Ask HN: Any successful startups that is founded by a designer?

Let's answer the real question, which is about you. Yes, you can build a successful startup as a designer. Someone else will be coding of course. But the CEO is really the person with 1) the vision and 2) the drive to make things happen. Do you have both? Then you can start your startup.

To be frank, in order to maintain a business, you can't just do all the things alone. So it's really common to have more than one person as the founders of a company. The idea is, it's better to have at least one partner who is growing the same direction as yours. So a technical person would be the best candidate, i would say.

Don't let yourself fall victim to the false dichotomy of designer XOR developer; especially these days, there's no reason why you can't grind for a while and learn enough to make probably whatever you'd hope to make.

Plenty of great resources, and I can lend a hand if you need some help along the way. Just let me know.

Envato.com is highly successful and was founded by a designer.

Here's a clip of the founder discussing his founding story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvzF6Umvjk

Ello, the popular social network, was founded by designers: https://ello.co/wtf/post/founders

Not sure if she was only a designer, but the founder of Poptip had a design background.

Airbnb

Apple

Sunrise Calendar

Teespring