Welcome Will Dzierson!
Designer in Residence at Obvious Ventures
One of the core tenants that we follow at Obvious Ventures is that technology is by nature an agnostic tool. There are no inherent barriers that constrain digital technology to a specific subset of the economy. And yet, the majority of startup creation and venture capital funding have concentrated on a small number of digitally native industries: online marketing, server software, media, and eCommerce — digital solutions to digital problems. The Obvious Ventures team has always held the belief that there is tremendous opportunity in breaking this trend and extending the scope of what technology can enable to greenfield, non-digital industries. Obvious has invested in many such companies bringing tech to: city grid management (Enbala), drug discovery (Recursion Pharmaceuticals), warehouse operations (stealth), solar installations (Sighten), materials production (Zymergen), and even diabetic management (Virta).
Developing technology of this nature comes with a host of challenges, one of the largest being centered around user experience and interface design. The products that our founders are building often address entirely new problems in industries with no precedent for design. In addition, the users are often using software for the first time and have no prior experience with enterprise tools. While many of the team members at Obvious are familiar with product management and design, we are excited to deepen our experience in this area with our newest team member, Will Dzierson — Designer in Residence.
Will is an old friend of mine and a very talented designer. He has 20 years of experience in Silicon Valley and is passionate about designing for digital experiences in greenfield applications of technology. At Google, he was one of the first designers for the iPhone mobile experience in 2007 and thought about how digital experiences would work on a tiny handheld screen (turns out it can). Most recently, he spent four years as Head of Design at Grand Rounds bringing design thinking into healthcare. He’s particularly interested in working with the types of companies that we back at Obvious and couldn’t be a better fit for our world positive mission.
At Obvious, Will will be focusing on spending time with many of our portfolio companies to help with customer research, ethnography, design strategy, and team building. In addition, he will also be involved in our day to day work of searching for companies that are going after unsolved problems in the hidden sectors of our economy. I’m excited to welcome Will to the Obvious Ventures team, and know that great things will come from this partnership.
