressing

11:57

exactly their, what their

11:59

problem is. Sometimes they

12:01

give you the answer that they

12:03

think you want to hear and

12:05

so on. So it's definitely not

12:08

easy to identify the

12:10

problem and what the solution

12:12

needs to be. But. In

12:15

order to avoid scope, creep and wasting

12:18

resources, it's something that

12:20

you need to do.

12:21

Got it. Got it. So

12:24

let's talk about design. I

12:26

see I like design. I'm

12:28

not a designer. I didn't study, but I've always had a, I've

12:31

always liked design and I've always had a feeling

12:33

for what's good design, bad design, and

12:36

I see a lot of bad

12:38

design. It seems to be

12:40

something difficult to come across

12:43

a truly good design in any, in

12:45

anything, whether it be like

12:48

a visual thing or a product. Talk

12:50

to about, talk to us about, what are the common design

12:53

mistakes you've seen people make

12:55

entrepreneurs? Yeah.

12:57

I think it ties in with

12:59

what we were talking about earlier,

13:02

in the sense that, a lot of startups

13:05

are making this mistake thinking that

13:08

they need a ton of features for

13:10

something to work or

13:12

it needs a ton of features. To

13:16

be able to be for

13:18

that product to be successful. And

13:21

that is rarely

13:23

the case. It depends what you're developing,

13:26

but for the most part, when

13:28

you are when you are building

13:31

a product, if you know

13:33

your customer, You can

13:35

find that m v p, that minimum

13:38

viable product, that product, that requires

13:41

a minimum amount of effort to build,

13:44

to develop and that will

13:47

solve the customer's problem. Maybe

13:49

not entirely but if

13:52

you're addressing a real need, then

13:54

even a partial solution to a problem

13:57

is going to be successful. Even

13:59

if you are solving a problem halfway, if

14:03

that problem is real, then

14:06

people are going to use

14:08

that solution. Now, it's

14:10

not as easy in real life as

14:12

it may sound because you have

14:15

competitors. You have Some

14:17

problems cannot. If

14:19

they're not solved completely,

14:22

they're not solved at all. So we

14:25

would need to talk specifics about a

14:27

product or a service. But

14:30

I think that's a tendency a lot

14:32

of founding teams have is

14:34

to add more and more

14:36

features because they think they're.

14:39

They're good ideas or they're cool, but

14:42

it's not, they turn up, turn

14:44

out to be just

14:46

fluff that users, can do

14:48

without, or that might

14:51

even get in the way of what users

14:54

actually wanna do with your product. I

14:56

think that's a common mistake.

14:58

Yeah. It's maybe also,

15:01

maybe people wanna. they

15:03

feel, oh, I had this great idea and

15:05

they're in love with the idea.

15:07

And how that makes some

15:09

people, I think, feel get in love with the idea

15:12

and how that idea reflects on their quote

15:14

unquote, brilliance. And they gotta

15:17

get self-absorbed and try to implement

15:20

this idea into something

15:22

else. And then by doing that, they basically

15:25

mess up something that was already working just

15:27

'cause of the ego of Sometimes

15:29

they, I think people get too attached to ideas

15:32

and what do you think about that?

15:35

Yeah I think that happens sometimes

15:37

with founders, especially

15:40

if they raised a lot of money

15:42

and have done a lot of marketing

15:45

around their startup before

15:47

they reached product market fit. So

15:51

they maybe insist

15:53

on developing a product or some

15:55

sort of feature and they

15:59

tie their reputation or their

16:01

brilliance to that idea. It

16:03

might happen and it's very

16:06

rarely turns out Positive.

16:09

It rarely works out. Another

16:11

thing that I see happen

16:14

more often, especially with founding

16:17

teams and non-technical founders, is

16:20

that they experience

16:23

an issue. Let's say they are

16:25

in a different line of work. They experience

16:28

an issue. Then they

16:31

go out and try to launch

16:33

a startup to solve that issue. And

16:36

because they experienced that problem,

16:39

they think they know exactly

16:41

what the solution needs to be because

16:45

they felt it. They know the pain

16:47

and they think they know exactly

16:50

what the solution needs to be. And

16:53

it's very rarely the

16:55

case. It's usually not as

16:57

simple because there

16:59

are multiple perspectives

17:01

that you need to take into account. Sure.

17:04

Starting there is is

17:07

better than just picking a problem

17:09

at random and trying to solve

17:11

it because you already Have

17:14

a better understanding of the problem than

17:16

someone that's that just comes

17:18

in and says, okay, I want to do this or

17:21

that feature, or to develop

17:23

that product. But it's

17:26

usually not as simple

17:29

because if you are solving

17:33

a big enough problem, Then

17:36

you, your perspective, you're

17:39

just you need to, as a founder, you

17:41

need to remind yourself that you're a data point

17:43

of one. And you never

17:46

take real decisions

17:48

with a data point of one. You

17:50

need, you need to do more research

17:53

and get a, like a 360 understanding

17:56

of a problem. You're just one, one

17:59

point in those 360 degrees.

18:02

So doing doing

18:05

research and talking to other

18:07

people that have the same problem, then

18:09

you can then get

18:12

a better picture of what you need to build.

18:15

But it's very enticing. It's very tempting

18:17

to believe that you

18:20

just need to hire a development

18:23

team to materialize

18:26

that idea that you have in your head. And

18:28

it's usually not that simple.

18:30

So we basically overestimate

18:32

our own brilliance, and

18:34

then we underestimate the complexity

18:37

of any situation. we

18:39

think like the model that we made in our

18:41

mind, that's how it's gonna play out in real life.

18:44

And then when it's actually implemented, we

18:46

realize that it was so much more complex. I didn't

18:48

realize all these different things could have happened

18:50

and actually the whole thing could have been done

18:52

this other way. And so it's

18:54

basically having a humbleness and

18:57

an awareness of our own limitations.

18:59

No, ma, no matter how brilliant you are. even

19:02

Steve Jobs has like hundreds of people in

19:04

his design teams and his Products

19:06

that was all constantly, talking and

19:09

giving him ideas and letting the best

19:11

idea win and having that approach

19:14

to it, right?

19:15

Yeah, exactly. I was listening

19:17

to an interview with Johnny.

19:20

Ive the ex chief

19:22

of design at Apple who

19:25

worked a lot with Steve and He

19:28

would, he was telling a story

19:31

that they usually had, they had

19:33

regular meetings and Steve

19:36

would sometimes come

19:38

up with ideas that would just take the

19:40

air out of the room that there would be their

19:43

brilliant ideas. And they,

19:46

there are, there were ideas that were changing

19:48

the company. And sometimes

19:50

they were complete flops. That

19:53

even to someone that.

19:57

Had so much experience and I

20:00

was so brilliant at what they're, they

20:02

were doing. Even they had

20:05

really like completely ridiculously

20:07

bad ideas. Yeah. And they had this

20:10

safety net in place of people,

20:13

of advisors that were

20:16

there to help catch those and

20:19

not let them damage the company. So

20:22

yeah being humble is

20:25

I think an essential trait for a founder

20:28

and also being able to empathize with

20:30

your customers to

20:33

put yourself in their shoes. If

20:35

you are let's say, if

20:38

you wanna solve a problem for childcare,

20:41

let's say, and you are a

20:43

father and you have a wife

20:46

and a couple of kids, you

20:48

might imagine that you,

20:51

your idea of how that

20:53

problem can be solved might.

20:57

You need to realize that might look very different

21:00

from, I don't know a single mother

21:02

raising a child on her

21:04

own and maybe in

21:07

in a neighborhood that is not

21:10

as affluent as the one you're living in.

21:12

Or, and working two jobs and not

21:14

having anyone to help her

21:17

with her chores. So

21:20

being able to empathize with different people

21:22

will help you craft a better solution that

21:24

is going to help more people

21:26

than yourself. So if

21:29

you wanna say, if you want to develop something

21:31

that will be bought by thousands

21:33

of people, you need to take their

21:36

their opinion into account. If

21:39

you're just listening to yourself, then

21:41

you're going to build a product that you alone

21:44

will want to buy. And then you

21:46

don't have a

21:47

business. Yeah. To basically

21:49

put yourself to. Like that,

21:51

as that quote from Michael Corone

21:53

and the godfather that he said to

21:55

try to put yourself and the

21:58

other person and try to see the

22:00

world from their eyes, not, your own

22:02

perspective, how would, like you said, a mother living

22:04

in this situation, how would she

22:08

stink and perceive this? Because

22:11

it's gonna be obviously different than you if you are

22:13

not that.

22:13

Yeah, and it's not it's

22:16

not about all just about

22:19

imagining what this, that situation is

22:21

like. But empathy helps you realize

22:24

that you don't understand

22:26

it, you, that you don't know

22:28

how it feels or what

22:31

the what such a

22:33

person is struggling with. And then

22:35

go out and talk to such people

22:37

and understand their perspective

22:40

and then working that into your product

22:43

or service.

22:44

Yeah, I like that even better than imagining

22:46

it, actually realizing that you

22:48

can't imagine it, and then actually going

22:51

and talking to those people to see the real.

22:54

The reality, right? Because we make some really

22:56

bad assumptions a lot of the times. Exactly.

22:58

Yeah. I like that. And

23:01

also being humble to pivot, right?

23:03

Like Steve Jobs and his iPod

23:06

shuffle. I think it was the third generation where

23:08

they took all, all out, they took all out, all

23:10

the buttons, and it was

23:12

a huge disaster because

23:14

it was like the headphones, like it was a terrible idea.

23:17

The next time they bring the buttons back, Yeah.

23:20

And they say, you know what? We made a mistake, but

23:22

it's much better to accept it, because

23:26

he was obsessed with what's the best

23:28

product. So if you realize it

23:30

wasn't let's change. It doesn't, it is not tied

23:32

into his ego. I'm so brilliant. They came up

23:34

with this device with no buttons. It turns out it's the

23:36

stupidest idea that they've ever made. They

23:39

admitted it, changed it. And

23:41

so it's like that humbleness and obsession

23:43

with creating that best product,

23:46

no matter if the most brilliant

23:48

idea that you thought actually was

23:50

completely stupid doesn't

23:52

matter because that's not the point, right? This is not

23:54

an art show that you're gonna show

23:57

to the world how smart you are, right?

23:59

Yeah. That's the difference between art and design.

24:02

Design needs to solve a problem. Art

24:04

can live on its own and not

24:06

solve a problem, and actually it

24:09

shouldn't. And it's subjective. But

24:12

design is much more

24:14

practical. It has some sort of intersection

24:17

with the art world in the sense that good design

24:19

is also aesthetic, but it

24:22

shows it should solve a problem unlike a

24:25

piece

24:25

of art. I like that. I

24:27

like that. All right, Manu. Colin,

24:29

it's been so nice talking to you, man. I wish

24:32

Likewise. It was very enlightening.

24:35

And so tell us, about your business, your services,

24:37

where people can find you.

24:39

Sure. My website, my studio website

24:41

is Contrast Studio. And

24:44

I'm also on LinkedIn, so if people Google

24:47

or search my name or the

24:49

name of the studio, you will find it. That's

24:52

where I'm mostly active currently

24:55

on between all the social networks.

24:57

If you want any any

24:59

advice or if I can help anyone with

25:02

any sort of design work you can reach out to

25:04

me there and I would be happy

25:06

to help.

25:07

That's very kind of you. So kalan for

25:09

those that might, I don't know, are

25:11

just listening. It's gonna be, everything's gonna

25:13

be in the show notes, but Kalan is spelled c a.

25:16

l i n and

25:18

your last name is spelled B.

25:21

It's Alia, it's, yeah, B

25:24

as in burrito, a

25:27

l e a. So

25:30

yeah, you can put that in link, but

25:31

it's easier if you contrast studio

25:34

is easier to remember. You ju you

25:36

can just search that on LinkedIn or Google

25:39

it and you'll find it.

25:41

Perfect. Alright man, it

25:43

was nice meeting you. Thank you so much for being here and

25:46

we'll keep in touch. Yeah, thank you.

25:48

It was a pleasure.