Start with people
Not users or personas, but actual people with real frustrations. The right product usually appears once you understand what someone is truly trying to do.
01 / The path here
People firstThen the systems
I grew up in Colorado as the student body president, a varsity athlete, and the kid who wanted to be involved in everything. I studied humanities at CU Boulder because I was more interested in how people think than how machines work. It turns out the best product work demands both.
After advertising at Venables Bell & Partners, I joined Google. Seven years across Shopping and Workspace took me from contractor to design lead, with five UI patents and products shipped to billions of people. It was the best design education money can't buy.
Then I left scale to build from zero. I co-founded SZNS, backed by Framework Ventures and Dragonfly Capital, then Icebreaker, backed by CoinFund, Anagram, and Accomplice. At Icebreaker, we raised $5M, grew past 50K users, and navigated four pivots, from NFC proof-of-meeting to B2B recruiting. Becoming a father changed what I needed from work. In May 2026, I left Icebreaker for a different pace and a new chapter.
In June 2026, I joined Rain as a Staff Product Designer. I am helping raise the design bar across the organization through AI design workflows, while revamping the issuance dashboard, the core interface customers use to manage their programs.