Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:09:20 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:09:20] S0: the case studies from Collins. Even go back and and hover over those elements again. The way they bounce feels different than what you typically see. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about how you made that. This was... You didn't use AI tooling to do this. You handcrafted these. Right? [00:09:35] S1: Yes. Well, in this case, I will I will say this was very much design and engineering partnered together. Mhmm. I would lay something like this out in Figma and and try to understand the spacing and the size and the colors and the rows and all of that. And then I would hand it off to someone like Jesper, who would then work on on, like, the bounce animation, for instance. Like, all these books have to level up on top of each other and then basically land one more time as the last book kinda lands on top of it. And that has to feel very organic because if that feels bouncy and organic, then it eludes at the idea of, oh, it's a book. It's a bookshelf that's that's alive. And those things, I think, while they are seemingly unimportant, are exactly the kind of little moments people pick up when they scroll through this kind
00:09:35 · Marvin Schwaibold, Aaron Epstein
[00:09:35] S1: Yes. Well, in this case, I will I will say this was very much design and engineering partnered together. Mhmm. I would lay something like this out in Figma and and try to understand the spacing and the size and the colors and the rows and all of that. And then I would hand it off to someone like Jesper, who would then work on on, like, the bounce animation, for instance. Like, all these books have to level up on top of each other and then basically land one more time as the last book kinda lands on top of it. And that has to feel very organic because if that feels bouncy and organic, then it eludes at the idea of, oh, it's a book. It's a bookshelf that's that's alive. And those things, I think, while they are seemingly unimportant, are exactly the kind of little moments people pick up when they scroll through this kind [00:10:19] S0: of website.... That matter? Like, you have a person Yeah. Who's supremely talented, whose entire job on this project was to make the tab interaction. Yeah. And it's very easy for anybody to go, well, just throw a tab. Tabs exist. You can get that for free in five seconds and then move on to the next thing. Why did you feel like it was important enough to spend somebody's dedicated time before AI could do this, certainly, and and have them focus just on that one interaction?
00:10:19 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:10:19] S0: of website.... That matter? Like, you have a person Yeah. Who's supremely talented, whose entire job on this project was to make the tab interaction. Yeah. And it's very easy for anybody to go, well, just throw a tab. Tabs exist. You can get that for free in five seconds and then move on to the next thing. Why did you feel like it was important enough to spend somebody's dedicated time before AI could do this, certainly, and and have them focus just on that one interaction? [00:10:45] S1: There's multiple different ways to answer that. But I think, especially for the studio, because they work on design themselves, like this is a branding studio Mhmm. I think the clients coming to the website are looking for those kind of Easter eggs. They wanna know that if I hire this agency or if this agency takes this much detail to produce a website of that quality, what kind of Easter eggs are they gonna put into our projects? [00:11:06] S0: Mhmm. [00:11:06] S1: When we work with them. And when they pick our color palette, maybe they're gonna come up with a system behind it rather than just picking five colors that they like because that's the level of of dedication it takes to go really deep. It's a way to... In a way, almost also to show off and and be... And and and show the level of craft and detail that you can bring to any piece of... Or any part of the interface. We try to do the same level of care and and craft at Shopify.
00:11:06 · Marvin Schwaibold, Aaron Epstein
[00:11:06] S1: When we work with them. And when they pick our color palette, maybe they're gonna come up with a system behind it rather than just picking five colors that they like because that's the level of of dedication it takes to go really deep. It's a way to... In a way, almost also to show off and and be... And and and show the level of craft and detail that you can bring to any piece of... Or any part of the interface. We try to do the same level of care and and craft at Shopify. [00:11:30] S0: Talk about the decision then to sell your design studio to Shopify Yeah. And to come join them and and how that process has has been different for you being at a large public company and Yeah. You know, leading a product studio internal there versus the work that you were doing here when you were independent.
00:11:47 · Marvin Schwaibold, Aaron Epstein
[00:11:47] S1: Toby, at the beginning... At some point last year, basically said, we're entering a new era, and that future needs to be designed. And that that was basically it. He's like, I wanna design I wanna design for the future, and I need to hire good designers who can help me paint a picture. And when we see that picture, we'll we'll know what it is, and we can and we can we can go down that route. And I think that was the... That's the mandate at Shopify. Like, design is very much more in the foreground. It's a very honest organization that's very self aware. It's a founder led, engineering led organization, and design hasn't always played the role that it's playing now. Design is very much helping shape the narrative of where the company is going and the level of craft and pride we're taking towards the tooling and the software that that we're building for our merchants, and that's beautiful to see. And that was one of the reasons we wanted to join because we felt while we were having fun designing websites for other studios like Collins or Spencer the illustrator, we also wanted to have a larger impact and and and and see if our strategy would hold up on interface paradigms with millions of users versus the the few users, I guess, that would scroll around the Spencer website. [00:12:53] S0: Right. And so it's a different set of challenges. [00:12:54] S1: It's different set of challenges.
00:12:54 · Marvin Schwaibold, Aaron Epstein
[00:12:54] S1: It's different set of challenges. [00:12:55] S0: The design studio work that you did was create a new site or something to, display work or work on a product or something like that. Talk about how it's different now. Shopify has millions of users, and there's a lot of money at stake with every design decision and interaction that you work on. And what is your process like now being this internal design studio? And and how do you interface with the rest of the organization? And and how do you interface with users especially too?