I am a big proponent of the motto if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. It is a creed that has informed all of the work that I do. Good design is made up of a lot of little, seemingly unimportant details, that coalesce to make something truly beautiful. However, there is an inherent danger in this kind of “devil is in the details” thinking and that danger is attachment. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to pour so much of your heart and soul into something without becoming attached to the outcome.
For the past three years, I was the creative lead at a start-up in the valley called Sharpcast. When I first joined the company, there was an idea, a smoke-and-mirrors demo and the promise of a series A. I liked the team (which then consisted of 3 guys) and I liked the idea (syncing data across multiple devices), so I decided to join. Over the three plus years that I was there I saw the company go through two rounds of funding, build two products, and grow to a team of over 45 people. Our smoke-and-mirrors demo became a fully fledged product called SugarSync with market traction, interaction design awards and fan base that included the likes of Walt Mossberg.
SugarSync was my magnum opus — the thing of which I was the most professionally proud. I poured countless hours into the design and spent untold sleepless nights agonizing over the details. The product experience was crafted largely by a very small team of individuals who spent their weekends for three years working for a below-market salary simply because they believed in the product vision and liked the team. For the first two years, our product team consisted of two product managers and myself and together we built the Sharpcast and SugarSync brands and designed the SugarSync web, desktop and mobile applications.
The best thing about Sharpcast was the team and the culture. We were fortunate to assemble a team of highly intelligent, hard-working, self-motivated people. We were an opinionated, outspoken bunch and while I often found the ‘question everything’ atmosphere to be a little frustrating and certainly draining, it helped me to grow in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. We worked pretty hard, but we had a lot of fun too. I certainly had my fair share of disagreements with my colleagues, but at the end of the day, these were people I wanted to have a beer with.
About 5 months ago, I decided to leave Sharpcast. It wasn’t an easy decision, but the culture of the company had started to shift in monumental ways — complete with the backstabbing and politicking that we had been so fortunate to avoid for 2.5 years. The coup de grâce for me, was when the importance of design and the quality of the product experience began to recede. I couldn’t see myself working at a place that didn’t value a good design and interaction experience. Instead of working late, people began to leave at 5pm and the place was a ghost town on the weekends. Key members left the team and finally, after three years of looking forward to going into work in the morning, I began to dread it. It was just a depressing place to be. There is nothing worse that watching something you love be slowly strangled to death.
In the 5 months since I left, I have been hesitant to jump into anything as fully as I did with Sharpcast. In truth, I feel a little disillusioned and heartbroken by the things I witnessed there. I am now focused on regrouping — finding interesting freelance projects and working on a soon-to-be-released iPhone app. I still employ the “devil is in the details” design ethic to my work, but I am enjoying the separation… and the sleep.
