Name: Brainstorm Design 2024: Design At Scale
Uploaded: 2024-12-05
Duration: 13 min 7 s
Description: Vanessa Cho, Design Partner, Google Ventures, In conversation with Clay Chandler, Fortune

Vanessa Cho, Design Partner, Google Ventures, In conversation with Clay Chandler, Fortune

Brainstorm Design 2024: Design At Scale

Conferences

Vanessa. Thank you for being here. It's great to see you, Vanessa uh came direct from uh Seoul and we were worried that she wasn't gonna quite get out of the airport for a moment there. But uh we're delighted to, to have you, Vanessa. You're really uh you have a unique perspective in our program today because you were looking at design from the investment side, which is a really fascinating uh uh perspective. Tell us a little bit about GV, uh Google Ventures as it, as it's known where it kind of sits in the organization and, and how uh how it came to be. Yeah, for sure. So GV is a venture capital firm. Uh It's backed by alphabet, but it is a non strategic which explains our diverse investments in all different types of industries. May it be consumer tech or enterprise software, life sciences or frontier tech? You know, we have around 10 billion in terms of a um we're a multistage everything from incubation all the way to late stage. And I'd say it's just like we have over 400 active portfolio companies right now. It's just like with our notable investments being Slack or stripes. Uber Nest, uh duo security and one medical. So it really spans a variety of different, uh different sectors. It does. Yes. Absolutely. This is like anything where it's just like the intersection of the industry, technology and accelerating it to actually make. And it's like disruptive changes. We're probably having a conversation. One thing that's really notable about TV is it has this really kind of world class design team which, you know, a lot of venture funds don't really think to have a staff of designers to offer a perspective. Tell us about that and why, why Google is structured that way and what does your team look like? Yeah, for sure. It's just like, I mean, what we'll say is like a GV, we just believe that design is critical for a success for a successful company. So in it's baked into our DNA, it's core to our DNA so much so that when GV was first opening up its stores and hiring its first batch of investors, we hired a design partner and then had built out a design team. And so I think the thing is, is like, there's a reason why TV actually has the longest running, you know, design team in venture capital. It's just something we fundamentally actually believe in. I happen to run the design fund along with him. It's like two colleagues, Kate Aronovitz, who ran design at uh you know, Facebook or Meta and linkedin and then Michael Margolis, arguably one of the best, if not the best user researchers in our start up industry as well. And together the three of us, we act as coaches advisors, sometimes therapists, you know, it's just like, but mostly as truth bearers to our founders who are looking to learn how to actually leverage design and user research to actually mitigate, you know, just like an accelerate business decisions. So tell us about the different levels of maturity of the different companies in your portfolio. Are they mostly kind of later stage start ups or are they, do you have also early stage and, and kind of where are they in there? Yeah, for sure. No, we have everything, we have the whole whole blend of everything as well. It's just like anything from stripe, you know, which arguably is just like our friend, you know, this like incredibly esteemed colleague, Katie Dill is running that particular design team to, you know, just like some times we have a person who doesn't even identify themselves. Yes, that is a founder. They have an idea, they're a subject matter expert and they're deciding if they actually should begin to like, take a bet on this assumption and if it is the right time and the right stage, that's really interesting. So Nick in his introduction, alluded a little bit to this question, but, you know, for, for these younger companies that are in the early stage of development design can often seen as this kind of nice to have rather than something that's essential. What do you say to, you know, early stage start ups about how they need to think about design? Yeah, I mean, I think what I would say is it's like it depends how you define design. If you're defining design as some mirror like visual polish, probably I would say it's not that essential for a start up because we're just trying to find product market fit. We're trying to figure out who our core customer is and how do we actually deliver an experience for them. Now, if you're talking about design with what we call a cat, the little d you know where it's all encompassing and it's just like I would say, it's absolutely essential. It would be similar to when we had said it's like, let's say you and I are building a house together. It's like Visual Polish is an interior decorator. We do not need to hire an interior decorator when we don't yet even know what the foundation of the house will be. Do. We need to hire an architect. Absolutely. We need to have conversations about like who is this family moving in? How large is this family? Now, how large will they actually be? How many bathrooms and bedrooms do we need to make sure it's accessible? How accessible is this building actually going to be? And so that's often the conversations we actually have and why we think it is so critical for design to actually have a role in a start up, it reduces cost, it saves money. And then to be honest, just being on the investing side, when a founder comes in for a pitch to actually ask for money, it is so clear and evident when they actually have a good foundation in design, it gives you a lot of confidence as an investor being like, oh, they're very close to the customer. They're listening to the customer, they can be nimble, they can be adaptive. They know how to actually build a scalable product. And they're always thinking about a trustworthy brand that actually can scale. Those are the things that we actually really think about, you know, day in day out. Yeah, and the skills of designers can really help them when things start not going well to identify where the problems are and how the business model needs to be adapted and adjusted, which is, which is so important. So tell us a little bit about your background and your journey to being a designer at, at GV. Yeah. So my background is uh we talked about this a little bit. I was born to Korean parents. My both my parents are Korean, but something a little bit unusual about me is my dad was a diplomat for the United Nations. So I am born and raised in Vienna, Austria. I lived there for the 1st 18 years of my life. Um And so the thing is that what you think about is Vienna Austria is just like, oftentimes I was surrounded and it's all true. I was surrounded by music, by art, by culture. You know, it's a slide, all of those things. But also if you meet someone that's from Vienna A Viennese, there's a level of appreciation or like a values of efficiency, timeliness and optimization. So I think I'm a perfect blend of a Viennese where it's like I have deep appreciation for aesthetic, but I'm also very pragmatic and that's kind of how I found myself, you know, very comfortable with the intersection of design and business. So being a kind of multicultural kid gives you this kind of broader spectrum of empathy and ability to kind of navigate different cultures. I think so. Yeah, I mean, I think so it's just like being a multicultural kid. I love how you define me. I'll take that any day. But this is like uh you know, believe it or not growing up in Austria, there were not that many Asians and quite frankly, there were not that many Koreans. And so at a very early age, I learned to live in a world that was not designed for me. Uh and it might sound very lonely and I think at times it probably was a little bit lonely. But for me now as a designer, I find that it's one of my superpowers that I actually have. Uh it's like, I never assume and experience is designed for me. I always ask who is that core customer that IC P that we're going after? You know, it's just like, what are their pain points? What behavior are we trying to change? And how are we making it as easy as possible for them? I think the other thing, you know, just like real superpower gave to me, it's like being an Austrian Korean is, is that I don't fit neatly into any box, you know, just like I show me a demographic survey that I can fill out where it says, please check here if you're a Kro Korean, Austrian, like that does not exist, you know, but I'll be very happy when it does. But because there was no box for me to check, there really is no playbook or a path for me to actually follow. I I'm pretty creative in terms of my perspective and the approaches that I actually take and that's really what's required in the start up world. Generally, we asked people to think about things differently and to also be bold, you can be bold, you need to be bold. One thing that we do at TV is just like, imagine, you know, it's like TV has a magic wand and we ask founders to be like, what is that one wish that you have that would really change dramatically and transformative, you know, the road map that you have and the conversations we have with our founders, some of the wishes are ambitious, but some of them are not bold enough, they're not bold enough. And one requires a real bold way of thinking, you know, just like to really differentiate yourself and elevate yourself from a noisy world of products right now. That's fascinating. So your role as a uh you know, being on the investor side is, is also from a design perspective, can be, I suspect part of a partly a challenge because you're not right in the, you know, the the the founders are very close to their customers, they may not know how to think about what their customers are looking for. Uh But they're, they're right, you know, at the coal face and as an investor, you're kind of one step removed from that. And sometimes you're with this company, sometimes you're with that company, you're not there around the clock. Does that little bit of distance get in the way, make it more of a challenge to have a true design insights or is it in some ways an advantage? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be in my position if I wouldn't think that I have a real unfair advantage as it. Like, I think the thing is, it probably comes in a couple of different ways. The first one is, is that I actually am just curious and I'm coming in with fresh eyes, right? And I have no biases built in. I don't know why or what the trade offs were that we built this platform in this particular way. I'm sure it was complicated, but all I care about is like, who's the customer, what is the pain point and what are we trying to achieve in terms of an outcome? So one I have like, you know, I have no biases. The second way is, is like, I am figuratively and literally, we are invested in the company, but I actually am not part of the team. And so because of that, I can ask very provocative and at times probably also obnoxious question uh that someone on the team probably cannot ask what would happen if we actually had to deliver the road map and half the time, what would we actually cut? Where is there a risk in the road map that no one's talking about? What is that quality bar? Are we hitting that? And why are we actually being challenged and not hitting that quality bar? Those are the questions that I can ask without any reputational risks that I actually have. Um And I think the other thing that an advantage that I have, you know, being on the outside in, it's just like we run hundreds of customer studies, right? It's like we have the techniques, the tips, the skills down. And so actually, I mentioned Michael Margolis, one of the best user researchers out there. He has figured out a technique to actually deliver customer insights at start up speed. In one day, he can deliver those particular things. And he just recently actually published a book, you know, it's free, it's a free playbook about customer. You can find it at learn more faster.com. It was like, I'd highly recommend it. It's just like, and it has all of our tips and tricks put in. And so because we just have the repetition, we are able to sit from the outside and actually provide those particular insights at all times, really amazing uh perspective. Um I wonder, you know, you work and travel in Asia quite a lot. I mean, this is, this is not so uncommon in Silicon Valley as a way to think about investment. Is it, is it the same in Asia or has Asia not yet figured out the power that design can add the value that design could add on the investment side? Oh, I don't, I mean, I always think it's just like it is not the same, but it is just like it's value and appropriate contextually appropriate for and it's just like the culture and the geography that we live in, I generally believe. And that's why I'm here. I want to learn everything we can here and bring it back to Silicon Valley. But then I also want to share some best practices as well. One thing that I find that I think is really interesting is it like, you know, when I can't compare it to European is just like, we don't have any hierarchy in terms of the best ideas in Silicon Valley. If you have a good idea, you actually are loud and obnoxious and you speak up. And that's something that, you know, just like at times is a cultural change with other cultures to make sure that hierarchy actually has no role in a product roadmap discussion. Fascinating uh Vanessa. This has been really educational and instructive, I think uh for us. Uh um and a lot of lessons and insights here for, for start ups uh in, in this region as well as globally. Thank you so much for making the time to be with us. Thank you so much for having me.