Helping startups to scale 🦄 ✦ Driving Halo Lab 7 → 8-figures ARR & having fun ✦ Founder with Design in ❤️

I run Design & Tech Agency helping brands become TOP 1%.

✦ $530 M raised + 9-figure exits by client startups 
✦ 500+ projects delivered
✦ 99+ international awards
✦ 4.9 / 5.0 average rating on Clutch from 80+ verified reviews

This is a real impact in numbers.

—

Over the past 15 yrs I’ve been shaping digital products and brands for category‑defining companies — from NOKIA and OPERA to high‑growth SaaS and Web3 start‑ups.

My core focus is design leadership at scale: I enter as a strategic partner, craft a vision, and lead multidisciplinary teams all the way from concept to launch.

—

I specialize in:

⤷  B2B SaaS Product Design | Guiding startups and enterprise spin‑ups from 0 to 1 — turning complex tech into intuitive, emotionally resonant experiences.

⤷  High‑Performance Digital Presence | Building conversion‑focused brand websites that turn first impressions into lasting growth.

—

Have BIG idea in mind?
Contact me directly: inquiry@halo-lab.com

Artem Borysenko

But bad UX silently kills revenue, retention, user trust.

How does it look in your product:

❌ Focus on action, not on the result for the user.
❌ Complex password requirements.
❌ Two fields for the email address.
❌ Unclear question & option. 
❌ Annoying captcha.

Why does this matter for founders?
Bad UX = friction.
Friction = drop-offs.
Drop-offs = lost revenue.

Investing in clarity, consistency, and simplicity is a growth lever.

✦ Before spending more on ads, check:

→ Can users complete your core flows in seconds without thinking?
→ Are you showing users what happens next at each step?
→ Is every element earning its place, or just adding noise?

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we’ve seen micro UX cleanups increase demo bookings, reduce support tickets, and boost LTV.
Because great products don’t just work, they feel effortless.

✦

Want a quick UX audit on your product?
Drop your URL below or DM me.
We’ll send you one actionable UX fix that could move your metrics this quarter.

♻️ Share this to help others build better products.
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Founder @ Halo Lab ✦ Design & Tech Agency Helping Brands Become TOP 1%

Bad UX examples

But bad UX silently kills revenue, retention, user trust.

How does it look in your product:

❌ Inconsistent UX writing.
❌Too much content, perceived as overload.
❌Linear progress bars aren’t mobile-friendly.
❌Overloaded layout that pulls attention away.
❌ Key details are hard to spot, and the offerings feel like a maze.

Why does this matter for founders?
Bad UX = friction.
Friction = drop-offs.
Drop-offs = lost revenue.

Investing in clarity, consistency, and simplicity is a growth lever.

✦ Before spending more on ads, check:

→ Can users complete your core flows in seconds without thinking?
→ Are you showing users what happens next at each step?
→ Is every element earning its place, or just adding noise?

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we’ve seen micro UX cleanups increase demo bookings, reduce support tickets, and boost LTV.
Because great products don’t just work, they feel effortless.

✦

Want a quick UX audit on your product?
Drop your URL below or DM me.
We’ll send you one actionable UX fix that could move your metrics this quarter.

♻️ Share this to help others build better products.
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Most companies still treat a design system as a visual asset.

In reality, it behaves more like infrastructure.

It's a one-time capital investment that reduces operating costs across every product, every release, and every team.

Here’s where the real financial return shows up:

1. Reduction of duplicated efforts across teams.

When teams reinvent or create their own designs for elements like spacing, colors, states, or micro-interactions, they incur the following new costs: a new desig, codebase, QA.

With a standardized token system, there is no longer any need for this cycle to occur. 

2. Component scalability across product portfolios.

A system built for a suite compounds value:
Build once → reuse for every new feature → reuse for every new product.
This is how product orgs cut delivery time by 20–40% without adding headcount.

3. Patterns decrease cognitive load and time spent deciding.

Standardizing onboarding, dashboards, permissions, navigation, or error states will eliminate debate about core design principles among teams. Instead, team members will spend more time identifying the activities that will result in increased KPIs.

4. The cost of change decreases dramatically.

With no design system: A rebrand, accessibility update, or micro-interaction change triggers weeks of redesign and recoding..

With a design system: Update the source → every product updates automatically.

✦

A strong design system improves:

- Time to market.
- Cross-platform trust.
- Developer throughput.
- Conversion and activation.

✦

Build your design system for the next three products you launch. 
You will begin seeing returns on your investment in the early years.

🔔 Follow Artem Borysenko for more updates!

Therapy of the future: how we helped ensure a better patient experience by updating the design of the myReha digital platform.

myReha, created by nyra health, is a digital neurotherapy platform that helps stroke survivors and patients with neurological conditions continue recovery.

When the nyra health team, led by Mario Zusag, reached out, they had a clear goal: make the platform more consistent, intuitive, and scalable without disrupting what patients already loved.

The challenge?
Functionality was not consistent across devices, resulting in multiple users experiencing friction accessing the platform and seeking simplicity and reassurance.

So, we focused on what truly matters in healthcare design: clarity, confidence, and care.

1. We unified card designs for consistency.
2. Clarified CTAs for premium upgrades.
3. Improved streak and progress screens.
4. Optimized dashboards and navigation for clinicians and patients alike.

The Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner team fine-tuned the system to ensure it could scale fast and support nyra health’s insurance readiness and market expansion while staying deeply patient-centered.

Huge thanks to the nyra health team for trusting us with such meaningful work.

✦

If you’re building a product that redefines how patients heal, we’d love to help bring your vision to life.

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Case Study

That’s the moment most brands lose people.

In that split second when something just feels off.

You’ve felt it too.
Website that looks polished but somehow doesn’t feel real.
The words are there.
The design is fine.
But it doesn’t connect.

That’s a trust gap.
In those first few seconds, visitors are quietly asking:
→ “Is this for people like me?”
→ “Do they actually understand my problem?”
→ “Can I explore without being sold to?”

If your homepage doesn’t answer those fast, even a great product starts to feel risky.

The fix isn’t louder headlines or flashier visuals.

It’s smaller, more human details:
1. Clear language that sounds like something you’d actually say.
2. Honest proof that real people built this, not a faceless company.
3. Calm, confident design that gives users room to breathe.

Trust doesn’t start with “we’re the best.”
It starts with “we get you.”

♻️ Share this to help others build trust with customers.
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Homepage Psychology

You can hire a designer.

Or you can hire a design brain.

One gives you beautiful screens.
The other gives you a product that thinks.

When you hire a single designer, you get skills.
When you hire a team that works as one brain, you get experience that compounds.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, our teams don’t work in silos.
The UX researcher sees what frustrates users.
The product designer connects it to business goals.
The UI designer turns it into clarity and trust.
The developer translates it into something fast and functional.

Each person covers a blind spot the others can’t.
And together, they don’t just design, they solve.

That’s the difference between design as a task and design as a system.
Between a pretty interface and a product that scales, converts, and feels effortless to use.

When founders realize this, everything changes:

1. They stop hiring portfolios.
2. They start hiring thinking systems - teams that anticipate problems before they appear, align design with ROI, and build products that last.

If you’re scaling your product, don’t just hire a designer.
Hire a brain that’s trained to think like your users and build like your business depends on it.

🔔 Follow Artem Borysenko for more updates!

I audit real websites. I show what’s broken.

I explain why it doesn’t work.
And I give fixes you can apply today.

These are to help YOU avoid the same mistakes.
Every carousel = free consulting.
If you take the time to apply the lessons, your site will convert better.
Guaranteed.

In each post, you'll find:
✅ Conversion blockers you might not see.
✅ Layout tweaks that improve clarity.
✅ Real examples of what not to do.
✅ UX advice backed by data and practice.

✦

New audit just dropped.
Go through the carousel.
Steal what works.
Fix what doesn’t.

And if you want your site reviewed next:
Comment “ROAST ME” below.

Let’s build stuff that sells. Not just looks good.

♻️ Share this to help others design better webpages.
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Website roasting

Helping people move better shouldn’t feel complicated. 

That’s what makes Rytmo such a powerful idea.

When the Rytmo team first shared their vision, it was inspiring.

They were building 

- A way for people recovering from injury or training with a specialist to feel guided, not overwhelmed.

- A way for coaches and physiotherapists to finally track movement in a way that feels intuitive.

- A way for patients to feel progress, not pressure.

Our role at Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner was simple in intention but meaningful in impact:

1. Turn complex motion-tracking technology into a visual language anyone can understand.

2. Design an interface that supports both ends (the patient and the specialist ) without friction.

3. Create a unified UX that reinforces trust, motivation, and confidence with every action.

We redesigned flows so users never feel lost.
We shaped progress screens that celebrate even small wins.
We built a design system flexible enough to scale as Rytmo grows without ever losing its gentle, supportive core.

Huge thanks to the entire Rytmo team for trusting us with something this important.

Your commitment to building a better experience for patients and specialists is real, rare, and deeply needed in the industry.

✦

If you're building something meaningful in healthtech - a product that helps people feel safer, stronger, healthier - we’d love to collaborate.
Let’s create the next story together.

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Most founders think onboarding is just a checklist.

A few tooltips, a welcome email, maybe a product tour.

Big mistake.

First 7 days don't only determine retention, they forecast lifetime value.

The best products don't "teach" features. They create habits.

Here is what distinguishes your high-LTV onboarding from the rest.

1. Show value quickly.
Don't explain — show. 
Get your users to the "aha" moment in minutes, not days. 

2. Guide behavior, not swipes. 
Organize onboarding around your user's journey, not your feature tree. 
Day 1: Solve a problem. 
Day 2: Build context. 
Day 3+: Reinforce success and add proof.

3. Make it personal. 
A marketer ≠ an engineer ≠ a founder. 
Ask one smart question, customize the flow, and you can expect 25-50% higher activation.

4. Build habit loops. 
Cue → Simple action → Instant reward. 
“Don’t lose your progress” is always better than “Complete your profile.”

4. Measure what matters. 
Forget “onboarding completed.” 
Measure: 
• Time to first value.
• % of users hitting core action Day 1.
• Retention at Day 3 and 7.

Onboarding is not your tutorial. 
It’s behavioral design. 
And as soon as you start to treat it that way, your retention will improve, as will your revenue.

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Good interfaces are built for humans with roles, moods, habits.

And most “design rules” don’t cover that part.

Here are the non-obvious principles we now swear by:

1. Design for roles.

An operator, manager, and analyst can see “the same tool” but they are living three different narratives.

2. Tell a story.

Good UI behaves like a scene in a movie: each frame indicates, “Here’s what happens next.”

3. Simplicity isn’t minimalism.

It’s knowing what to conceal. A complex system should feel simple, even if it is not.

4. One action per screen.

Every screen should answer one question. The moment users have to pause, you’ve lost the moment.

5. Adapt, don’t copy.

There is no “best practice” for everybody.
A healthtech dashboard and a crypto wallet shouldn’t look/feel the same, and that’s a feature not a flaw.

6. Accessibility is a growth strategy.

It’s how you earn trust and give access to the people your competitors are forgetting.

The best interfaces don’t impress. They disappear.
You’re not noticing them because they are busy making you feel capable.

What was the last interface you loved using is, and why?

♻️ Share if you agree.
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I have looked through hundreds of product interfaces.

And most trust issues come from invisible details that are saying, "We did not care enough."

1. Text locked in images.
It seems nice... until you realize:
Google can't read it.
Screen readers aren't being able to get through it.
It is going to break on mobile.

✅ Fix: Always use proper, responsive HTML text overlaid on visuals. That communicates quality and care.

2. Stock photos with zero context.
If your visuals could go on any website, they shouldn't be on yours. 
People simply don't connect with "perfect smiles" and "handshakes in glass offices."
User's even notice when an image doesn't match what they are viewing.

✅ Fix: Use visuals with your product, actual people or even simple, authentic brand illustrations. Authenticity scales better than aesthetics.

3. Inconsistent spacing.
Uneven padding. A headline that is floating. Tight corners next to wide gaps. Users may never name the issue, but they feel it.
That feeling? Uncertainty. And uncertainty is lethal when it comes to conversion.

✅ Fix: Use a modular grid and consistent spacing system. Regular rhythm = subconscious trust.

What’s the smallest design detail that instantly makes you lose trust in a product?

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Guess which of our projects gained more views?

Drop A, B, C, or D in the comments.

But don’t just guess. Consider:

🔹 What details stand out? 
🔹 Which design feels more refined? 
🔹 What makes one stronger than the other?

This isn’t just a fun test.
It’s how you train your creative judgment.
The more you analyze, the faster you recognize what works.

A, B, С, or D? Drop your guess below! Let’s level up together.

The best design

Most founders struggle to explain their product in 10 sec.

And that’s usually why people forget it.

Founders jump into features, tech, or long backstories.
But the products that stick are the ones described with immediate clarity.

After helping dozens of teams simplify their pitch and homepage messaging, here are 3 frameworks that consistently work:

1️⃣ The “Movie Trailer” Line.
Hit emotion + problem + solution in one shot.

Structure:
“We help [audience] solve [problem] through [unique solution].”

Example:
 “We help remote teams brainstorm faster with an AI whiteboard that auto-organizes ideas.”

This gives people the whole story instantly.

2️⃣ The “Six-Second Test”. If you can answer these in one tight sentence, you’re done:
• Who it’s for.
• What it does.
• Why it’s different.
• What problem it solves.
• What outcome it creates.

Example:
 “For busy parents, our app plans healthy meals automatically — saving hours and reducing food waste.”

3️⃣ The “Anchor to the Familiar.”
When something is new, you need a shortcut.

Structure:
 “It’s like [familiar thing], but for [your context].”

Example:
 “It’s like Airbnb, but for campers.”
It reduces cognitive load and accelerates understanding.

If someone can’t repeat your product back to you after 10 seconds, you don’t have a messaging problem, you have a clarity problem.

What’s your 10-second product explanation?

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What founders actually need from a design partner.

Across many startup projects, one pattern is clear:

Founders don’t need resources.
They need a partner with a product mindset.
That team will give you clarity, speed, and traction.
Let’s look at the difference.

1. Designers make wireframes.
Product thinkers define outcomes.

2. Designers ship features.
Product thinkers shape systems.

3. Designers follow tasks.
Product thinkers challenge assumptions.

4. Designers deliver visuals.
Product thinkers deliver clarity.

5. Designers optimize screens.
Product thinkers optimize revenue.

A design partner shouldn’t just make your product look good.
They should make your business stronger.
Because the right partner doesn’t just design interfaces,
they help you think, operate, and grow like a product company.

✦

If you’re scaling and you need a dedicated team that thinks like your co-founder, not your vendor, let’s talk.

♻️ Share if it resonates.
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Last week, I tried to book a demo of a new tool.

Those 20 seconds told me everything.

Product UX failed here.
I scrolled twice. 
Clicked the wrong button. 
Didn’t find clues.
And gave up.

Review your product like a first-time user.

And try to fix UX issues.

1. Watch the heatmaps.
When a user pauses, backtracks, or clicks twice, that’s a red flag.
Confusion shows up in body language before it shows in analytics.

2. Check forms first.
Long fields. Missing confirmations. Mobile layouts that break.
Forms kill more conversions than bad marketing ever will.

3. Scan for “dead weight.”
Buttons nobody clicks. Copy nobody reads. Features nobody touches.
If it doesn’t guide the user forward, it’s friction.

4. Run 10-minute heuristic checks.
Navigation, readability, error states, consistency.

These basics sound boring, but they fix 80% of user frustration.
You don’t need a 3-month research sprint to uncover UX flaws.
You need sharp eyes, real users in mind, and the discipline to ask:
“Where does this experience break trust?”

♻️ Share this to help others avoid UX issues.
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 How to find UX problems

“$5K for a full app” should set off alarm bells.

I’ve seen founders get burned by quotes that sound too good to be true.

And here’s the reality: they usually are.

A credible app budget runs anywhere from $50K–$250K+, depending on scope and complexity. 

At $5K, what you’re really buying is a prototype, a landing MVP, or a template, not a production-grade product.

The hidden costs show up later:

✦ No discovery → scope creep and endless change requests.
✦ No QA → your users become the testers.
✦ No maintenance plan → apps break as OS versions and APIs update.
✦ No IP clarity → some “cheap shops” keep the repo keys, locking you in.
✦ No security → exposing you to compliance fines or breaches (the average costs $4.9M globally).

So what does a serious proposal include?

1. Discovery: user flows, integrations, edge cases.
2. Delivery plan: milestones, QA, release strategy.
3. Security & compliance baked in.
4. Ongoing ops & maintenance plan.

🚩 If a vendor quotes $5K for the whole thing, don’t think “deal.” 
Think “demo.”
The real bill will come later, in rewrites, downtime, or lost trust.

The smarter play: if budget is tight, scope a small, clear MVP with defined limits and a real path to production. 

That way, your “cheap” start doesn’t become an expensive rewrite.

♻️ Share it resonates
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The plan is clear, the prototype is exciting.

But there’s a quiet signal that something is wrong.

Because the MVP shape is wrong.
Too frequently, MVPs wind up created as demos.
They’re polished enough to show, broad enough to dazzle users, and thin enough that they can’t generate persistent, repeatable value.

Here’s the shift that will actually move the meter: An MVP is not the smallest version of your product. It is the smallest engine of recurring value.

That distinction forces you to ask:

1. What is the one capability users must succeed at?
2. What must be there so the system works without us holding it together manually?
3. What closes the feedback loop, not just opens it?

When you design an MVP from that perspective, you start developing outcomes:

✔ Clarity on measurable value.
✔ One solution for users with or without you.
✔ One core workflow that gains repetitive usage.
✔ Just enough automation to avoid operational drag.
✔ One feedback loop where you learn every time - how to scale.

This is how products gain traction early.
Build the smallest version of your value engine.
That’s the MVP you actually need.

♻️ Share this to help others create MVPs.
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The MVP You Actually Need

“How much does a website cost?”

Everyone loves the safe answer: “It depends.”

But that doesn’t help when you’re budgeting, forecasting, or explaining ROI to your board.

So here’s a straightforward breakdown.

1️⃣ Landing Page.
$1,000–$5,000
A single, conversion-driven page. Perfect for launches or campaigns.
Simple structure but every word, interaction, and visual must earn its place.

2️⃣ Small Business Website.
$5,000–$15,000
Usually 4–6 pages: Home, Services, About, Contact, and maybe a Blog.
You get custom branding, clean UI, and a structure that builds trust fast.

3️⃣ eCommerce Website.
$25,000–$100,000
Product listings, filters, navigation logic, checkout systems, mobile optimization.
At this tier, UX becomes critical because every friction point = abandoned carts.

4️⃣ SaaS Marketing Website.
$75,000–$300,000
Your website becomes part of the product experience.
It must tell your story, guide users to demos, handle content, and match your product’s design language.

5️⃣ Enterprise Website.
$20,000–$100,000+
Think of it as a digital ecosystem:
Dozens of templates, multilingual support, role-based navigation, integrations, governance rules.

The real question isn’t the price.
A website is your 24/7 sales team.
If it doesn’t convert, educate, or build trust, the real cost is the revenue you’re not capturing.

So instead of asking: “How much does a website cost?”
Ask: “How much is a weak website costing me every month?”

♻️ Share if this helps someone price smarter.
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The hardest thing about building an AI product is getting people to trust what it does.

You can create a great model all you want, but as soon as users feel the slightest bit of uncertainty, they are going to ponder, hesitate, and leave.

When founders build trust into the product experience, three things happen fast.

1. Users stop second-guessing and start exploring. First session activation goes up because they understand the what and whys.

2. Every click of trust compounds itself into usage, retention, and upsell. Without trust, the best AI feature will remain unused.

3. You do not have to wait for product market fit to learn how users actually feel. Trust patterns can save you weeks of guessing, and reduce the launch chaos.

4. Transparent UX with design-based trust cuts confusion before it even reaches support. No more "I am left wondering why it said that?" tickets or bad reviews for hallucinations.

Most AI products are built for power. 
The real winners are built for confidence.

✦

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we help founders design AI products users trust enough to actually use and pay for.
If that’s the stage you’re at, let’s chat.

♻️ Share this to help others build AI products.
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Design Patterns For AI Interfaces

Every product fosters feelings.

Slack develops curiosity (you check threads). 
LinkedIn develops affirmation (you observe reactions). 
Airbnb develops trust (you reside within somebody else's space). 
Uber develops control (you follow the car, the route, the pricing).

The emotional loop your product supports, becomes the habit that makes users return - or leave.

And here is where many teams miss.
Your design doesn't just support feelings. It influences them.

✦

For every engagement, a micro-feeling is triggered - frustration, relief, pride, fear. 
These micro-feelings accumulate into a memory. 
Then memory drives retention.

Behavioral design studies confirmed that:

✦ Positive feelings (clarity, control, competence) are proven to increase engagement by 30-40%.

✦ Unresolved frustration (human error, waiting, loss of context) is the leading cause of churn within SaaS and consumer apps.

So when your UX creates anxiety (loading uncertainty, unclear steps, overwhelming dashboards) - the user has accomplished their task, but subconsciously will avoid returning.

Ways to audit emotional design in your product.

1. Avatar: the emotion you want your users to feel. (Do you want them caring, empowered, energized, etc.?) 

2. Map the emotion to each interaction. For every step: "What is this moment teaching?" 

3. Test the users' reactions, not just the usability. Record facial expressions or tone, or even keywords in a survey, after each interaction. 

4. Design feedback loop(s)- use motion, microcopy, timing, etc. to bake in positive emotions in the experience.

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Valentine Boyev

Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner

Halo Lab is a full-stack design & development team.

We created digital projects almost every day since 2013.

We work with a diverse range of innovative startups and established companies. We've launched over 350 projects, helping our clients secure a total of $370M in funding. 

Some of our standout projects include:

- Kinetik: A healthcare platform with over 3,500 integrated providers.
- Bookclub24: A German online library for book collectors.
- Raven.gg: A leading brand in custom esports clothing design.
- Mighty Buildings: Pioneers in sustainable 3D-printed houses.

Co-Founder & CEO

OPUS

OPUS is a membership community for entrepreneurs, founders and business builders. We unite our members to create opportunities together by addressing isolation, knowledge and skill gaps through our digital platform, events & experiences, and partnerships, helping our members achieve their missions.

Member

Dribbble

Since 2013, I have partnered with Dribbble to enhance brand awareness and create new project opportunities for Halo Lab. Throughout this collaboration, I have played a key role in driving growth and expanding our presence in the industry.

Partner

CEO at Halo Lab ✦ Helped 500+ companies to raise 💲revenue and investments through digital design and marketing → $500M+ in client total funding

Results my company has delivered to my clients:

🔥 TutorChase — 1,000+ satisfied students.
🔥 DevelopHealth —  $2.3M raised in funding.
🔥 Felyx —  7.5% CR increase with our services.
🔥 LinkByCar — 18 car brands in their partnership.
🔥 Bookclub24 — #1 German online library for book collectors.

———————————————————————————

With a passion for creating unique and scalable digital products, I help brands achieve their goals and elevate their presence in the digital world.

Key Achivements:

✅ $370M in client total funding

✅ 500+ happy clients

✅ 99+ international awards

✅ 80+ glowing reviews


I specialize in:

⤷  Web Design Services: Creating eye-catching and user-friendly websites that grab attention and drive results.

⤷  Website Development: Building strong, reliable websites that fit your business perfectly.

⤷  User Experience Design: Making sure your users have a smooth and enjoyable experience.

⤷  Brand Design: Crafting unique brand identities that really pop.

⤷  Conversion Optimization: Helping turn your visitors into loyal customers.

⤷  Digital Web Solutions: Providing all the web solutions you need in one place.

⤷  Website Redesign for Results: Giving your old website a makeover to boost performance and engagement.

———————————————————————————

My Journey

My career began 15 years ago as a UI/UX designer, driven by a passion for creativity and beauty. For me, design is more than a job—it’s a way of life, an ever-exciting, fantastic world.

I believe in thinking outside the box and continuously renewing my knowledge. This mindset has guided me in helping people fall in love with brands and assisting agencies in winning new business.

———————————————————————————

Halo Lab

Another passion I discovered is mentoring young designers at Halo Lab, where I help them become true professionals. Sharing my knowledge not only helps others but also fuels my own learning journey.

———————————————————————————

Have BIG idea in mind?

Contact me directly: inquiry@halo-lab.com

“So… how much does it cost to build an MVP?”

That’s the question I get from almost every founder we talk to.

There’s no one-size-fits-all number, but there is a clear pattern in how MVP costs break down.

And understanding it early can save you from burning six figures in the wrong phase.

Typical MVP cost.

1. SaaS MVP: $30,000–$100,000 (more with complex backend or AI features).
2. Mobile App: $60,000–$150,000 (iOS + Android doubles cost unless cross-platform).
3. Marketplace: $30,000–$150,000 (multi-role logic and payments drive cost).
4. Internal Tool: $15,000–$100,000 (simpler UI but requires solid integrations).

How founders blow the budget:

1. Too many “nice-to-haves.”
You don’t need every feature. 
You need one that solves a real pain.
Amazon’s MVP sold only books, that’s it.

2. Reinventing what already exists.
Use Stripe, Auth0, Firebase, Twilio, not custom clones.
Integrating proven services can cut MVP costs by up to 60%.

3. Building all at once.
Launch the essentials (Phase 1), test, iterate, then scale.

4. Ignoring “hidden” costs.
Hosting, compliance, and early marketing add up fast.
Always keep a 20% buffer, it’ll save your runway when surprises hit.

5. Skipping validation.
A small discovery phase costs 5% of the budget but prevents 50% of rework later.

The best MVPs aren’t just cheap.
They’re intentional, focused, and fast to learn from.

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CEO @ Halo Lab ✦ Leading a 130+ design-driven B2B software company → 500+ products shipped & scaled

7 rules I wish I knew earlier.

(to make the UI work for the product growth).

1. Focus on fixing real user problems, not curious design. Function over form.

2. Stop guessing what works. Test all UI elements - buttons, CTAs, days of the week, color schemes - before you make a decision. Let the data choose.

3. Waiting for the perfect design means you're going to miss the needs of your users. Get feedback early and iterate fast.

4. Do not make the user think. Use simple, clear language that anyone can understand. The simpler the better.

5. The best way to reduce friction is to eliminate a choice. Focus on what matters.

6. Your UI is never "finished." It will evolve with user feedback and as your product changes.

7. If your product isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing users. Make sure mobile works perfectly before scaling to the desktop.

Ultimately, outstanding UI is about making your product simple, clear, and effective for the people using it.
Design for your users, not for your ego.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in designing for usability?

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You can hire a designer.

Or you can hire a design brain.

One gives you beautiful screens.
The other gives you a product that thinks.

When you hire a single designer, you get skills.
When you hire a team that works as one brain, you get experience that compounds.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, our teams don’t work in silos.
The UX researcher sees what frustrates users.
The product designer connects it to business goals.
The UI designer turns it into clarity and trust.
The developer translates it into something fast and functional.

Each person covers a blind spot the others can’t.
And together, they don’t just design, they solve.

That’s the difference between design as a task and design as a system.
Between a pretty interface and a product that scales, converts, and feels effortless to use.

When founders realize this, everything changes:

1. They stop hiring portfolios.
2. They start hiring thinking systems - teams that anticipate problems before they appear, align design with ROI, and build products that last.

If you’re scaling your product, don’t just hire a designer.
Hire a brain that’s trained to think like your users and build like your business depends on it.

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The hardest thing about building an AI product is getting people to trust what it does.

You can create a great model all you want, but as soon as users feel the slightest bit of uncertainty, they are going to ponder, hesitate, and leave.

When founders build trust into the product experience, three things happen fast.

1. Users stop second-guessing and start exploring. First session activation goes up because they understand the what and whys.

2. Every click of trust compounds itself into usage, retention, and upsell. Without trust, the best AI feature will remain unused.

3. You do not have to wait for product market fit to learn how users actually feel. Trust patterns can save you weeks of guessing, and reduce the launch chaos.

4. Transparent UX with design-based trust cuts confusion before it even reaches support. No more "I am left wondering why it said that?" tickets or bad reviews for hallucinations.

Most AI products are built for power. 
The real winners are built for confidence.

✦

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we help founders design AI products users trust enough to actually use and pay for.
If that’s the stage you’re at, let’s chat.

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UI Patterns for AI products

Working with revolutionary teams is always exciting.

But being involved with a team that could potentially transform the way millions of people see and feel about themselves is an honour.

OmniBuds is creating the world’s first ear-worn AI/ML platform for real-time physiological monitoring.

That vision deserved an experience that felt just as innovative.

The first step was to design a digital ecosystem (app and website) that would convert complex data signals into a visual representation that users can understand and relate to quickly and easily.

We focused on three key pillars.

1. Clarity.

We designed intuitive, soothing visual representations of the complex multi-signal outputs of the AI.

2. Confidence.

The design of our user interface allows users to feel secure and informed about their health and wellness without feeling overwhelmed.

3. Scalability.

The design of our digital ecosystem supports the addition of new biosensors or biometric data and accommodates future generations of devices.

In conclusion, we have built a companion app that is capable of pairing devices, calibrating sensors, and tracking five vital signs (heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and blood pressure).

Huge thanks to the OmniBuds team - your clarity, vision, and relentless drive made this collaboration special.

Thank you for trusting Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner to help bring such an important mission to life.

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OmniBuds Case Study

How can we make our busy lives a bit calmer and more growth-oriented? 

Routine Hero is the app for that. 
It's a habit-tracking app designed by Artgrafii.
And we are excited to share the background on one of our most significant collaborations.

The mission to bring mindfulness and structure to everyday life resonated with us at Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner.

We added a soft, warm look to draw attention to meaningful actions. When you combine that with thoughtful, user-centered UX design, the tracker becomes a creative canvas with clear, intuitive visualization.

The result?

✦ Higher engagement.
✦ Stronger emotional connection.
✦ A growing base of users who trust Routine Hero to help them stay grounded.

Since launch, Routine Hero has supported thousands of users to build sustainable routines, and reduce anxiety around routine-building practices.

Huge thanks to the team for trusting Halo Lab to bring your mission to life. 
It’s a privilege to design for products that make people’s days lighter.

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Routine Hero Case Study

A few years ago, I worked with a product team that doubled its user base in six months.

Great milestone, until everything started breaking at once.

Buttons no longer fit real workflows.
Dashboards collapsed under new data volumes.
Features designed by different teams looked like they came from different companies.

That’s when it became obvious: you don’t scale by adding features, you scale by designing for growth.

Here’s what changed (today I call it the 5 pillars of scalable design):

1️⃣ We stopped designing screens.
We designed systems.
Modular components, reusable everywhere, so new features didn’t require redesigning the whole product.

2️⃣ We built a real design system.
Tokens, rules, documentation, ownership.
A structure any new designer or developer could plug into instantly.

3️⃣ We switched to adaptive layouts.
More roles, more data, more devices.
The UI had to flex without breaking clarity.

4️⃣ We future-proofed content.
No hardcoded text.
No rigid page structures.
Everything had to scale with localization, new markets, and dynamic data.

5️⃣ We optimized for speed.
Because nothing kills scalability like lag.
If a key screen doesn’t load in under 2 seconds, the experience collapses under growth.

Looking back, the real shift was in mindset.
Scalability isn’t a phase. It’s a discipline.

What’s been the biggest scalability bottleneck in your product so far?
Tech, design, or people?

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“We saved money choosing the cheaper option…

but paid for it three times over.”

And I’ve seen this story play out again and again.
The “cheap” choice looks good on paper.

But here’s what it usually costs you:
→ Extra months fixing broken systems.
→ Support teams buried in avoidable tickets.
→ Lost trust from customers who won’t come back.
→ Higher churn that eats away at revenue.

That “cheap” website, tool, or app?
It ends up being the most expensive decision you make.

What’s worth paying for:

1. Better UX = lower support costs.
2. Clearer onboarding = fewer drop-offs.
3. Scalable infrastructure = fewer rebuilds later.
4. Stronger design = higher conversion and trust.

Cheap is never just cheap.
It’s delayed launches, frustrated users, and lost growth.
The real ROI comes from durability, clarity, and trust.
Not the lowest upfront price.

What’s the most expensive “cheap” decision you’ve ever made?

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A redesign driven by aesthetics rarely fixes business problems.

A redesign driven by user almost always does.

You just have to do it when you are certain of what’s broken and why.

1. When not to redesign.
If your brand feels stale but your product is functional, do not rebuild.
You likely need optimization, not rebuilding.

- Simplifying user workflows.
- Updating visual aspects to current design standards.
- Clarifying your value proposition through copy.


2. When a redesign is actually warranted
You can redesign when: 
- Users have outgrown your original logic of production.
- Your technology or architecture is restricting/making it difficult for you to grow.
- The perception of your brand is much more than what you deliver.
- All metrics indicate friction, and specifically not just aesthetic boredom.
That point is when design becomes a strategy tool versus a decoration exercise.

3. How to redesign without breaking everything.
We approach redesigns as a controlled evolution, not a revolution.

It starts with:

✅ Data: Identify and evaluate where users are actually struggling.
✅ Alignment: Balance your business goals with the the user needs.
✅ Phased rollout: Test, measure, iterate changes before scaling.

Good redesigns feel familiar yet new.
They keep the user oriented and provide a sense of progress.
Redesign is not for something new.
Redesign is for something to work.

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Most leaders will agree that "good UX matters."

But few can prove it in financial terms.

That’s where growth is slowly leaking.

When design is measurable, it is also scalable.
When it is scaleable, it is a competitive advantage.

This is what the math shows:

✦ Each $1 spent on UX returns between $2 and $100. (Forrester)

✦ A load time faster by 0.1 seconds can boost conversion up to 10%. (Deloitte)

✦ 18% of customers abandon the website because the site is hard to use. Baymard Institute)

✦ Companies with design maturity outperform similar companies by 2x in revenue and shareholder returns. (McKinsey Design Index)

So why measure your UX ROI?
Because if you do not measure it, design becomes "subjective."

When you measure it, you have a lever to influence:

1. Conversion rates and average order value.
2. Operational efficiency and support costs.
3. Customer lifetime value and churn.

Here’s how leading companies do it:

1. Benchmark experience metrics – funnel conversion, time-to-task, support volume.
2. Make UX optimizations – simplify flows, reduce friction, increase clarity.
3. Measure the delta – either revenue, savings or time.
4. Quantify into dollars.

UX isn't about how good your product looks.
It's about how much it earns.
When organizations measure that, UX is no longer subjective.

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How to Measure the ROI of UX

A few months ago, one of our partners came up with a challenge.

“We’ve raised our Series A, we have product-market fit, but we’re stuck in endless design-dev loops. Can we ship an MVP that investors can demo this quarter, not next?”

We delivered it in 42 days.
Here’s what actually made it possible.

1. 10-day strategy sprint.
We used a pre-built discovery framework with templates for personas, flows, and decisions on technology stacks.
We only focused on the unknowns and skipped documenting the things that the team has already validated.
The result was a 70% faster alignment phase while maintaining context.

2. Parallel design & development.
In traditional teams, design "hands off" to devs, and that is where weeks go to die. 
We run parallel pipelines: The dev team starts building the architecture and reusable components in parallel. 
We do design QA in a sprint and not at the end.
The result: Reduced the cycle from design → dev delay from 3 weeks to 10 days.

3. Reusable design systems.

4. Senior leads keep hands-on.
Every project has a lead designer, tech lead, and PM who stay involved daily, not just at kickoff.
You speed delivery up by removing the invisible friction between discovery, design, and dev.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we build like product teams.
That’s how we move from “idea” to “investor demo” faster without cutting corners.

If you’re a founder racing toward your next funding milestone, DM me.

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“We have an amazing product”.

“But users keep leaving before they even see the value.”

It’s not the product.
 It’s the experience.

And it happens because of:

1. A free trial signup that feels like applying for a loan.
Users quit before they even start.

2. Weak onboarding.
No quick win. No guidance. Churn in days.

3. Cluttered screens.
The features users need most get buried.

4. Hidden pricing.
 Confusion erodes trust before renewal.

5. No in-app guidance after the trial.
Users convert, but never adopt advanced features.

When you fix the UX, you fix the revenue.
 – Quick signup.
 – Clear onboarding.
 – Transparent pricing.
 – Continuous education.

That’s what turns users into loyal customers.

Founders: Which of these mistakes do you see most often in SaaS products?

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"Hiring own designers will be cheaper and faster.”

But look at the numbers.
They tell a different story.

✦ Time-to-hire is slow.
The average time to hire a UX/UI designer in the U.S. is 41 days (LinkedIn Hiring Report).
Senior designers? Often 55–60 days.
Add onboarding and culture fit, and you’re looking at 3–4 months before they’re fully effective.

Dedicated design teams?
Kickoff happens in 1–2 weeks with established workflows already in place.

✦ Total cost is higher than salary.
Average U.S. UX/UI designer salary: $85,000–$110,000/year (Glassdoor).
Add benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, software licenses, office overhead = 30–40% more.
That’s $120,000–$150,000 per designer, per year.
Now consider that most in-house teams need:
 - Product designer.
 - Brand specialist.
 - UX researcher.
 - UI designer.

That can quickly run $500K–$600K+ annually.
Dedicated teams?
You pay for deliverables, not overhead. 
With flexible scaling as needs change.

✦ Hidden risks of in-house.
Design turnover is high: UX/UI attrition sits around 20% in tech (UXPA survey).
Losing one designer mid-project stalls progress: recruiting + onboarding adds months.
Dedicated teams spread expertise across roles, reducing single points of failure.

In-house design isn’t “bad.”
But it’s slower, riskier, and more expensive to get outcomes at speed.

Dedicated teams let you:
1. Scale up or down instantly.
2. Access specialists without hiring 4+ roles.
3. Get results faster without HR bottlenecks.
4. The real cost of in-house isn’t salary.

It’s the delay, the overhead, and the risk of burnout or attrition.

Where do you see design bottlenecks most - hiring, retention, or delivery speed?

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Incredible ideas stall due to weak partnerships.

It usually takes place in stealth.

Updates slow to a crawl.
The "senior devs" you met disappear from your calls.
Modifications to the budget shift from a "must" to "small" and you are suddenly bleeding money.

By Sprint 2, you realize that you didn't just hire a team, you hired a risk.

Here are ways to identify risk before you spend months working on a project:

1. Always ask about the team that will be running your project and who will stay after kickoff.

2. Too good to be true.
A low price always gets expensive. Low bid quotes hide re-work, missed deadlines and never ending "extras" that only come to light after the process has started.

3. A good team should manipulate the project to meet your goals, your stack, your workflow, not force their workflow on you.

4. Silence between sprints.
Try to schedule meetings during, not after, the process, establish weekly meetings, and leverage transparency.

5. Be sure to clarify IP ownership up front, make sure it's in writing.

6. Wrong domain skills. Ask for proven case studies.

7. No plan after launch. Make sure to ask about supporting you in scaling, not just shipping.

That’s how you find a dev partner who builds fast and right, not cheap (and now).

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Most SaaS teams think churn is a “product problem.”

Often, it’s a UX problem.

Specifically, these 3 patterns that silently destroy retention right when you’re trying to scale.

✦ Onboarding overload.

Your onboarding experience is doing too much → users never experience the “aha”.

Signs:

Your users see 30–60% drop off between signup → first key action.
Your users either defer their actions to “do this later”.
Your users either skip or quit onboarding tours.

Solutions:

- Prefill + auto setup wherever possible.- 
- Cut straight to the core metric (1 simple path).
- Eliminate features that your retained users aren’t using.
- Hide advanced options/features until user is successful once.

Measure: TTV, D1/D7/D30 retention, activation rate to first action, cohort comparison.

✦ Spammy + Manipulative UX.

Over-notifying, misleading, or hiding data practices will kill trust quickly.

Signs:

"Spammy” complaints.
Push for opt-outs + unsubscribes increases.
Session starts decrease after notifications are initiated.

Solutions:

- Quality vs. quantity: notify only when it helps now.
- Preference center for channel, topic, and frequency.
- Clear, human-centric language about privacy (no mention of legal slime).
- Remove dark patterns (don't do pre-checked boxes or hidden exits).

Measure: Notification CTR vs disable rate, complaint rate, NPS after comms change, retention deltas.

✦ Big-Bang redesign that breaks user habits.

A complete UI redesign with no guidance = instant churn.

Signs:

Returning users can’t find basic features.
Spike in support tickets (“where did x go?”).
Power-user activity drops immediately after launch.

Solutions:

- Roll out in phases + A/B test in advance of full launch.
- Quick in-product tours that respect muscle memory.
- Temporary “Classic mode” or quick old→new map.
- Collect feedback + iterate on a weekly basis.

Measure: Task success pre/post, ticket volume, usage recapture curve, old-vs-new retention.

Before you build more features, fix these UX leaks.
They’re cheaper to solve and improve retention faster than any new roadmap item.

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The $1.2M question:

Is your site quietly leaking high-LTV customers?

Most founders still treat a website redesign as a branding refresh.
But for tech companies, it’s a revenue problem hiding in plain sight.

Here’s why that number matters.

Let’s say your average customer is worth $4,000 LTV.
Now imagine 300 qualified visitors a month bounce before they even understand what you do.
That’s $1.2M in potential lifetime value lost every year.
Not because of your product, but because of your homepage.

We saw this firsthand.
A client came to us with solid traffic and a decent funnel…
but 68% of trial users dropped off right after landing.

Not because the product wasn’t valuable, but because the value wasn’t clear in the first 8 seconds.

We rebuilt their messaging hierarchy, clarified their offer, and realigned visuals to tell one crisp story.

✦

Confusion costs real $$$.
Your website is your most scalable sales rep.
If it can’t sell clarity, it can’t sell your product.
If you suspect your site is leaking high-LTV users, start with one simple test:
Ask a stranger, “What does this company do?”
If they hesitate, that’s your $1.2M leak.

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