Consumer

Mobility

Healthtech

Banking, Finance and Insurance

After years in various IT roles in Norway, Sjur took off to San Francisco to pursue a degree in design. Bitten by the Bay Area bug, he ended up staying on for another decade after graduating, making a career as a design leader on the ever-thriving startup scene of Silicon Valley.

“It was a very intense period in my life, but full of learning. A part of me misses the “go-big-or-go-home” attitude of American start-ups. You need to move fast and think big to stand a chance. I think Norwegian businesses have something to learn from this. We tend to be too cautious and underestimate the potential in aiming to be international. We should dare to be more gutsy.”

A need to move faster and think bigger

When asked what the most valuable lesson is that he brought with him from Silicon Valley, Sjur points to the importance of prioritising: 

“If you boil it down, in early-phase product development, you need to master difficult priorities. Your number one focus when developing a commercial product, has to be to create something that people are willing to pay for. It’s not enough that people want it, unless they are willing to pay for it. However, once you’ve found that thing, you can dig further, developing the user experience and making sure that the product leaves the impact you wish for it to have, beyond profitability. But you’re wasting your time doing this without verifying the commercial potential.”


Sjur also emphasises the importance of being clear on what your role as a designer is on a product team:

"As a designer, it’s crucial that you understand your role on the team and that you play it well. If you become a showstopper or a bottleneck, you’re doing something wrong. You need to be an enabler, the one who moves things forward. And that means knowing how to prioritise.

As a designer, you offer your unique skills and point of view, helping the company find that crucial product-market-fit during the early stages by understanding the users, their needs, and how their needs fit into the business model. You need to prioritise the design activities that focus on achieving this goal. Sometimes this means doing things that do not scale, just to be able to test and validate the market fit. This requires that you’re clear on what you must do now, and what you have to postpone until a later stage. To put it bluntly, creating a design system should probably not be the first thing you start with when the company hasn’t even validated the business model."

Knowing how to prioritise is key in early product development

According to Sjur, he sometimes experiences a certain resistance towards the commercial aspects of product development in the design community, but that is mostly based on misconceptions. He clarifies:

“At this early development stage, it’s not possible to focus on all potential users of your product. You have to prioritise the segment of users this product is aimed at. That could mean ignoring the needs of some user groups, so that you can solve the problem really well for the target segment of users. This should go hand-in-hand with the ideal customer profile of the startup you’re working for."

Resistance towards the commercial aspects of product development

An emphasis on user insight and user centrism has long been central in design-driven innovation. Creating good user experiences is of course still crucial in design, but according to Sjur, we need more than thorough user insights and happy users to succeed. 

“Insight is good, but it’s problematic if you get stuck in the insight rabbit hole and never leave. You need to get out there and test your product and your business model at an early stage. Prototype and test it in the real world as soon as you can. Is it viable? Are people willing to pay for this? While finding this out, you’ll also get a lot of insight into how people are experiencing the products at the same time. You kill two birds with one stone.”

Testing and prototyping are crucial parts of insight work

Educational background: BSc in Computer Science from Oslo University. Specialisation in UX and Graphic Design from Academy of Art University, CA

Hobbies: Music, cooking, trying to stay active

Silicon Valley or Oslo? I have to say Silicon Valley.

Meet Sjur – developer gone Silicon Valley-savvy business designer