What I learned by creating Dribbble

Last month, I gave a 30-minute talk at the Awwwards conference in San Francisco. Previously, I often gave presentations, mainly on CSS and web design, but this speech was a little different. I decided to share 20 things that I learned over the past 10 years as co-founder of Dribbble. Time flies by, and I have just decided to completely leave the company and watch further from the outside.

My thoughts on what I learned during the creation of the design community, how we were trained in business, and what decisions were made in difficult years of life, turned out to be very funny and succinct. I thought that it would be good to share these thoughts in text form, and here we are.

Before starting, I must make a reservation that: none of this is the ultimate truth . It’s just my own experience, so don’t forget to spice it up with a touch of your distrust and skepticism. Oh yes, one more thing: none of this reflects Dribbble as a company or the views of the current “fantastic” team. These are just my personal thoughts through the prism of history.

1. Choose partners wisely

I am lucky that Rich Tornett (co-founder of Dribbble) and I found each other. We were neighbors in Salem, Massachusetts. I could see his back door from my front door, our children were friends, etc. Our skill set was a great fit. Dribbble began as a third-party project. There was no business plan, no mission to destroy the design industry, no belief that we are changing the world. We had an idea, and we started to build it. The rest happened by itself.

However, if you have to choose partners and / or co-founders, be aware - this is very similar to a marriage. If you succeed in some way, you will have to share with these people. You will spend a lot of time together. You will make important life decisions together. You will not always get along. You will not always want to see each other. You will have to put up with terrible puns and a sense of humor - although no, wait, I guess I like Rich's talent in wordplay. But you understand: co-founding a company requires that you seem to be married and this is not easy. It is important to be at the same or close level of willpower. Communication is paramount.

I am glad that after all that has been passed, Rich and I have remained good friends. It makes a huge difference to me. Choose your partners wisely.

2. Start with a t-shirt

No seriously. Everything good begins with a T-shirt. I made a logo and T-shirt for Dribbble in the very first place. This is called priorities.

We sent 50 T-shirts along with a business card to friends and colleagues who announced the Dribbble beta version back in 2008. This first group of participants played a key role in community building and development. T-shirt pushed them to actually see the site. This is a key point: instead of a regular email, send something to people who would like to join your community, such as a free T-shirt.

3. The first 100 participants are critical.

We selfishly chose designers whose work we wanted to observe ourselves. Later, when we sent out invitations, it was this initial group that invited the next wave, and so on and so forth. In those early days, there was a sense of responsibility in the community.

Also these people who will give you the most valuable feedback. You chose them, they are special, and they will feel it. You will listen to them, because there are few of them and the ratio quality / quantity in criticism plays into your hands.

We launched the invitation system, mainly to simplify support and reduce the scope of the project in order to have time for the main work. At the same time, “invitations” have never been an obstacle for good designers. One of the positive side effects of "invitations" was that the level of work and designers remained at a high level.

4. Do not impose your ideas.

Observing these first contributors was crucial for community support and the subsequent site functionality. Many of the early features of Dribbble (Rebounds, Playoffs, etc.) were a direct response to what the community required , regardless of our plans.

Gradually, as a company, we took an observant position to search for and implement the functionality that members of our community obviously need. This allowed us to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered by other similar services, where often, when creating logic and user interface, participants tried to “predict” what they wanted without reacting to actual feedback.

It happens everywhere. mentions and hashtags on Twitter, stories on Instagram are real examples of what you can never predict how you will eventually use the created functionality. And that's fine.

5. Do not be afraid to throw things away.

We created many really useless functions, and only a few were worthwhile. Fortunately, much of this never saw the light. We chose to do a large number of internal iterations, then throw things at the wall and watch what lingers.

It happens that your "brilliant" idea, devouring a lot of resources, goes into the public domain, and then fails. It is not easy, but you need to learn to accept it, discard this idea and move on. It certainly needs to be learned. Even if it is a ton of code and time to throw.

Of course, we had to roll back releases of some functionality, but, fortunately, most crazy ideas were never published, thanks to internal iterations and systematic deployment . This is contrary to the “publish quickly and often” paradigm, and I am pleased with our more methodical approach. Here is a great example of a terrible idea that we spent too much time on:

6. Minor updates instead of catchy changes.

We tried our best to make unnoticeable, consistent changes, so as not to spoil the already accumulated user experience of our members. It is very tempting to roll out the update with a full-scale blackjack redesign and ... but these moments are fleeting. And also, it can set up against you a community that uses your site every day.

When you create for the community, it is very important to create a place where it is convenient to return every day, especially at the very beginning of your career.

7. Do not understand what you are doing - this is normal.

It took me a long time to realize this. In business, as in life, no one knows what they are doing and why, but they still continue.

When I was 12 years old, I wanted to build a skateboard ramp and my dad offered help. Like me, he could not be called a jack of all trades, but he was ready to try. So, we are cutting the board in the basement with a Sears circular saw, when suddenly I heard this Vzhzhzhzhzhuuuuummmm! and saw off. My dad cut the cord.

We were lucky that no one was shocked, but this put an end to all future projects related to the saw. But this is what I remember most about this day: my dad just laughed. He made a joke. Over the years, it has become something of a family tale, and my dad created it.

The ability to laugh at your mistakes and at the same time take on things that you do not know is an incredibly powerful quality. And I think that it is important for people to possess it, in setting up and running a business.

8. Get ready for Haight

Designing for designers is difficult . We are not a self-confident bunch of r ..., are we?

An example from life - the designer (the Hulk) does not like something (bear) (comment video ) . Like everything on the Internet, Dribbble has experienced a lot of negativity over the years. This is inevitable, with the expansion and increasing influence - the amount of criticism is growing.

Dribbble was accused of destroying the design industry - which is, I confess, a rather flattering statement. I mean, if a website for designers is capable of destroying an entire industry, well, that's pretty impressive, no? But seriously, it is not always easy to digest the entire heyte flow from the other side. It becomes something personal, and the sooner you learn to take a punch, the better.

A few things to consider:

• Understand whom to ignore. Over time, you will discover patterns, especially from social networks. You will begin to find out who speaks constructively, and who just loves to fight. Ignore the latter, because they will never be happy, and they will not have fun at your parties.
• Celebrate every positive moment and make sure your team is up to date. In the beginning, we launched the #highlights channel in Slack, where we collected and published positive references to Dribbble. Jeff Vin told me that in the early days of Typekit, the team printed positive tweets from clients and hung them on the walls of the conference room.

It's not always easy, but try to focus on the positive voices of others.

9. Trends come, go and come back.

One of the interesting things about Dribbble is the "Popular" page and watching the trends on it. I love it and still do.

One of my favorite eras in user interface design was the sciomorphic period of the late 2000s. It was a fun kind of puzzle, to find a way to fit insanely detailed visualizations into the standard iOS icons. Thanks to Dribbble, I discovered many talented designers, most of whom come from Eastern Europe and Asia. There is clearly something wrong with the water.

If you look at the "Popular" page around the same time, we see: "Dribbble is icon designers . "
Then it's time for long shadows ...

Draw something neat, then add a 45 ° shadow to it. Remember this trend? It was fun and not for long. Then everything became smooth and linear ...

Then there were cats ...

Wait a minute No, there were always cats!

Anyway, I always liked to see these trends disappear. They are very noticeable during a certain period of time, but they always take turns following, and sometimes they come back again.

My advice was not to worry about trends, but to use the style that best suits the task, and stick to it. Use what seems right to solve the problem, and then have fun, watching what people are for. Be patient, and that which becomes obsolete will again become new.

10. Everything is temporary and normal

You should not dwell on the question of whether something is fashionable or not - in any case, all this is temporary.

I reviewed my old works in the portfolio, of course there were both good and bad samples. Over the years I have done some pretty stupid and dubious things ...

All of these works have one thing in common - this is what all went. Projects no longer exist. Kaput. Removed.

Now you can get depressed because digital work is so one-time, or you can see it as positive.

Remember how important were some of these projects at the time? Emergency meetings? Holiday calls? Nobody put their lives at stake, you are here now, and the project is gone. This is what I remember when things start to get a little urgent and stressful.

I would not like to touch spiritual matters, but isn't everything temporary? It’s just stardust swirling around for a while.

Understanding that your job is temporary is going to protect you from worrying too much about trends and / or the desire to be the best in the world.

11. People and relationships are the most important thing.

Thus, the pixels may disappear and all your work is temporary, people and relationships remain in place. Soon you will realize that they are the most important part of all this. After the work is over and if you do it right, there will be good people around you, friends, colleagues, future colleagues. They will be much more valuable than the things or products that you have created.

Also be kind to who you work with. You never know if your paths may cross again. A client or colleague today may be the future leader or founder of a new company. You just never know. I can relate my entire career to the changes received from friends and former colleagues.

In the early 2000s, I worked with a team at Odeo as a freelance designer. At the end of the project, Ev Williams kindly asked

"Hey, would you like to make a design for a new project that we started calling Twttr?"

"No thanks, I'm too busy"

I know ... I'm an idiot!

But here's the thing: you never know where your next project comes from or a great opportunity, or rather from whom. Treat the way you want to be treated.

12. Be careful with third-party projects.

One thing I learned by focusing on a single product, and not on freelance short-term projects: the brain dries out quickly. When you go from client to client, the process and the set of tools are constantly updated, that is, you start all over again. When you do business, you move much slower, drop out of rhythm, miss news on certain technologies, etc.

Invigorate yourself with side projects. Experiment and learn new things on the side, so as not to "unlearn how to learn." In my field of view there have always been a lot of third-party projects, regardless of whether I planned them or not. I am glad to continue learning new things while working on other people's projects.

Hell, Dribbble itself began as a side project for me and Rich!

Advencher Supply Co. - a third-party project that I started some time ago. It combines several of my hobbies: the creation of physical products, travel, adventure, etc. I am learning a lot of new skills in manufacturing and retailing and this is fascinating, not to mention puppelling and video production;) More on this below:

We will skip number 13, as this is an unlucky number.

14. Do not be superstitious.

15. Find a good lawyer and accountant

This is very important, and it is best to have them in stock before they are really needed. A large fruit company sent us a letter demanding the cessation of activity and monetary recovery in the first days of work, and only the presence of an expert who knew the rules of the game saved us from failure.

Also, remember # 1, where did I compare co-founding with marriage? If your business is successful, you will have to deal with major financial and legal issues. Lawyers and accountants who understand your business will be invaluable.

16. Control your stubbornness

Working on something long enough and things will start to become comfortable. It is easy to be self-assured and / or complacent, and I recognize this. Here is one of the clearest examples of how stupid I was.

I was very reluctant to use Sass in development. Sass is an extension that makes writing CSS easier. Rich advanced the idea of ​​using Sass in our code, but I stubbornly and unreasonably opposed this, because I had an absurdly subjective idea of ​​the ideal formatting of styles.

My argument at the time was that, damn it, I studied web design by looking at the real code, and therefore the way it was rendered and formatted was important to me. Over time, a few things happened: the browser tools became better, viewing the source code gave way to a more powerful analysis of external code embedded directly in browsers, and I began to understand what huge advantages Sass will give us.

It took me a year (maybe more) to recover. Soon after, I wrote a book called Sass For Web Designers , which is very ironic to Rich.

Moral: Try to notice for yourself when you are blocking something that can ultimately help a business , especially when it happens because of your stubbornness or closeness to change. It is not so easy! But as soon as you learn, it’s time for something more ...

17. Write, learn and share what you are learning.

I owe my whole career to writing and publishing. It started with blogs. With their help, we shared ideas in the distant and forgotten times of the Internet. I loved blogs because they were inspirational. I quit college, I didn't have formal training, but I could share my thoughts on a blog and reach most countries of the world. Magic.

And so I started writing. I wrote about what I knew as I studied it. It made me think about how I studied it and how to explain it to the same newcomers. It turns out that it is useful not only to preserve knowledge about the subject, but also for other people, I came to this by reading their own stories.

Keep in mind that you do not need to be an expert to start teaching . All things are being investigated along the way. This became a recurring theme in over fifty interviews that I gave on the Overtime podcast . Many talented people include teaching, as factors that have helped their careers. Start writing and sharing, no matter what stage your career is.

18. Do not take financing

I have nothing against financing at all, but I am glad that Dribbble was (and is) a completely autonomous company. Over the years, venture capital representatives have shown great interest in us, but ultimately we realized that attracting outside investors would change the trajectory of the business. We would be on someone's leash, with completely different priorities. The profitability of these investments would be the only goal, and the path of development of the product, most likely, radically changed to achieve it. Our priorities have always been aimed at coordination with designers and the community.

Venture capital funding is great for some products, but just consider how this can negatively impact the product you are creating and your users before agreeing to it.

19. Take care of yourself first

This is a very important topic that was very painful to me. At thirty, I started having panic attacks. I had an anxiety disorder my whole life, but I was not diagnosed until the panic attacks became worse. After a few years, I finally found the right methods of treatment and prevention, and it literally changed my life.

Anxiety is a disease, it is biological. Chemical imbalances, when our primitive answer “fight or run” does not always appear. This is also a condition that is often misunderstood by those who do not experience it. But you need to drop stereotypes, you need to talk more about it. Millions suffer from this affliction.

One of my doctors described anxiety as follows: "when you get older, anxiety finds different ways to manifest itself and complicate everyday life." It changes over time. But understanding this is the first step towards a normal life with him.

Solving a problem (or any health problem) when manipulating a business is an obvious problem. Add to this the difficult divorce and children and everything can get out of control. Which brings me back to # 1, where your partner choice is becoming increasingly important. Support and understanding from this partner can save everything - and I was very lucky again.

I bring it all up because I would like it to be discussed more openly. First, take care of yourself to become a good leader for your team. For example, when you are on a plane and they tell you to put on a mask before helping others. I hate flying.

20. Be able to stop

This also applies to this long article;)

A few years ago, Rich and I sold a controlling stake in Dribbble to Tiny . The time has come to enlist the support in the areas in which we needed and start a new phase for the company. A year later, I switched to part-time work and focused mainly on creating the Overtime podcast. And now I finally give myself complete freedom to leave the routine of life. Dribbble in excellent hands, with Zach Onisko at the helm and an outstanding team that has now grown to 50 people working remotely.

It is not easy to get away from what you have been worried about for 10 years. I have mixed feelings, but overall I'm ready for ...

What's next?

Although I still have you (and, of course, I arrogantly believe that you read the article from the very beginning), and this is what I am going to do next:

Advencher Supply Co. , the aforementioned third-party project. Place for experiments on the manufacture of physical goods. I will put much more energy into it and connect it with what I like to do (boating, fishing, traveling, photography). This is a labor of love, and I am happy to devote more time to its development.

Podcasts: I liked learning how to edit and create podcasts. I really had no idea what I was doing (as usual), and learned a huge amount from the conversations I had with the community. I was lucky that I was able to host Overtime and would like to create a new show on my own if I find a new partner / sponsor who will help me put it together. I would like to continue to talk with creative people and delve into their stories, process and life in general. Perhaps with a bit of adventure. Interesting? Please contact us :)

Logo creation: I love to make logos and branding and after a short break I can immerse myself in it again. I especially love working with small businesses and helping raise companies and organizations that need support.

Thanks for attention! Keep sharing, keep learning, keep creating, keep promoting and remember that all this is star dust and star dust is all. ️

You can find Dan on Dribbble , Instagram , Twitter and simplebits.com .