Venture Hacks

We’re recruiting a product designer for AngelList. Here’s how we’re doing it and what we’re learning. (If you’re interested in working with us, details are at the bottom of this post.)

I didn’t start by putting up a job post. I figured if everybody else is doing it, I need to take a different approach. So I called the smartest designers and entrepreneurs I knew and asked them for advice. Here’s what I’ve learned:

• We want a product designer. This job post from Quora defines a product designer as “Extraordinary product, interaction, and visual design talent [with] a curiosity and passion for crafting amazing experiences.” Product design encompasses visual design, interaction design, branding… it’s the whole user experience.
• A small team like ours should hire designers who can build what they design. At a minimum, that means building HTML, CSS, perhaps JS, perhaps beyond. See these posts by Jason Putorti and Rebekah Cox for more info. Also read Rebekah’s Early Quora Design Notes.
• Quora has the best job postings I’ve seen in a long time — they’re muscular and much better than all the quirky job postings in the world.
• Consultants are good if you want to build the product. Full-time people are good if you want to build the team. We want to build the team.

The opportunity for product designers

AngelList is a community of angel investors who make it fast and easy for worthy startups to raise money. These links tell the story better than we ever could:

What do people think of AngelList?
AngelList Twitter Favorites
Fred Wilson covers AngelList

In short, the 250+ angels on AngelList are bringing startup funding online — in fact, they’ve already funded about 40 startups (here’s a few of them). This is a very high-impact and difficult problem… and a giant opportunity to help the industry that funds the startups we know and love: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, you name it.

What’s in it for you? Investors throughout Silicon Valley and the world will use your product daily. You get to lead the product and company by turning vision into product, with no managers in your way. Your title will be the same as everyone else on the team: Venture Hacker. You’ll work with a founding team of investors (Twitter), founders (Epinions), students (life), and advisors (billions served). And you get to push the envelope of what is possible with product design on the Web.

We’re committed to building a high-impact and long-lasting team. If you’re a product designer who’s irrationally interested in this problem and wants to work with us full-time in San Francisco, send us a few links (we don’t need/want anything else), and please let us know if you have any questions.