Show HN: I Launched a “Product Design as a Service” SaaS Startup

[alexbiet]

Are you planning your next design project, but you are tired of waiting months to recruit freelancers and design agencies are way too expensive? An alternative is now available.

Designline.co is a fast and easy way to turn your ideas into premium designs, for one fixed monthly fee. Subscribe via Stripe (pause or cancel anytime), request unlimited designs and enjoy super fast delivery within 24-48 hours.

1. What challenges have you encountered while working with freelancers and/or design agencies?

2. I am looking for beta testers for Designline.co.

3. Your feedback is welcome!

[alexbiet]

That’s pretty much how it works! :)

Here’s how I see it.

When startup companies need product design skills, they generally hire a full-time product designer, a freelancer or a design agency. There are advantages but also drawbacks for these options. Recruitment can take months, full-time roles are a long term commitment, freelancers are not always available for work or reliable, and design agencies are expensive.

A SaaS offering for product design brings a few cool benefits:

- START IMMEDIATELY. Subscribe via Stripe and submit your design requests and revisions on the dedicated Trello board. Receive your designs within 1 or 2 working days on average.

- PAUSE OR CANCEL ANYTIME. The monthly plans are flexible based on your needs. The quarterly and yearly plans have a nice discount for longer projects.

- FRICTIONLESS COLLABORATION. You can submit unlimited design requests and revisions for as many projects and brands as you need. All requests are added to your queue and delivered to you one by one.

- SCALABLE. The queue capacity can be increased with the Enterprise Plan for clients with large amounts of design work (multiple projects with overlapping timelines and multiple teams).

- GOOD PRICING. You can access product design services from experienced designers for as low as $50k per annum via the yearly plans.

I believe these are the things that makes Designline a SaaS or a DaaS (Design as a Service) startup company.

[alex1212]

Is this a service accessible via subscription? i.e. there is a human on the other end, right?

[alexbiet]

Yes and yes. Here is how it works:

1. FLEXIBLE SUBSCRIPTION. You can subscribe on the website using Stripe. Soon after, you receive the onboarding email with a link to a dedicated Trello board. The subscription plans are flexible, you can pause or cancel anytime. There's no lock in.

2. DESIGN REQUESTS & DELIVERY. You can submit your design requests right away. One of our designers picks up the requests the same day. Your designs are delivered one by one in the priority you choose, on average within 24 to 48 hours. We design with an iterative process and even for larger projects (i.e. a mobile app with 20 screens), you can see new iterations and new screens added every 1-2 business days.

[nam17887]

you say "as a service" for things that are not a service and then you make it a service.

[alexbiet]

Sorry, fat fingers typo... I added a comment instead of replying. You can see my reply above.