The Two-Sided Book That Gets Everyone on The Same Page

Be In The Book

AI doesn’t fix your team’s misalignment - it accelerates it.

This is not your typical design book. No Seat Required is a two-sided guide for a new generation of builders on both sides of the table with AI in the middle.

Side One: For Founders and Startup Teams

How do you harness design not just to polish, but to win? This side equips founders and product leaders with the mindset, methods, and rituals to integrate design so that it becomes a multiplier, not an afterthought. Learn how to unlock real strategic advantage through design, even when resources are tight and timelines are shorter.

Side Two: For Design Leaders in Startups

You’ve got the skills. Now learn the moves. This side shows product designers and design leaders how to thrive in high-velocity startup environments, how to earn trust, drive outcomes, and stay anchored in user value when the world shifts daily. It’s about influence without ego, alignment without permission, and impact without waiting for a seat at the table.

The Convergence: AI-Accelerated Design

At the heart of the book lies a shared space: how business and design can finally speak the same language in the age of AI. It’s here that you’ll find the systems, principles, and playbooks that turn teams into forces of strategic clarity and product-market fit.

Side One: 
For Founders

  1. Design Is a Business Tool, Not a Phase

  2. From MVP to MLP (Lovable, not just Viable)

  3. Rituals of Alignment: Design in Weekly Ops

  4. Hiring Designers Who Think Like Product People

  5. Avoiding the Pixel Pitfall: Outcome-Driven UX

In the Middle:
The Convergence

  • Shared Principles of High-Impact Teams

  • How Agentic AI Changes the Game for Everyone

  • The Language of Outcomes

  • Case Studies of Business-Design Integration Done Right

  • Toolkit: Shared Frameworks and Decision Models

Side Two: 
For Design Leaders

  1. Startups Don’t Owe You a Seat—Earn It

  2. Aligning Without Over-Explaining

  3. Navigating Product-Led Cultures

  4. Designing Through Ambiguity

  5. Scaling Influence, Not Just Assets

Roadmap

Be In The Book

  • ✅ Defining the problem & assembling the right voices

    • Positioning and structure of the book (dual-sided: Founders & Design Leaders)

    • Landing page + contributor recruitment

    • Interview and research call scheduling (active now)

    • Weekly writing sprints and live drafting in public

    • Collecting anonymized “firing quotes,” org patterns, and transformation moments

    Status: 🟢 Actively recruiting contributors & writing in public

  • 🧠 Insights in, frameworks out

    • Conduct 20–30 founder and design leader interviews

    • Develop and test org health frameworks (e.g. Design Leverage Maturity Model, Accountability Map, Hiring Fit Index)

    • Publish excerpts and working chapters on site/email list

    • Collect reader feedback + track qualitative responses

    • Early contributor community (Slack, Circle, or private Loom drops)

    Status: 🔄 In development

  • 📦 Real-world feedback, early results

    • Full draft manuscript available to contributors & early readers

    • Run 2–3 pilots of the frameworks inside real orgs

    • Gather testimonials, quotes, edge cases, “this didn’t work” stories

    • Launch interactive tools (e.g., diagnostic, team self-assessment, role-fit quiz)

    • Capture how agentic AI is beginning to change the design/org landscape

    Status: 🔜 Planned for Q3

  • 🚀 Ship the artifact + launch the ecosystem

    • Final edits, design, and production (e-book, print, Notion-based living companion site)

    • Launch companion site: toolkits, extended interviews, ongoing updates

    • Public release + limited cohort-based reading groups (optional)

    • Invite-only advisory community for companies using the frameworks

    Status: 🔲 Planned

Who I’m Interviewing

Founders who’ve hired design leaders and regretted it, fixed it, or still aren’t sure.

Design leaders who’ve been sidelined, promoted, blamed, or changed the game.

VCs, PMs, and engineers who’ve seen design go very right—or very wrong.

What I’m Looking For

  • Real stories of friction and impact

  • Playbooks that actually worked

  • Hard lessons from bad fits

  • New ideas about how agentic AI is changing your org, your role, and your customers

Why Participate?

  • Get featured (anonymously or credited) in the book

  • Access early models, excerpts, and contributor forums

  • Help define the next era of design leadership—and who gets to lead it

Much More Than a Static Book

  1. Dynamic Case Studies

    • Add new case studies over time from readers and teams who’ve applied the book’s models

    • Versioning: track changes in models over time (e.g., “Org Fit Canvas v1.2”)

  2. Interactive Tools & Templates

    • Team alignment diagnostic

    • Hiring decision flowchart

    • Design-org maturity maps

    • “Is your org ready for a Head of Design?” quiz

  3. Reader Feedback Loop

    • Add a feedback prompt at the end of each chapter or section:

      “How does this apply in your org? What’s missing?”

    • Feed insights back into a newsletter or blog:

      “What readers told me after Chapter 3 went live…”

  4. Live Working Sessions

    • Host public “book sprints” or teardown sessions with contributors

    • Streamlined version of the Design Leverage Intensive—but for the ideas in the book

  5. Private Beta Community

    • Invite contributors and early readers into a Slack or private Circle group

    • Share working chapters, gather structured feedback

    • Could later spin into a subscription-based advisory layer (your “Pro” layer)

Be In The Book