The full story
I've ended up in most of the seats a product needs: design, product management, development. Usually the seat was empty and the problem was too interesting to leave sitting there. I love working a problem back to first principles, and every seat makes me better at the others.
In 2015 and 2016, I led product design at UploadVR through the VR boom, as it grew beyond a globally read publication into a developer academy, coworking hub, and event host. In 2017, I co-founded a lending startup around a simple thesis: the cost and slowness of crypto transactions made lending much more realistic than everyday spending. Before we wound it down, taking a working product through user testing meant learning the debt market and blockchain from the ground up while wearing three hats: COO, product manager, and designer.
From 2019 to 2021, at Idean (now frog), I did interaction design on thorny problems. For AWS, the open question was how data scientists, ML engineers, analysts and developers would collaborate on the same models in SageMaker. I prototyped options stakeholders could click through and feel. At IBM, everything a customer needed was spread across disconnected pages. I designed one page pulling the scattered views together.
For the FDIC, someone whose bank just failed is asking whether their money is safe, and the system meets them with forms. I designed a conversation instead of paperwork, asking what they need and explaining their coverage in plain language. For Samsung, smart appliances alone gave people little reason to open their app, so they bought Whisk to reach consumers from the right direction. On the Idean team, I redesigned the information architecture, interaction design, and UX while a coworker did the visual design. It took detailed, iterative work with Samsung's team and leadership to turn Whisk into a complete prototype of what they needed. Consulting work gets handed off, so I don't know which of the other directions reached production, but Samsung Food is live today and looks like that prototype was executed and succeeded.
Product management came with the territory at UploadVR and the lending startup. At Idean, lead designers carried it alongside their design work, framing the problem and aligning the room, and I got curious about the craft underneath: the methods behind what I'd been doing by feel.
So I studied the craft, earned a Product School certification, and here in Hawaii helped launch Aloha Tree Alliance pro bono, bringing product strategy to conservation. Then AI opened up the third seat, letting me build and ship the full stack myself. I love all three: design, product management, and AI development. Each turns an ambiguous problem into something useful, and practicing one sharpens the other two.
My own products, like UserActivity.ai, Feedback Loops, and ProductMetrics.org, are where I hold all three at once, staying close to a problem until the guessing turns into learning. They keep my hands working and my instincts honest.
The people I love building with are the curious ones: they ask why twice, then do something about the answer. They want to change how something works. I'm always glad to meet them.
