{"id":42703,"date":"2023-10-20T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-the-role-of-a-founder-develops-over-time-and-other-words-of-wisdom-from-designcrowd-founder-alec-lynch\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:23:09","slug":"how-the-role-of-a-founder-develops-over-time-and-other-words-of-wisdom-from-designcrowd-founder-alec-lynch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-the-role-of-a-founder-develops-over-time-and-other-words-of-wisdom-from-designcrowd-founder-alec-lynch\/","title":{"rendered":"How the role of a founder develops over time and other words of wisdom from DesignCrowd founder Alec Lynch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DesignCrowd<\/div>\n

DesignCrowd founder Alec Lynch says the role of a startup founder changes drastically as a company grows and develops.<\/p>\n

In an AMA run by Blackbird Ventures, Lynch says he has had three \u201cdistinct phases\u201d of being a founder since creating DesignCrowd nine years ago, but one thing has remained constant.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross all these phases I\u2019ve tried to stay close to product and I\u2019ve always tried to stay focused on growth,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The first was when DesignCrowd was entirely bootstrapped and the team consisted of just Lynch.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I did everything from coding to customer service,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After some angel investors got on board, Lynch also brought in a co-founder.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus became sales, marketing and investors,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy co-founder Adam joined the business and led product and engineering and we hired our first person in customer service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once DesignCrowd completed two rounds of VC funding, the role of founder changed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve scaled the team from three people to 48 and from one office to three and from a few angel investors to angel investors and two VCs,\u201d Lynch says.<\/p>\n

DesignCrowd has now hosted design contests worth more than $33 million in total, and Blackbird Ventures co-founder Niki Scevak says Lynch was one of the first local founders to take their startup international.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the original global startup builders from Australia,\u201d Scevak says.<\/p>\n

The AMA session included many other pieces of advice and interesting insights into how the rapidly-growing startup was formed, why culture is so important and how it managed to raise $12 million from Australian investors.<\/p>\n

Why startups should try to raise money locally<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Lynch says he\u2019s proud that the design marketplace startup has raised all of its $12 million in funding from Australian investors, saying there are important advantages associated with staying locally for investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really proud that we\u2019ve raised all of our capital from Australian investors,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

This has included $300,000 from Australian angels, a Series A round of $6 million and a Series B round of the same amount.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to access investors who had helped Australian businesses go global before and we weren\u2019t going to be pushed to move the whole team to the US just because our investors were there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe considered raising in the US and could see this could come with some advantages, but it also has some disadvantages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Competition should be viewed as a good thing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Since its launch in 2008, DesignCrowd has seen the design marketplace industry grow quickly in Australia, with numerous competitors taking it on at its own game.<\/p>\n

Most significantly has been rival 99Designs, but Lynch says this sort of competition needs to be viewed positively.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a business you will need to accept you will have competition, even if it\u2019s not there at launch,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no point getting mad when it comes along.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompetition can be a good thing. Healthy competition will push you to innovate and scale as fast as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The role of luck<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One month after Lynch quit his management consulting job to work on DesignCrowd, the GFC struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith hindsight I think it was good luck,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy sticking at DesignCrowd during this period our service could help businesses save money and once the GFC had lifted I had traction and was ready for investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he says startup founders need to make their own luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer not to think of luck as a determining factor in success,\u201d Lynch says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s beneficial if your mindset is \u2018I am the master of my own destiny\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo experience luck you need to have started your business. If you have a business idea and you want to make your own luck, take action, get started and move fast. Fortune favours the brave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building startup culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In its early days, culture wasn\u2019t a primary concern for DesignCrowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially we didn\u2019t think much about culture,\u201d Lynch says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just tried to hire great people and when we thought about a candidate we\u2019d think, \u2018does it feel like a fit?\u2019<\/p>\n

But once the startup began to grow, the team implement a set of 10 key cultural values.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the values up around our office. We look for these behaviours when we hire and each month we give out awards to reward staff that demonstrate these values.\u201d<\/p>\n

DesignCrowd\u2019s ten most important cultural values:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Think big<\/li>\n
  2. Push yourself<\/li>\n
  3. Move fast<\/li>\n
  4. Be a scientist<\/li>\n
  5. Be an entrepreneur<\/li>\n
  6. Be a designer<\/li>\n
  7. Create fun<\/li>\n
  8. Create positivity<\/li>\n
  9. Be a teammate<\/li>\n
  10. No bullshit<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Follow StartupSmart on Facebook<\/strong>, Twitter<\/strong>, LinkedIn<\/strong> and SoundCloud<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    DesignCrowd founder Alec Lynch says the role of a startup founder changes drastically as a company grows and develops. In<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}