Designing Futures – a newsletter sharing practical design advice for Indie hackers, founders and product teams on taking ideas from zero to one.

Creating bold products that people want, which are well designed, with a great user experience is hard.

That's why every week, I share practical advice on creative processes, product design, innovation and dealing with mental health as a creative, so that you can continue growing your business and building the future.

Who is this newsletter for?

• For aspiring founders, founders, or Indie hackers — helping you to break out of feeling stuck, validate your ideas and and deliver products your users want.

• For product teams — looking to better understand user needs and ideate laterally on how to solve them, through modern experience thinking.

• For designers, product managers or aspiring ones — looking to work on their discovery skills, so that they can deliver more valuable experiences.

What does this newsletter cover?

This newsletter is new and will cover the following topics over the coming months. If you don’t see a topic or idea listed below which you’d like to discuss or think that I should write about, tweet or email me as I’d love to hear from you ✨

Creative processes, such as:

• The process of designing from zero to One

• Iterating on your initial ideas

• Knowing where you have your best ideas

• Navigating complex feedback with users or stakeholders

• Techniques for having more ideas

• Building your creative muscle

• Understanding the importance of big ideas

Product Design and User Experience

• The importance of user research

• Helping you understand your user’s why

• Continuous learning

• Speaking your user’s language

• Understanding their mental models

• Learning with MVPs

Innovation

• Regular roundups of impressive new products or bold ideas

• The importance of innovation in design

• The latest in growth such as utilising community in your product

• How innovation works, and understanding the iterative process

Life and mental health

• Dealing with Imposter syndrome

• Managing the stress of ambiguity

• Learning to think like a leader and trusting the process

• Reducing feelings of anxiety and depression as a creative

• Being mindful of burnout

• How to thrive as a solo founder, PM or designer in a small startup

• Confidence to pursue your ideas

All the best!
- Josh (@joshuanewton1)

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