Carri is a true entrepreneur and product designer. I originally met her at one of the Dallas co-working centers, and later we had many conversations and built a friendship at the Dallas Entrepreneur Center. Her energy is infectious. Her drive is focused. She constantly solves problems and creates improved experiences. I’d say in some ways, she’s part designer, part engineer, part entrepreneur. (Oh wait, that’s what a product designer/manager is at heart!)
But most of all, Carri follows where her passion to solve problems leads her. The problem may change, but the passion to solve problems and create better experiences for people always remains.
Carri will be sharing her journey from working in UX (user experience) to founding a company to being a product manager and beyond. She’s also very involved in the Dallas entrepreneurial and design communities. She is the local organizer for CoFounders Lab, an organization that holds regular events to help start-ups find co-founders to complement their missing skillsets.
What we’ll be discussing with Carri:
- When did your passion to solve problems start?
- How did you know when it was a good time to start a company vs be a freelancer/consultant vs be an employee?
- What inspired you to start your businesses?
- What attracts to you entrepreneurship?
- Why product design?
- Has your career path always reflected your passion?
- When did you know that solving problems and creating great experiences was your calling?
What’s a fluid career?
Dana Theus has been observing a new career trend – fluid careers. The average tenure of a job for professionals is 3.5 years. This means that someone could have up to 10-12 jobs in a lifetime and possibly 2-3+ careers. It is freeing, in that it gives people more control to design more work-life balance in their career over time, and anxiety-producing as it can feel less stable if one defines success as “a job that lasts at least 10 years.” This fluid employment trend takes into account the growth in both entrepreneurship and the Gig Economy, reductions in employee tenure, increases in employee dissatisfaction and increases in employee turnover.
About Carri Craver
Carri is an entrepreneur, user experience (UX) strategist, and has been working in some capacity as a product enthusiast for almost 2 decades. Her current role is as Product Manager for Asset Panda, a growing start-up in Frisco, Tx.
Without knowing it her training began as a young child, when her artist mother quizzed her over and over with flashcards about famous paintings. And her engineer father bought her dozens of Dell Logic books, that created a fascination with persevering over complicated puzzles. She sees the beauty and the puzzle in the work of product design.
The road has been as bumpy as rewarding. Twice she has failed to see her own product vision turn to a profitable business. Once trying to go it alone; once with her father as a business partner. But her enthusiasm for working on products that solve problems is too engrained to be dampened.
Giving back to the community that has given her a career she loves is important as well. At one point she taught a series UX classes at local coworking spaces. Currently she is a local organizer for the CoFounders Labs meetings.
While no one knows exactly where the future of product design will go, she is ready to continue to learn and build new skills to be part of that future.
