Most founders think design is logos, colors and a nice website.

To me, design does two things:

• It shows you what to build
• And it makes buyers trust you enough to buy it.

That’s literally product market fit. Understand the product. Understand the market.

Instead of reading, you can also watch it on YouTube:

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What I learned too late

When I was 22, I co-founded Felloz. We sold software to some of the biggest organizations in the world. Thousands of employees, 6-month sales cycles.

I didn’t know which buttons to push to close those deals. Eventually I realized all they wanted to know was that we weren’t a big risk. So I designed for that.

We figured it out. Just too late. Felloz didn’t work out, and I was devastated.

And for AI startups it’s even harder now. Your buyer read the MIT report too: 95% of corporate gen AI pilots stall early and never make it to scaled adoption. So every AI startup walking in looks like a risk until it proves otherwise.

9 design assets

I started a design studio, because design was the only thing I knew. Over time I learned that selling software to enterprise comes down to 9 design assets.

That’s all I do now. Install those 9 in AI startups and keep improving them.

Two of them just raised. Almetra AI closed a $19M Series A. MarvelX closed a $6M seed. And we’re working with two more on their product and their market right now.

Here’s all 9 design assets we install:

What your buyer sees

1. LinkedIn + collateral

Most buyers meet you through a LinkedIn post or your booth at a convention. That’s the first moment to look less risky. Graphics, booth design, some print. Usually the first thing I install with a new customer.

2. Website

They saw you, so now they google you. With a 6-month sales cycle your site doesn’t need to book demos, but to make every person googling you think “these guys are real.” Tech teams, marketing, managers, all with their own objections. Handle them on the site. And don’t look like some random vibe-coded page. No big logos yet? Fine, there are other trust elements. We’ll find a way.

This matters more than you think. IT security review is the single biggest source of delay once a vendor is picked, named by 39% of buyers and 50% of enterprise buyers. A lot of those questions get answered (or not) before the first call.

3. Sales deck

A thing founders hear a lot: “Sorry, we don’t work with small startups.” The deck has to handle that. Good looking, full of trust elements, saying exactly what it needs to say. And editable by you, because you’ll change it after every call to test new angles. PowerPoint, Figma, Pitch, wherever you work.

4. Sales demo

Let’s be honest, you’re selling features that don’t exist yet. Hard to do with the real software, unless your devs work overnight to cram something in. So I vibe code a demo that looks like the real product, and you can add any feature without touching the real software. Bonus: you’re testing features before anyone builds them. If nobody cares in the demo, don’t build it.

5. Pitch deck

As a founder you’re always raising. The pitch deck is where you test how you position the startup, so same as the sales deck, it has to be easy to change. And it has to tell the same story.

6. Software

Designing, but mostly testing. I build a lot of prototypes, vibe code them, put them in front of users. All before your dev team ships a single line of code. This is where most of the focus goes. And it’s where most startups stop.

What only your team sees

7. Product analytics

What people say in the demo and what they actually do are two different things. Analytics shows you the rage clicks and the moment someone stops using it. Nobody tells you that. Now you know, and features change based on it.

8. Design system

I used to install this late, because early on you should explore, not polish components. With AI that’s changed. It’s easy to build and maintain now, and your whole team can use it. Sales, customer success, anyone can make a prototype that looks like the real product. So now it comes early, and everyone ships faster.

9. Design brain

The one most founders miss. And the first thing I build.

In the first one or two weeks I talk to users, visit clients, visit leads. Every interview goes in. So does every sales call, every customer conversation, every internal discussion. Everyone has access and everyone feeds it.

Roadmap decisions come out. What we test next. What goes on the website and in the sales deck.

Funny enough, the MIT researchers blamed most of those failed pilots on a “learning gap” and flawed integration. To me that’s a design problem. The brain is where the learning happens.

One question

Which of the 9 is missing in your company right now?

Just reply, I read every answer.

📞 Selling to enterprise and stuck in long sales cycles? Book a free call here: https://cal.com/nik-zechner/strategy-call​

Nik