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Meet Entrepreneur: Niharika Hariharan


Niharika Hariharan

I set up design founded businesses that are good for the people and the planet

My job title?


Founder and CEO, Melloh Wellness


What is your typical "day in the life of a designer"?


Planning at the start of the morning, prioritising key actions from strategy to creation. As a founder, I don't have a typical day. I spend my time working across marketing, future roadmap, product development and strategy.


Design principles you live by?

  1. Making is more important than design thinking

  2. Innovate and pivot

  3. Focus relentlessly on end consumers

  4. Link design to business outcomes

  5. Be lean


What problem can't you stop thinking about?


How can we set up design founded businesses and not be a service to enable only technology or business outcomes.


What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Setting up a business has very little to do with having a good idea.

When is "Design done wrong"?

  • When it is all about strategy and thinking and has no tangible outcomes attached to it.

  • When design teams are lead by those who have never gone through the rigour of design themselves

  • When design is seen as a part of product and agile development but not as part of shaping business outcomes

  • When Design is followed strictly as frameworks of journeys, research and prototype but not seen as a creative process that sits beyond double diamonds and random frameworks

Design tools you can’t live without? (Physical and/or digital)

  • Post-its

  • Rotring ink pen

  • Figma

  • Eames lounger

Where and What did you study?


Communication Design - BA


Narrative Practices - MA in Design


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