Kitty Chan (@IMKittyChan) and Alice Chan (@AliceChan319) are twin sisters and co-workers at Procurify, an online software company based in Richmond, BC, Canada. The duo work together within the design team at Procurify, and have originated many of the company's creative workflows and protocols, grown the product and marketing offerings from the ground up, and installed a healthy creative culture.
In this conversation, we discuss how the sisters came to work together at Procurify, some of the early creative challenges faced by a small software company, and what sort of workflows and rituals you can use in your own company to help create order and harmony.
Procurify is an online tool to aide companies in their purchasing and procurement. Check them out at Procurify.com
 
Show Notes & Links

Alice and Kitty are UX/UI designers
Procurify helps businesses with their procurement processes, to help businesses buy the stuff they need
The design team is only three designers, so everyone wears multiple hats
Procurify began as as school project for three students at BCIT
Kitty was the first designer, with Alice leaving her "corporate startup" to join about 6 months later

"We know how we both work. It's very easy to communicate."
—Alice Chan
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Challenges at the start concerned process. A lot of trial-and-error.

"Don't bake a giant cake; you might not like the flavour. Bake a cupcake first and taste it."
—Alice Chan
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InVision, and their blog
Lo-Fidelity/Hi-Fidelity design

"Fail fast but also learn fast."
—Alice Chan
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Adrienne Stortz runs xoxocooks, her cooking show on YouTube. She'll like our cooking metaphors.

"Our design team is in the center of everything."
—Kitty Chan
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Kitty & Alice (and their third designer) work on marketing, sales, and lots of other elements.
"Two Pizza Team" — keep it small enough to feed everyone with two pizzas
Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson on Amazon and on Audible


"Boss is a four-letter word."
—Prescott Perez-Fox
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"[Our office] feels like a community center sometimes."
—Kitty Chan
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Show Your Work by Austin Kleon on Amazon

 
 

Steve Gordon, and his Instagram feed
Prescott prefers Kanban Boards over Gantt Charts
Matt Cutts
HelloKittyChan.com
 Kitty Chan on Twitter
 Kitty Chan on Facebook
 Kitty Chan on Instagram
 Kitty Chan on Dribbble
 Kitty Chan on Pinterest
 Kitty Chan on LinkedIn
AliceChan.design
 Alice Chan on Twitter
 Alice Chan on Facebook
 Alice Chan on Instagram
 Alice Chan on Dribbble
 Alice Chan on Pinterest
 Alice Chan on LinkedIn
 Procurify on Twitter
 Procurify on Facebook
 Procurify on Instagram
 Procurify on YouTube
 Procurify on Dribbble

Tools

Procurify
InVision
Smash Bros.
Whiteboards
Trello
Wrike, and its Gantt Chart feature
Sketch, over Photoshop, for interface design

Techniques

Product Owners should bring in Designers from the start to create a feature
Define a "development workflow" which breaks projects into smaller chunks
Publish-and-iterate, not just in app/software design
Move the Design Phase earlier to decide on features. Don't build things before they've been planned.
Take care to ensure consistency across apps, marketing materials
Have a company scrum every Friday to showcase what you've during the week
Upload your work to Dribbble as a team
When moving from design to development, show your thinking in InVision and include images

Habits

Continually share your work — even your in-progress stuff
Take the weekends "off"

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GET THE EPISODE

Download The Busy Creator Podcast, episode 70 (MP3, 35:27, 17.1 MB)
Download The Busy Creator Podcast, episode 70 (OGG, 35:27, 17.2 MB)

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