Startup Life: Unscripted #27 with Clinton Zhang, Senior Product Designer at Driva

Startup Life: Unscripted is a TNG Media newsletter, as part of The Nudge Group, where we feature candid conversations with startup operators about their career journeys and experiences. If you received this email as a forward, you can read all our past interviews and subscribe right here.

Welcome back to Startup Life: Unscripted! Today, we’re super excited to be chatting with Clinton Zhang, someone who has been a key player in the startup world, with experiences ranging from Cammy, Douugh, and Milkrun, to his current position at Driva.

In this conversation, we'll explore the unique design hurdles Clinton has encountered in these fast-paced environments. From budget and time constraints to the evolving roles within a team, Clinton sheds light on the exhilarating yet demanding nature of startup life.

Key interview takeaways:

🔍 Tailored Design Processes: An insight into how Clinton's flexible design approach at Driva caters to varying project sizes, constraints, and goals, beginning with clear business and team objectives.

💼 The Intersection of Design and Coding: Exploring how Clinton's coding knowledge significantly enhances his capabilities in visual and web design, particularly in collaborating with engineers.

📈 Elevating Design Standards in Startups: Strategies used by Clinton to improve design maturity within a startup, including correlating design standards with company success and promoting a culture of knowledge-sharing.

👥 Fostering Team Creativity and Collaboration: An overview of how Clinton cultivates an open-minded, ownership-driven, and balanced work culture to spur creativity and collaboration within his design team.

Hey Clinton, awesome to have you with us! So, you've been in the thick of the startup world, from Cammy to Milkrun and now to Driva. I'm curious, what kind of unique design hurdles have you come across in these settings, and how do you go about navigating them?

There are many unique challenges in working at a startup but these are also what make it so exciting and enjoyable. Mostly the challenges are related to budget and time constraints. We've all felt the crunch before but you certainly feel it more at startups.

The role you play within your team and company is constantly changing and you're required to proactively seek out ways to benefit the business that may not be in your job description. These areas are opportunities to grow and develop new skills that you might not get in a regular environment. The only way to tackle them is head-on and with a positive mindset.

As a Senior Product Designer at Driva, what does your day-to-day look like? Can you give us a rundown of your design process, right from the initial concept to rolling it out?

Depending on the size, constraints, and goals of the project, my design process can look very different. I'm a firm believer in moulding the process around what we're trying to accomplish but it always starts with defining what the goals are for our business and our team.

On any given day you'll find me conducting user testing and research, deep diving into our competitors and the industry landscape, nudging pixels in Figma, and animating micro interactions for our team. Of course, there are set rituals that help structure my days such as stand ups with the team and weekly design project crits. 

Driva aims to simplify car financing. Can you share some of the trickier UX challenges you've faced in this sector and how your design solutions have made things smoother for users?

Fintech products have a unique complexity to them that comes with the responsibility of managing people's money. These unique challenges are tied to the individuality of consumers that make up our user base.

At Driva, we tackle these complex challenges through ideation as a team, and we use a variety of user testing methods and research methods to help us formulate design through the lens of different perspectives. We're a user-first company, and I think that's really helped us solve for user problems.

How has your ability to code influenced your work in visual and web design? Does it give you an edge in certain aspects of product design?

Having a base-level understanding of how to code is fundamental in designing in the digital landscape. You'd expect an architect to have a basic understanding of how to build a building.

I've found that the edge comes in how you communicate with engineers. You're able to better articulate exactly how you expect things to behave, understand their constraints, and understand the broader picture of development. 

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You mentioned a commitment to levelling up startup design maturity. What strategies do you use to elevate the design standards within a startup environment?

It starts with finding the correlation between design standards and the success of the company. Each company will be different and have different goals. But by holding the team and company accountable, sharing knowledge, and fostering an environment of design, we can level up the maturity of the design.

Highly recommend NNgroup's article on this. Examples of actions we take include design skill-sharing sessions, feedback sessions with other teams in the company, and regularly cadenced learning updates with the whole company.

Transitioning through various roles, from graphic to product design, what insights have you gained about career progression in the design field, especially in fast-paced startup settings?

There are fundamental problem-solving skills that are translatable wherever interface design is required. The evolution of the technological devices we use will inevitably cause design to need to reinvent how it solves these problems, but predicting and evolving the craft will allow designers to continue to make a meaningful impact.

On that note, as a senior member, how do you foster creativity and collaboration within your design team?

Our culture is built on open-mindedness, ownership, and balance. We regularly collaborate and share ideas in workshops and jams. Team members take ownership of initiatives. We knowledge share early and often on what inspires and drives us. 

Looking ahead, what are you most excited about in your role at Driva, and what impact do you hope to achieve?

I'm excited about the opportunity to continue to create exceptional experiences for our users. I'm always looking to continue to help grow our brand, team, and the impact of design on the business. We're on an exciting growth trajectory, so it's a great honour to be a part of that journey.

From the Startup Life team

And that's a wrap! We hope you've enjoyed this edition as much as we loved putting it together. Stay curious, keep learning, and above all, enjoy the rollercoaster ride that is Startup Life. Catch you in the next one! 👋 Not subscribed yet? Do it here and don't miss out! Subscribe Now.

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