Event #5: The Founding Designer

Hey, we're back with another Inside Design — this time in collaboration with Antler and three founding designers.

Inside Design is a workshop series that gives students a closer look at what working in design actually looks like. The sessions are built around small-group conversations where designers share how they think and make decisions in their day-to-day work.

This round focuses on what it means to be the first designer at a company — the one shaping how a product takes form before there's a system, a team, or a playbook. We have three founding designers — Niko Salkola (Zero), Jenna Pitkälä (Userlens), and Veeti Huotari (Realm) — joining us to talk through their day-to-day: working closely with founders, building the foundation of a product from scratch, moving fast without losing craft, and figuring out what design even means inside a company that's still defining itself.

As with previous sessions, the workshop will be dialogue-driven. Participants will be split into small groups of 5–8, each guided by one of the founding designers, creating space for conversation about the realities of being a designer at an early-stage startup. Whether you're a designer thinking about that path, or just curious about how products take shape, there's something here for you.