Designer Should Be Among First Startup Hires

Elena Verna believes that in the AI era, creating lovable products that delight users has become the primary growth driver, replacing traditional optimization-focused growth tactics.

At Lovable, Elena has discovered that only 30-40% of her previous growth playbook transfers to AI companies. The fundamental shift is from optimization to innovation - from tweaking existing funnels to creating entirely new growth loops. While she previously spent perhaps 5% of her time innovating and 95% optimizing, at Lovable those percentages have flipped completely.

This shift occurs because AI companies operate in "fast-moving waters" where the underlying technology capabilities change every few months, forcing companies to continually recapture product-market fit. What was once a years-long cycle of establishing and scaling product-market fit has compressed to a three-month cycle of reinvention.

The most effective growth levers in this environment are dramatically different. Rather than focusing heavily on activation optimization (which is now handled by the core AI agent team), growth teams should prioritize:

1. Building something that genuinely "blows people's socks off" - what Elena calls a "minimum lovable product" rather than minimum viable product
2. Creating constant "noise in the market" through building in public, with founders and employees sharing updates on social media
3. Giving the product away liberally - treating free credits as marketing costs rather than margin losses
4. Nurturing community spaces where users can share what they're building

For product teams, this means shipping marketable features at an unprecedented pace, with engineers often taking on product marketing responsibilities. The traditional separation between product development and marketing blurs as everyone becomes responsible for communicating the magic of what they've built.

This approach requires hiring people with high agency and autonomy who thrive in chaos - often new graduates who are AI-native or former founders who can operate independently. The pace is relentless, with companies evolving so quickly that even a ten-day vacation can feel like returning to a different organization.

For leaders considering this path, Elena emphasizes that work-life balance is possible but requires ruthless protection of personal boundaries. The key is not trying to balance everything perfectly, but making intentional choices about where to focus at any given moment, prioritizing family when needed while leveraging AI to maximize productivity during work hours.

AI companies aren't for everyone, but for those who find energy in constant reinvention and are comfortable with ambiguity, they offer unprecedented opportunities to shape the future of technology.