Lessons I’ve Learned as a UX/UI Designer in a Failed Startup

Working as a solo UX/UI designer in a startup can be an exhilarating experience, filled with opportunities for innovation, rapid learning, and creative freedom. Failure, however, is an inevitable part of growth — I know this firsthand as the UX/UI designer for a website builder startup that didn’t succeed.

I was a huge fan of this startup and truly believed in it, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. Despite the disappointment, this journey taught me invaluable lessons that transformed my approach to design, teamwork, and personal development. Here’s why failing isn’t the end of the story — it’s an opportunity to become better.

1. MVP! MVP! Focus on the MVP!

Our global goal was to create one of the most customizable and feature-rich website builders on the market, striving to be as unique as possible. But we initially planned to launch with a single unique feature — “Tree Builder”, based on our first clients’ needs — nurseries that required this specific functionality.

However, as development progressed, new “amazing” ideas for additional “necessary” features kept emerging, like “we have to make it more customizable” or “we definitely can’t launch it without our own file storage!”. The launch day kept getting pushed further away.

We ended up wasting months building these features and missed the opportunity to gather early user feedback to understand the product’s value in its early stages, and our eagerness for uniqueness in many features led us away from our main goal.

Lessons:

  • MVP (Minimum Viable Product) alignment: Advocate for an MVP early. Focus on your core value proposition — the one thing your product does better than anything else. Regularly revisit your project’s scope to ensure it remains aligned with your MVP goals.
  • User-centric development: Remind stakeholders that early feedback is more valuable than perfecting features no one may use. User input will highlight which features are truly important and which may not resonate as expected. Iteration is key to building something great.

Tips:

  • Present examples of successful startups that evolved their uniqueness over time, such as Instagram starting as a simple photo-sharing app or Dropbox launching with a demo video before developing the full product.
  • Encourage the team to launch with core features and gradually add enhancements based on user feedback. This approach not only saves resources but also ensures that new features align with user needs.

2. Ask “What for?” at every step

The startup’s founder often insisted on adding new features he believed were essential for making the product stand out in the market. He also frequently requested reworking existing functionalities because he thought users wouldn’t like them or wouldn’t understand how to use them. However, these assumptions were based on speculation; we were trying to solve made-up problems. These features were rarely tested against real user needs or aligned with the core value of the product. As a result, the product became overcomplicated, and development cycles were delayed. Every new feature seemed important at the time, but in hindsight, many were unnecessary or poorly thought out.

For instance, we spent months developing a custom file storage system, only to find out later that users preferred integrating with existing services like Dropbox or Google Drive. This not only wasted valuable time but also diverted resources from enhancing the core features that truly mattered to our users.

Lessons:

  • Purpose-driven development: Always ask, “What is this for?” before committing to new features or reworking existing ones. Check if it aligns with the product core goals and address a specific user problem.
  • Real user needs prioritization: Prioritize features that solve real pain points and postpone those that don’t. This ensures that resources are focused on what truly matters to users and the business.

Tips:

  • As designers, our primary responsibility is to advocate for users. Incorporate user research early in the process by engaging with potential users through interviews, surveys, or usability tests. Present this feedback to stakeholders to support informed decision-making and ensure the product meets actual user needs.
  • Use analytics and user data to inform feature development (tools like: Google Analytics, Hotjar). By relying on concrete data rather than assumptions, you can better align the product with user expectations and avoid unnecessary features.

3. Develop as easy as possible

In our quest to create a unique and robust product, we often built everything from scratch — even features that could have been implemented faster using existing frameworks or libraries, such as tables and charts. For instance, we spent months developing a custom admin console instead of integrating a reliable open-source solution. This approach not only slowed down development but also diverted valuable resources away from solving the core problems that made our product unique. Ultimately, this led to delays in our launch and hindered our ability to gather early user feedback.

Lessons:

  • Leveraging existing solutions: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Leverage existing solutions to accelerate development and focus on what truly sets your product apart.
  • Hypothesis-driven focus: Use the time saved to test core hypotheses about user behavior and preferences, enhancing your product’s value to users.

Tools:

  • Figma

    • Enables collaborative design and interactive prototypes without extensive coding.
    • Simplifies design-to-code handoff with development mode.
    • Facilitates design system building with shared components.
    • Offers numerous plugins and libraries to accelerate design development.

  • UI Frameworks (Bootstrap, Material-UI, Angular Material, Ant Design)

    • Speed up development with pre-built components and design elements.
    • Ensure consistency and responsiveness across your application.
    • Reduce custom code for standard UI elements.

  • Specialized Libraries

    • Ag-grid: Quickly implement advanced data tables and grids.
    • Apache ECharts: Integrate interactive charts and data visualizations with ease.
    • Intro.js: Add onboarding guides and feature tours without building them from scratch.

  • Awesome list with even more useful tools

4. Communicate, trust and influence

A startup’s success heavily relies on how well the team communicates. Misunderstandings or siloed information can lead to misaligned goals, duplicated efforts, and a fragmented product vision. As the solo UX/UI designer in a remote team, I often felt isolated from critical product decisions. The team sometimes made changes without consulting me, leading to misaligned designs and wasted effort. This lack of communication not only hampered efficiency but also made it difficult to advocate for user-centered design practices or challenge decisions that didn’t align with user needs.

Recognizing these challenges, we decided to adopt Jira with detailed task templates, a convenient task hierarchy, and clear status updates. This setup significantly improved our workflow. I felt more connected to the team’s activities, and it became easier to align our efforts toward common goals.

Lessons:

  • Effective communication: Regularly articulate your design decisions and how they align with business goals. Build narratives that connect user needs with company objectives, ensuring that your contributions are understood and valued.
  • Active collaboration: Involve the team in the design process through workshops, presentations, and feedback sessions to create a shared vision. Collaborative efforts foster mutual understanding and buy-in from all teammates.
  • Transparency and alignment: Implement regular updates, documentations and collaborative sessions to keep everyone informed and involved. Sharing both successes and setbacks promotes a culture of trust and accountability, making it easier to navigate challenges collectively.

Tips:

  • Use Jira or Trello to provide visibility into your work, enabling team members to track progress and understand your contributions. This transparency helps prevent misunderstandings and ensures alignment with overall goals.
  • Utilize Confluence or Notion to document and share product decisions, design rationales, and meeting notes. Accessible documentation keeps everyone on the same page and serves as a reference for future decisions. This also makes it easier to onboard new team members.
  • Don’t wait for others to reach out. Proactively initiate conversations and check-ins with team members to discuss ongoing projects and address potential issues early. Don’t hesitate to ask “silly” questions if something is unclear — people enjoy helping, especially when they see your genuine interest.

5. Be adaptive

In the fast-paced world of startups, change is the only constant. Priorities shifted frequently, often requiring last-minute design changes and sudden pivots in direction. Features that seemed critical one day were deprioritized the next, and new requirements would emerge unexpectedly. While this was initially frustrating, it taught me how to stay flexible and embrace the unpredictable nature of startup life.

As the solo UX/UI designer, I often had to redesign interfaces on tight deadlines or adjust to new target audiences overnight. For example, we once decided to pivot our product focus from nurseries to small businesses in the car rental industry. This shift required a comprehensive redesign of our user personas, user flows, and interface elements. Adapting to these changes was challenging, but it pushed me to become more resourceful and efficient in my design process.

Lessons:

  • Flexibility-driven design: Be prepared to adapt quickly while maintaining a user-centered approach. Treat every iteration as an opportunity for improvement rather than a setback. Flexibility doesn’t mean abandoning your design principles; it means finding creative solutions within new constraints.
  • Growth mindset approach: View changes as learning opportunities that can enhance your skills and the product. Adapting to new challenges fosters resilience and can lead to innovative design solutions that you might not have considered otherwise.

Tips:

  • Develop a design system with reusable components that can be easily adjusted or reconfigured. Figma allows you to create libraries of components that can save time when making changes.
  • Anticipate that changes will happen and plan your timelines accordingly. Including buffer time can reduce stress and provide space to handle unexpected adjustments without compromising quality.

Conclusion

Failure isn’t the end; it’s a chance to learn, reflect, and come back stronger. By asking the right questions, focusing on an MVP, leveraging existing solutions, building trust with the team, and committing to continuous learning, designers can turn setbacks into powerful opportunities for growth. Use every experience — successful or not — to become a better designer, collaborator, and problem solver. Every challenge faced is a lesson learned on the journey to creating exceptional user experiences!

Further reading:

To better understand the bigger picture of building successful startups, I recommend these two books:

  • “The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Ries;
  • “ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever” by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson.