Alden Huschle

Midjourney’s launch on Discord was brilliant. As a new user, I knew enough to ask for an image of a rabbit on a firetruck. But by watching others, I discovered I could create vector images, recast photos into Ghibli-style art, change aspect ratios, or convert photos to pencil-shaded drawings.

One of Airbnb’s most meaningful UX decisions is highlighting the human hosts behind each listing. Instead of faceless hotel rooms, users meet real people who host their spaces.

Each listing says “Hosted by [Name]” and includes a host profile with pictures, bios, and reviews. This personal connection warms the experience and reminds users they are gu... See more

Because Stripe is taking on all of the compliance complexity, there is an opportunity for founders to build newly profitable companies and startups have a chance to go international faster than ever before. Tens of billions of dollars are on the table, just waiting for entrepreneurs to grab them.

Here's the counterintuitive truth: users tend to embrace features they discover on their own.

When Airtable forced a "New Automation" pop-up, adoption crawled to 9%. When repositioned as a subtle "+" menu for natural discovery, adoption jumped to 41%.

Why? Self-discovered features trigger dopamine releases that create ownership. I experienced this wh... See more

These guiding questions will help you locate pockets of urgency:

For whom is this critical to their strategy, especially if it’s directly tied to revenue?

Examples: Regulatory compliance, industry certifications, public declarations of strategy, entering a new market, buying another company, dealing with a competitive shift in their market, preparin... See more

One very common pitfall for naive implementations of discovery, ranking or status is to inadvertently stop newcomers from “breaking in”.Any social experience will typically have attention or display mechanisms that need to take relative status into account. A naive implementation of a “suggestions” feed or a “top users” might be to rank content bas... See more

We need to use these new tools in a truly creative way. And that’s why the really powerful inputs will continue to be human – empathy, observation, humour and cultural understanding. These are things that help us break through the creative ceiling.

What is really interesting is considering the second-order effects of the ability to create software 10 times faster than just a few years ago.

When we focus excessively on scaling, on profit margins, on hiring, we miss the point of founding—and life, really. Which is to find meaning in our daily tasks.