Special Guest Allan Yu on Going From Designer to Founder, Pivoting Your Startup, and Why AI Should Be Invisible

This week we’re joined by Allan Yu, designer and co-founder of community messaging app, Output. He previously worked as an early designer at Svpply, a cult favorite among designers, and later at Google Labs, Meta, and Shopify.

We talk on designer to founder reality checks, pivoting your startup (again and again), Svpply nostalgia, type foundry UX rants,  building a Discord for normal people, design craft vs shipping product, venture-backed startup pressure, fake users testing your product, why consumers don’t care about AI, AI as invisible product magic.

https://output.app

David McGillivray is a designer and creative director in upstate New York, designing for early stage tech companies through his own practice. He also co-founded Offhours and runs Corners, an art and design store in the Catskills.

Jacob Heftmann is a Los Angeles-based surfer and graphic designer. He is currently the Design Director at Grilli Type. Previously he was on the faculty at Parsons and founded XXIX and Index in New York City.

Artwork by Pablo Delcan
Music by Mondo Boys
Artwork typeface; GT Standard Mono by Grilli Type

www.worksbutmakesnoises.com