How do I brief a designer when I don’t know what I want yet?

Most founders wait too long to reach out to a designer because they feel unready.

They think a polished brief is required to start the conversation: a clear scope, a defined feature list, a budget approval. So they wait for those pieces to come together. By reaching out sooner, they start the very process that helps them figure those things out.

Here’s the reframe: starting with a clear problem is all you need to begin working with a designer.

Start by talking, not writing.

Here’s an unconventional approach that works surprisingly well: before you write anything, record yourself talking about your idea.

Skip the pitch and the presentation. Just talk to your phone or Granola as if you’re explaining your idea to a friend over coffee. What’s the problem you keep returning to? Who faces this problem? Why does it matter? What have you tried or considered? What isn’t clear?

Forget about making it perfect or organized. Just speak your thoughts out loud.

You’ll be surprised how much is already there. What’s missing, the gaps, the hesitations, the places where you trail off, is exactly what a first conversation with a designer should bring to the surface.

If that feels too informal, have the conversation directly with the designer. A good first conversation isn’t a briefing session; it’s an interview. The designer should ask questions rather than simply waiting for instructions.

What a designer actually needs to get started

The three things a designer genuinely needs at the start of an engagement:

1. What problem are you solving?
Focus on the underlying problem, not just the feature or the product. “People struggle to find a tutor they trust” is more useful than “I want to build a tutoring marketplace.” The problem is the brief.

2. Who has this problem?
As specific as you can be. A demographic, a behavior, a situation. “Busy parents of high school students who’ve had bad experiences with tutoring agencies” is more useful than “students and parents.”

3. How are you thinking about solving it?
This one is different from the others; you don’t need a complete answer, and a good designer won’t expect one. This question is about what you’ve already explored and which directions feel promising. The designer’s job is to take your instincts, push them further, stress-test them, and uncover approaches you haven’t considered.

You control the first two. The third is something you work out together.

If you want something to write down first

If you do feel the pull to put something on paper before reaching out, keep it simple. Answer these questions in plain language, as briefly as you like:

• What’s the problem?

• Who experiences it?

• Why does it matter?

• What does success look like?

• What are the constraints (time, budget, technology)?

That’s a brief. You don’t need a lengthy document. If a designer needs more than this to start a conversation, they may not be the best fit for an early-stage engagement.

(If you want a lightweight template, I use something called a Tiny Brief, a quick-start format designed to get projects moving without over-engineering the setup. You can find it at everydayux.net.)

What the first conversation actually looks like

When you reach out to a designer without a complete brief, here’s roughly what should happen:

They ask questions, lots of them, about the problem, the users, the business context, and what you’ve already tried. They aren’t interrogating you; they’re building a picture. They might sketch something in real time to check their understanding and will likely identify two or three things that need more clarity before the work can start.

By the end of the conversation, you’ll end up with something resembling a brief, not because you wrote one, but because the designer helped bring one into existence through discussion.

That’s the job. You don’t need to show up fully prepared; you just need to show up.