Jeff White

Stepladder

Our work focuses on improving outcomes for medical technology companies and the patients and healthcare professionals they serve.

Healthcare brands we've worked with:

Baxter
Hillrom
McClurg Healthcare Advisors
Premier
Trially.ai


Before specializing in healthcare, Stepladder provided UX and visual design services to clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to seed stage startups in a variety of industries.

Clients included:

Amazon
Microsoft
Motorola
Citrix
Remitly
BabelBark
Cvent
Trupanion
Bamboo Learning
Code.org
Panopto
Woot!

Founder and Head of Design

Rebls

Design & Product Management Executive for seed stage startup.

•  Developed overall product vision, brand, visual language, and
product requirements for a v1 responsive web app
•  Designed all aspects of UX, directed visual designers through
development of visual language and brand
•  Translated market insights into product requirements
•  Managed engineering team including CTO
•  Involved in all aspects of business from recruiting to fundraising

Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer

Creative Director

Designer

Amazon

Lead a team that designed & delivered 27 applications for
the Amazon Fire Phone.

•  Managed a team of 6 UX Designers
•  Established and communicated application design processes
vertically and horizontally across many Amazon teams
•  Created and evangelized OS and application-level patterns
•  Presented to executives including CEO

Interaction Design Manager, Fire Phone

Designed applications and OS experiences for the Amazon Fire
Phone.

•  Designed Phone, SMS, Email, Calendar, and Contacts
applications
•  Established process and documentation standards adopted by all
application teams
•  Created patent-pending application design frameworks

Sr. User Experience Design Lead, Fire Phone

Design Lead, Kindle for iPhone and iPad.

•  Collaborated with stakeholders to define requirements for
cross-platform experiences
•  Lead team of internal and external visual and UX designers to
deliver Kindle for iPad and several versions of Kindle for iPhone

Sr. User Experience Designer, Kindle for iOS

Designer of Kindle for iPhone v1.0 - 2.7 and Kindle for BlackBerry.

•  Designed the UI architecture, interface, and interaction flow of
applications and experiences
•  Developed conceptual diagrams, wireframes, visual mockups,
click-throughs, and prototypes
•  Designed and conducted usability tests
•  Contributed the first mobile design pattern to Amazon’s existing
pattern library
•  Presented design to the UX team, product team, and executives

User Experience Designer, Amazon Kindle

Jewelry TV

Design lead for multiple teams building enterprise web applications.

•  Guided overall product development for several internal web
applications
•  Responsible for interface and interaction design of rich internet
applications
•  Developed methodology for conducting agile user-centered
design
•  Conducted usability tests, interviews, and contextual inquiry

UI Engineer (Interaction Designer)

Premier, Inc

Business Analyst

Web Specialist

Web Content Consultant

Improving Medtech software ➤ Advancing UX careers with storytelling @ uxstorytelling.io/course ➤ UX Consultant ➤ UX Designer & Educator

In 20 years as a UX/UI designer I've shipped hundreds of apps, websites, and features for big tech companies like Amazon and Motorola all the way down to tiny startups being run from a garage. 

5 years into my career I co-published an article about Agile UX work a colleague and I were doing at a broadcast retail company.

That led to several speaking engagements, and 1.5 years later I was in Seattle presenting the design for Kindle for iPhone 1.0 to Jeff Bezos.

I worked at Amazon for 6 years where I:

→ Designed and shipped dozens of Kindle reading apps used by millions
→ Got promoted 3 times
→ Managed and lead teams
→ Worked on highly visible "special projects"
→ Presented to Jeff Bezos and other execs more times than I can remember
 
And then I got burned out. 

So to recover I co-founded a tech startup. This is not a joke. This is also probably not advice I would give to anyone. 

The startup fizzled out quickly but it was my first exposure to entrepreneurship and I was hooked.

I didn't know what to do, I just knew I wanted to continue being out on my own.

With the help of others I started contracting. Over time that grew into a 7 figure design firm called Stepladder. 

Things about Stepladder that I'm proud of:

→ Short but impressive list of long time clients. We form partnerships.
→ 100% referral based
→ 100% of clients are repeat clients
→ Experienced designers come here to have more freedom in their life
→ Younger designers come here to get started and learn

I never dreamed that I would speak at conferences, work at a big tech name, or start companies. Yet here I am 20 years later incredibly fortunate, full of gratitude, sometimes a bit tired, and having learned:

→ You can't do it alone
→ Helping people is the best part of this job

I share what I've learned over the years here on LinkedIn and work with clients at www.stepladderUX.com.

Thanks for reading.

Thijs Kraan

Value Positioner

We turn your work and expertise into founder-led content that attracts a steady flow of high-value projects from the right clients. A partnership for design agencies that want growth without the heavy lifting.

Send me a message if you want to learn more.

Founder

Hatch Conference

Growth Partner

Soldep

Designed websites, brands, content strategies, and funnels for SMBs to turn more visitors into customers.

UMC Utrecht

UMC Utrecht is an academic hospital. Designed a mobile app for nurses to streamline internal communication, documentation, and automation, so they had more time to take care of patients. Estimated workload decrease of 2 to 10%.

Product Designer

Essense

My graduation internship at Essense focused on understanding service design, customer experience, journey mapping, and customer research. I worked on a project (which I acquired myself) for UMC Utrecht.

Ahold Delhaize

Worked for Albert Heijn, the largest Dutch supermarket chain. Designed 2 products, including all marketing materials that led to a launch with 35k+ users in one week. Both MVPs were scaled into the larger product eco-system and now saves around 4.5M kilograms in annual food waste

I help designers sell their expertise through writing content.

Before 2023, 100% of my design clients came from referrals.

→ I had zero control over when my next project arrived

Today, 88% of my clients come through LinkedIn – inbound.

Learning “how” took me 1065+ days of sharing expertise:

- Positioning & articulating the value of my expertise
- Experimenting with writing high-performing hooks
- Converting attention into inbound business leads
- Talking to 1000s of designers and design leaders
- Finetuning my profile for the highest conversion

I was a poor design student, so I self-studied:

- I consumed 1000s of posts & 100s of videos
- I read 100s of books & 100s of articles
- I wrote more than 1200+ posts

Obsessed with mastering the nitty-gritty of content.

And that meant making countless mistakes:

- I tried appealing to everyone, so I never got to stand out
- I wasted 100s of hours on meaningless content iteration
- I pivoted direction 50+ times so nothing compounded
- I got 3M+ impressions without winning a single client
- I ignored 1000s of hand-raisers right in front of me

To this day, I still learn new things every day.

Even after investing 3 years in learning:

€10k+ on courses/coaches
1000+ hours on reading
2500+ hours on writing

But now, I've turned everything into one framework to:

- Share your unique expertise more effectively
- Become the go-to expert for your audience
- Start getting inbound leads (on auto-pilot)

My LinkedIn Growth Framework. 

After 10+ iterations, I'm confident it works:

- A design founder added €100k+ in revenue (in 6 months)
- A design leader landed a new €150k+ job (in 3 weeks)
- And many designers won new 5-figure project deals

All from sharing their unique expertise (on LinkedIn)

So, if you want to learn from my biggest mistakes.

Take my free 5-day LinkedIn Growth Strategy:

growexpertise.com/linkedin-growth-strategy
(or click my LinkedIn profile buttons above)

PS. For 1:1 help, DM me or visit valuepositioner.com

Design Content Consultant

I help design leaders, founders, and freelancers do 4 things:

1. Understand & position your unique value
2. Create your design content strategy
3. Systematize content creation
4. Start creating habitually

By:

1. Analyzing your existing customers, content & data
2. Strategizing toward your ideal future positioning
3. Producing content for authority, talent & leads
4. Upgrading your content, profiles & funnels

Together, this will help you:

- Get inbound leads
- Attract new talent
- Build authority

Want to learn how? 

Send me a message.

I met the design founder behind Polarsteps, a travel app with 18M+ users. 
 
From day one, Job Harmsen was the Head of Design:
 
He didn’t invent a new category, he made it beautiful
He bet on great experiences over growth hacks
He built for 11+ years alognside 3 co-founders
 
A design founder at heart. 
 
Short-film coming soon.
 
Made by Luc, Lars, and me. 
 
PS. Job is hiring a Senior Product Designer. If you're interested, reach out to him!

Meet Typograph, the fastest way to design custom typefaces.

No more scrolling Google Fonts for hours. No more paying thousands for licenses. No more defaulting to Inter or Helvetica. 

With Typograph, you can:

1. Generate your first drafts in seconds
2. Customize every glyph to perfection
3. Export production-ready font files

No licenses, no limits. Everything you make is 100% yours. 

This Thursday, everyone on the waitlist gets early access.

Get early access now: https://lnkd.in/eMpE65XJ

We're lucky. 
 
Being alive means we already won the lottery.
 
That's blind luck. Luck we didn't work for. 
 
Other types of luck come from:
 
1. Hustling
2. Preparation
3. Authenticity
 
When you share what you know, luck compounds: 
 
- You learn about what interests you
- You get inbound project requests
- You meet like-minded designers
- You open doors you didn't see
- You find experts to mentor you
- You gain free audience insight
- You can test & validate ideas
- You build a referral network
- You develop your character
- You iterate upon your ideas
 
That's why you should: 
 
Share consistently.
Prepare deeply.
Be authentic.
 
It's how we create our “luck.”

I made a mistake 4 years ago.

Not sticking with what worked:

→ Building websites

I sold websites for €5k to €17.5k/each and I built each one in 30 to ~90 hours.

That's when I faced a few wrong beliefs:

- Web design is a race to the bottom
- Tools will replace website-building
- Websites are often not important
- Building websites isn't leveraged
- Too many people build websites

So, I decided to do a hard pivot, and I tried finding a new:

- Audience = ICs → leaders → founders → businesses
- Market = design industry (only worked with designers)
- Offering = program → growth sprint → growth retainer

Took 2-3 years to find what worked, and I still iterate every day. 

Sure, I make more than I need, but if I wouldn't have pivoted:

→ I would've made at least 5x to 10x more, easily

How do I know? A few friends sell websites for €20k - 80k+

And I'm confident I delivered similar quality 4 years ago.

But I wasn't willing to double down on “boring” work:

- Prioritize one market and audience
- Build a predictable growth engine
- Systematize for higher efficiency
- Learn to hire → delegate → scale
- Do more work and do it better

So, if you're thinking about pivoting. Please think twice. 

When something works → Don't pivot, just do more. 

The grass is always greener on the other side.

taplio

The Battle

Jeff White

Thijs Kraan

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Thijs Kraan's LinkedIn Performance

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