Design is the Strategy: A Founder's Playbook

What happened

Vishwanath Surendiran sold his house, bought a van, and lived in it for eight or nine months before deciding what his company would sell. He and his wife, who is also his co-founder, drove out of the UK and down through Europe and back, road-schooling the children, and spent hours of most days arguing about what kind of business they wanted. The brand and culture documents that came out of that trip are dated December 2021, months before Steam-A had a product. He reckons about 80 per cent of what they wrote then has actually happened.

His definition of design was making conscious choices to deliver an outcome, rather than an output, for a specific audience, and then judging the result on form, function and experience. He used the pop an Apple box makes when you open it, which nobody arrived at by accident, and the sound a car door makes when it shuts, which tells you what the manufacturer was aiming at.

He is on the culture-eats-strategy side of that argument and was rude about the other one: strategy is what CXOs do to fill the daytime. Before Steam-A had a customer, the two of them spent a fortnight on a culture canvas that asked why the organisation exists, how decisions get made, which behaviours get punished, which get supported, and how meetings run. It became a handbook every joiner still receives. Two of its rules have cost him money. Right choice over convenient choice, and right people even over the pace of growth: he wanted 25 people by December 2022 and did not have them until nearly 2024, paying for the gap with his own savings and then with loans from family.

The first interview at Steam-A is the cultural one and the technical round comes after it, so candidates are asked to show something they have made that has nothing to do with work. At one highly ranked college they read two hundred CVs, shortlisted nobody, and never got as far as an interview. Everyone who joins is handed Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, and the induction is a treasure hunt in which new people work out who their colleagues are from clues the colleagues wrote about themselves.

The most useful part of the morning was the part where the product failed. Steam-A built a tool for planning EV charger installations. The first version was designed in an office, looked good, and was received politely. The second replaced the customer's spreadsheets and did considerably more. The customer then used it roughly the way people use Instagram, looking at it, while doing the actual project management on WhatsApp and email. The third version is being built now, and he did not claim it would be the last.

The numbers he offered for the design argument were about people staying rather than about shipping. Against an industry attrition rate he put between 15 and 25 per cent, he worked out that Steam-A should have lost fifteen to eighteen people in three years and had lost three it wanted to keep. He finished on a graduation a fortnight earlier, where eight interns were asked who they would like to collect their certificates from. None of them named him, and he offered that as the evidence that the company had stopped depending on him.

What was promised

Design is the Strategy:

A Founder's Playbook

A Conversation with Vishwanath Surendiran, CEO of Steam-A

Vishwanath Surendiran

Co-founder & CEO, Steam-A

Vishwanath is a business growth and leadership professional on a mission to drive sustainability forward. As the Co-founder and CEO of Steam-A, he is focused on decarbonizing mobility and addressing "service anxiety" in the EV community through robust, digitally-enabled smart charging solutions.

Before his entrepreneurial journey, Vishwanath spent nearly a decade in the UK's competitive energy and utilities sector with Enzen Global, where he led business development, managed key client accounts like United Utilities, and advised on multi-billion Euro M&A engagements. His mantra for growth is forging long-term, trusted partnerships with C-suite clients by delivering committed business outcomes.

A graduate of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, and PSG College of Technology, Vishwanath combines deep strategic acumen with a passion for building a values-based, outcomes-focused organization. He is now channelling his extensive experience into building Steam-A as a design-led company that creates products to enable a cleaner, greener world.

Saturday, August 16, 2025

Format:

Fireside Chat & Live Q&A

Location Kovan Labs,IndiQube Echo, Avinashi Rd, TNHB Colony, Indira Nagar, Civil Aerodrome Post, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641014

What does it truly mean to be "design-led"?

For many, the term conjures images of slick apps and pixel-perfect interfaces. But what if the most powerful application of design thinking lies beyond the screen—in solving complex, real-world challenges like sustainability and energy?

Join The Product Space for an exclusive conversation with Vishwanath Surendiran, a seasoned business leader and the Co-founder & CEO of Steam-A. With a distinguished career in management consulting and business growth in the UK's energy sector, Vishwanath brings a unique perspective. He isn't a designer by trade; he's a CEO from an IIM Bangalore background who has intentionally chosen to build his company on a design-led foundation to tackle one of today's most critical issues: EV charging reliability.

This is not a theoretical lecture. It's a playbook from the trenches. We'll go beyond the buzzwords to explore the 'why, what, and how' of embedding a design philosophy into the core of a business.

In this session, you will learn Why a business leader with a background in M&A and strategy believes a design-led approach is the ultimate competitive advantage.

The 'What' What a design-led culture looks like in a company focused on industrial and sustainability outcomes, not just digital products.

The 'How' The practical, first-hand steps for implementing a design-centric mindset, gaining buy-in, and building a team that "screams design."

This conversation is essential for founders, product leaders, designers, and strategists who want to understand how to apply design principles to drive meaningful business and social impact.

Agenda (IST)

10:15 AM - 10:25 AM: Opening Remarks by The Product Space

10:25 AM - 11:25 AM: Fireside Chat with Vishwanath Surendiran

11:50 AM - 12:00 PM: Closing Remarks & Final Networking

Who Should Attend?

Startup Founders and C-Suite Executives

Product Managers, Product Owners, and Product Leaders

UX/UI Designers, Service Designers, and Design Leaders

Business Strategists and Management Consultants

Professionals and students interested in Cleantech, Sustainability, and the EV industry.

About the Host

The Product Space is a community-driven organization based in Coimbatore, dedicated to fostering the product management ecosystem. We bring together professionals from product, design, and technology to learn, share, and grow through curated events, workshops, and networking opportunities.

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