The world of design is changing our perception of what business is quicker than ever. In the early 2000s, companies started to pay attention to design and implement this new perspective to fill in the gaps when and where it was needed - quickly making it a vital necessity in any business strategy.

 Design consultancies like IDEO and some others made this philosophy their identity and made the weight of good design go viral around the world. This was just the first move of this trend, however nowadays design is evolving even quicker, taking a heroic role in innovation and broadening its influence in the business scene.

Design was applied to make a statement. To set a product apart from its competitors. To make products more beautiful, more functional, more usable. Design is used to communicate better, to visualize complex narratives and to make services easier to understand and navigate. 

Design then grew more and more well rounded. Adding an emotional aspect to making the products and experiences more pleasurable, meaningful and personalized. 

Now, it is being used as a tool to facilitate connect and leverage value systems within organizations that uncover new business models. In its essence, design fills in the gaps between business, product and customer experience. It adds value and makes a great idea - a great reality.

Design is climbing up the priority ladder faster than ever. It was known that design could take a place in the overall business strategy, nevertheless many companies lacked the comprehension or ablility to apply design to their business strategy in a sustainable manner. 

The application of design as strategy shows a new dimension that creates a competitive advantage in the market for companies that are willing to evolve and invest in their products and businesses.

Design in its strategy dimension is a fluid discipline, it spreads throughout different departments with design practices. To apply design strategy, people must understand the basic principles of design: user centeredness, empathy, a mental & physical process, future oriented, hands on approach, visual, co-creative, an interconnection for complex systems, continuous testing and iteration…every decision taken within the company should consider a design mindset. Applying these principles should be not exclusive for designers, it must involve as many stakeholders as possible to make a real impact internally and in the market.

In the last decade more startups are being founded by designers. Lately, we have seen several designers founding successful startups such Chad Hurley (Youtube), Brian Chesky (Airbnb), Charles Adler (Kickstarter) or Mike Krieger (Instagram). Since the founders understand the value of applying a design mindset in business, the whole company is ruled by design principles and this philosophy leads to great differentiation in the market. For example, Airbnb has a department called Employee experience, which gives a clue of the company culture considering the front stage of the experience as much as the backstage.

Coinbase, the biggest crypto exchange in the world, is an example of the application of design strategy. Cryptocurrencies is a new and unexplored world for the general audience. Only a few geeks and visionaries were playing around with it since Bitcoin appeared back in 2009. Coinbase set the stage to become the natural entrance to cryptocurrencies for the mainstream audience applying several design principles: user centeredness, making something complex as simple as possible; visual, using a great user experience and interface; and holistic, designing the whole service to be intuitive, accessible and effective