BILAL
BILAL
BILAL
Select work
Career
tl;dr
revenue of $53M/mo and more than 65M MAUs
my recent big win at Amazon.. took the product to market in less than 4 months
been the first designer in 6 of my 8 gigs
In my 10 years of full-stack UX career, helped more than 8 startups go zero to one.
🫡
2013
2023
Co-founded a UX studio
UX Designer
Two of the fastest-growing startups in India
Designer,
Co-founder
Looked down→focussed on honing skills.
Fast & nimble teams.
Should've asked more questions.
Looked up → focussed on pitching UX ideas to leadership.
Evangelized the adoption of design sprints.
Should’ve taken a long view on relationships.
Looked around → built cross-org partnerships.
Blue-sky projects within a large company learnt about leverage: design systems.
Bridging strategy-execution gap + mental models.
Career
tl;dr
revenue of $53M/mo and more than 65M MAUs
my recent big win at Amazon.. took the product to market in less than 4 months
been the first designer in 6 of my 8 gigs
In my 10 years of full-stack UX career, helped more than 8 startups go zero to one.
🫡
2013
2023
Co-founded a UX studio
UX Designer
Two of the fastest-growing startups in India
Designer,
Co-founder
Looked down→focussed on honing skills.
Fast & nimble teams.
Should've asked more questions.
Looked up → focussed on pitching UX ideas to leadership.
Evangelized the adoption of design sprints.
Should’ve taken a long view on relationships.
Looked around → built cross-org partnerships.
Blue-sky projects within a large company learnt about leverage: design systems.
Bridging strategy-execution gap + mental models.
Career
tl;dr
revenue of $53M/mo and more than 65M MAUs
my recent big win at Amazon.. took the product to market in less than 4 months
been the first designer in 6 of my 8 gigs
In my 10 years of full-stack UX career, helped more than 8 startups go zero to one.
🫡
2013
2023
Co-founded a UX studio
UX Designer
Two of the fastest-growing startups in India
Designer,
Co-founder
Looked down→focussed on honing skills.
Fast & nimble teams.
Should've asked more questions.
Looked up → focussed on pitching UX ideas to leadership.
Evangelized the adoption of design sprints.
Should’ve taken a long view on relationships.
Looked around → built cross-org partnerships.
Blue-sky projects within a large company learnt about leverage: design systems.
Bridging strategy-execution gap + mental models.
“Design systems hash out the easy problems, so products can focus on the hard ones”
LEARN FROM USERS
FRAME THE
PROBLEM
MAKE BETS
FORM
ALIGNMENTS
MEASURE
SUCCESS
IMPLEMENT
More or less
My Process
hypothesis
user journey
visual design
A/B testing
Dogfooding
Voice of the customer (VOC)
primary, secondary research
user interviews
*
*this is my personal take, and does not represent the companies i've worked with
My
Notes
Overheard at work
🚧
Editing…
“Temporary solutions to temporary problems usually become permanent problems”
"Good products are like vitamins. Great products are like pain-killers."
"The simplest solution already exists in our plain sight. We just have to remove all the over-engineering and over-solving.
This can only happen when people with good judgement have conflicting ideas. Carving out the excess to uncover the insights that have been hidden in plain sight all along"
"If you aren't embarrassed by your first version, you've probably launched too late."
"You don't arrive at great user experience by deconstructing intricate complexities but rather by exploiting unrecognized simplicities."
"Kind before clever.
Doing over criticizing.
Effective over efficient.
Long term over short term.
Avoiding stupidity over seeking brilliance"
“You get paid linearly for analyzing and solving problems. You get paid non-linearly for creating opportunities"
“Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”
"The distance between action and results shrinks with consistency"
“Temporary solutions to temporary problems usually become permanent problems”
"Good products are like vitamins. Great products are like pain-killers."
"The simplest solution already exists in our plain sight. We just have to remove all the over-engineering and over-solving.
This can only happen when people with good judgement have conflicting ideas. Carving out the excess to uncover the insights that have been hidden in plain sight all along"
"If you aren't embarrassed by your first version, you've probably launched too late."
"You don't arrive at great user experience by deconstructing intricate complexities but rather by exploiting unrecognized simplicities."
"Kind before clever.
Doing over criticizing.
Effective over efficient.
Long term over short term.
Avoiding stupidity over seeking brilliance"
“You get paid linearly for analyzing and solving problems. You get paid non-linearly for creating opportunities"
“Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”
"The distance between action and results shrinks with consistency"
“Temporary solutions to temporary problems usually become permanent problems”
"Good products are like vitamins. Great products are like pain-killers."
"The simplest solution already exists in our plain sight. We just have to remove all the over-engineering and over-solving.
This can only happen when people with good judgement have conflicting ideas. Carving out the excess to uncover the insights that have been hidden in plain sight all along"
"If you aren't embarrassed by your first version, you've probably launched too late."
"You don't arrive at great user experience by deconstructing intricate complexities but rather by exploiting unrecognized simplicities."
"Kind before clever.
Doing over criticizing.
Effective over efficient.
Long term over short term.
Avoiding stupidity over seeking brilliance"
“You get paid linearly for analyzing and solving problems. You get paid non-linearly for creating opportunities"
“Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”
"The distance between action and results shrinks with consistency"
“Temporary solutions to temporary problems usually become permanent problems”
"Good products are like vitamins. Great products are like pain-killers."
"The simplest solution already exists in our plain sight. We just have to remove all the over-engineering and over-solving.
This can only happen when people with good judgement have conflicting ideas. Carving out the excess to uncover the insights that have been hidden in plain sight all along"
"If you aren't embarrassed by your first version, you've probably launched too late."
"You don't arrive at great user experience by deconstructing intricate complexities but rather by exploiting unrecognized simplicities."
"Kind before clever.
Doing over criticizing.
Effective over efficient.
Long term over short term.
Avoiding stupidity over seeking brilliance"
“You get paid linearly for analyzing and solving problems. You get paid non-linearly for creating opportunities"
“Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”
"The distance between action and results shrinks with consistency"
BILAL
BILAL