{"id":74829,"title":"🎨 NUMI - Your startup's design department","tagline":"A full-suite design department for startups, on subscription","body":"# **TL;DR**\n\n[NUMI](https://numi.tech) gives your startup a design department on subscription, with a dedicated primary designer. We cover all your design needs, from product to web design, creative design, and even no code development.\n\n[**See example designs**](https://www.figma.com/proto/AmRAnvyBxNrdPlRZFijTIB/Our-Work?page-id=0%3A1\u0026type=design\u0026node-id=3-3\u0026viewport=1224%2C1072%2C0.18\u0026t=nZ4pPtvomYvN1h1d-1\u0026scaling=scale-down\u0026starting-point-node-id=3%3A3\u0026hide-ui=1)\n\n![](https://i.gyazo.com/b3210ba3878b2702f4f9d80e4321e6e0.jpg)\n\n# **Problem**\n\nGood design is now a non-negotiable for startups.\n\nBut there isn’t a single person that can do **all** the kinds of design that startups need: product, brand, graphic, web, and site development.\n\nThis forces every founding team into freelancer management hell: they have to source, vet, and onboard designers for each discipline. Half of those designers quit, ghost, or are fired within 3 months.\n\nThe alternatives are either to spend $100k+ / year on white shoe agencies or full-time hires or go to freelancer platforms that commodify design (including the work they’ll do for you!).\n\n# **Solution**\n\n* **Unlimited design requests,** completed one at a time.\n* **A dedicated primary designer with timezone overlap**. You’ll collaborate directly over Slack, video, and Figma\n* **1:1 design office hours:** talk design strategy with cofounder Harrison (founding designer at Imgur, RISD alum), up to twice a month - while supplies last!\n* **Full design coverage**: product, brand, web, and no code design / development—all included. If you ever need something outside of your primary designer’s skill set, we’ll match you with an additional designer\n* **Guild of vetted pros:** our guild of designers is invite-only. Harrison and I personally vet every single designer before they join. Our acceptance rate is lower than 2%\n* **Backed by community**: NUMI’s guild means that if your designer ever faces a challenge, there’s a whole community of world-class designers available to help unblock them\n* **Satisfaction guarantee**: if you’re ever unhappy with your designer, we’ll match you with another one and handle their onboarding seamlessly\n\n# **Backstory**\n\nWhen we got into YC, our startup was growing fast and so was our design backlog. Even with my cofounder Harrison’s design prowess (RISD alum and founding designer of Imgur) in the design community, we were surprised by how much work went into building and maintaining our design capacity.\n\nSince then, we’ve spoken with hundreds of startups who have the same problem. One YC founder told us “I sent personalized messages to over 300 designers but got no responses.”\n\nWe figured there had to be a better way.\n\n# **Interested?**\n\n**Special launch offer:** try us out with a two-week, $15 trial.\n\n**If you’d like to give NUMI a shot, **[**book a call**](https://cal.com/team/numi/design-chat-15min)** with us**. We’ll personally walk through your design roadmap and help you prioritize the most impactful design work.\n\nIf you’re just design-curious, watch our podcast [**Bottom Line Design**](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDCuvx5TIrFjgUcSXp1ShKw) to see our interviews with design leaders from [YC and Instacart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMkkh2_3SLc), [Apple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE7nKvQ2T78), [Zapier](https://youtu.be/-sDsruRS-tE), and [Nike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhpzFDovsZM).","slug":"JSv-numi-your-startup-s-design-department","created_at":"2023-09-13T15:17:53.613Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T10:48:55.112Z","total_vote_count":139,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/JSv-numi-your-startup-s-design-department","share_image_url":"//bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/yc-og-image-c440a0ad1dacfb86eeeb343717479cc54d256614449b4ef719977a0a451f8bc8.png","company":{"id":12974,"name":"Flowglad","slug":"flowglad","url":"https://flowglad.com","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/a33924c9ef04561b7f186705a82e3da8b6e9251d.png","batch":"Winter 2020","industry":"B2B","tags":["Artificial Intelligence","AI","APIs"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/12974"}}