What "designer" do you need?

Strong collaborations are built from solid mutual understanding.

How about I quickly tell you what I DON'T focus on?

I don’t craft branding assets (logos, or brand guidelines), digital & social media assets (email assets, social post images), or marketing materials (flyers, brochures, etc.).

I’ll kindly refuse and I’ll refer you to a graphic designer.

That’s because I’m a Product Strategy & Design Partner. I craft end-to-end customer experiences.

Most founders think they’re hiring a product designer to make product more usable and look better.

Flows. UI. Polish.

In reality, it's just the surface and key layers often get missed:

1. UI is how things look and feel.

2. UX answers how users understand, navigate, and decide.

3. Product design connects those decisions to business goals and constraints.

4. Service design shapes everything around the product: onboarding, edge cases, etc.

5. Customer experience is all of the above combined.

With 10+ years of experience, I support clients through these 5 layers. I dive into UI details all the way through customer experience.

Also, I purposefully work for Seed to Series A startups at key moments.

My focus is simple: make the product focused, premium, and investor-ready enough to support the next funding round, acquisition, or exit.

That's where I make the biggest impact.

De-risk with a design expert

Early-stage startups are "risk-on" (and high reward). By definition, they’re more volatile than a Series C, D, etc.

Contrary to popular belief, the higher the volatility, the less a company can afford to hire junior talent.

That's because the more a startup is volatile, the more expert talent will help reduce the swings.

Not hiring a design expert at Seed–Series A can be fatal in many ways:

• You can build a product that solves the wrong problem.

• You can ship a clean UI and still frustrate users.

• You can have solid UX and still lose trust if service breaks down.

• You can have a strong product and still stall because the experience isn’t cohesive.

• You don't have a systematized approach to design leading to compounded inconsistencies when new designers get hired.

Expert design work doesn’t start with pixels.

It starts with clarity: what problem actually matters, which trade-offs are acceptable, and which ideas are tempting but wrong.

If you’re looking to work together, this is the frame I work from.

I don’t see design as decoration.

I see it as designing across layers so the product works today without becoming a growth barrier tomorrow.