Are you a first-founder who is ready to grow, but can’t quite seem to find a path forward?

Maybe you are...
- Working lots of hours but not finding momentum
- Not sure where to spend your hours for max efficiency
- Wanting to build a solid foundation but you aren’t sure where to start

Look I get it. 

After five intense years of running a successful multi-million-dollar design agency, I hit a major roadblock. Burnout didn't just knock on my door—it barged right in and left me bedridden for three days straight. I didn't want to get up or face the world. Lying there, I thought to myself, "Okay, this is enough."

The next day, I made the immensely tough decision to let go of all my employees. I knew I needed a break—a real one—to rethink my priorities and figure out what I truly wanted in life.

That sparked something in me. 🔥

That constant drive helped me find success, but it also led me straight into burnout.

I finally realised that building a successful business wasn't just about working hard, it was about transforming your mindset and having great process for your personal and professional life.

That gave me the foundation for everything that I build next.

If you are like me, you want to be the best founder possible.

You want to unlock a new level of effectiveness and fulfilment.
You want to feel motivated and excited every day.
You want to feel confident and prepared for growth.

Meaning that you want to prioritise what matters, manage your emotions like a boss, and build habits that support your business  growth. You are in the right place. 

If that sounds like something you can relate with as well, I’d encourage you to connect and follow my content for more insights.

Philippe Hong

I'm currently working as a fractional product designer for mostly early-stage teams. I've so far:

- Designed mobile apps from scratch with co-founders
- Revamped admin experiences
- Audited existing product UI and provided detailed feedback and analysis

Independent Product Design Lead

Eucalyptus

I have both managed a team of 4 designers and performed as an IC in this role. My responsibilities as a design manager and leader have been to shape the ways of working for designers across Product and Growth, provide mentorship to all designers, and build a strong design culture.

For delivery, I led a team of Product and Content Designers that crafted and delivered a mobile app experience for the patients of our largest brand Juniper.

With the collaboration of other stakeholders (product managers, engineers, operations), in this role I've delivered the following: 
- A multi-brand design system for 4 healthcare brands (Pilot, Software, Kin, Juniper) to help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our output fuelled by standardised back-end platform
- Revamp our consultation experience with patients to improve the user experience and include a regulatory need of a phone call

I also lead the design guild, made up of 20+ designers across Euc. It's my responsibility to organise and facilitate workshops, sessions and sharebacks to help all of our designers elevate their craft.

Product Design Lead

I joined Eucalyptus just as the Product function was ramping up in refining it's ways of working. Initially I took on the project of creating a multi-brand design system for our 4 brands (Pilot, Kin, Software, Juniper). It was a privilege later in 2023 to present this work at the first Friends of Figma community event in Australia!

I was also defining suitable rituals for our growing product and digital design collective to help delivery high quality work, and learning off each other's strengths. Retros, sparring and sharebacks became the norm and cultivated a culture of building in the open together, which conveniently is one of our Euc values.

Senior Product Designer

Wisr

I joined Wisr to completely redesign the internal CRM tool used for personal loans from scratch. The tool had accumulated content and actions without a structural overhaul for several years. As the Product Designer, I worked closely with the Product Owner on a number of projects to achieve successful change.

- Recording and auditing the entire CRM tool, frequently discussing with operations stakeholders on context and importance of every action and piece of content
- Mapping out information architecture of redesigned tool to ensure an uplift in efficiency and productivity for operations team
- Developing a design system derived from the Wisr brand that allowed future designers and engineers to scale the experience with concrete principles more established

In addition, I delivered designs for the external-facing loan application flow, and maintained the design system for our internal tool and external-facing brand.

Product Designer

George Hatzis

Freelance Designer

Wildcard

Wildcard was a transaction account that helped you control your spending and build your savings. Put your pay into Wildcard, tell the app when you next get paid, and it’ll make your money last until pay day. 

As the sole designer in a small team, I worked with our co-founder to deliver a high quality mobile app experience that would help us define our product market fit. That was the main objective, but I was also responsible for:

- Researching and identifying our core user persona
- Developing and implementing our design system with our engineers
- Design social media ads (statics and video) for Facebook and Instagram
- Planning out and roadmapping product features with CEO

Mizko Media

- Worked on a variety of different projects within different industries, from banking to health.
- Understanding business needs and aligning with user needs.
- Facilitating user research workshops, brand workshops, and user interviews. 
- Providing user flows, sitemaps, sketches, wireframes, UI kits, and design concepts.
- Prototyping and extensive design iterations with Sketch, InVision and Zeplin.
- Working in a fast paced, start-up environment, always in-front of trends and emerging technologies.

Practice Ignition

- Rapidly prototyping new features and frequent collaboration with development team
- Creating custom illustrations and iconography
- Building content for website (Twig, CSS, JS)
- Creating and maintaining unified design system across product and marketing
- Working within Kanban framework in weekly sprints

Managed and involved in a various set of projects regarding events, promotions, advertising and website content.

- Designing illustrations for digital and offline advertising and event booths
- Creating and managing content and illustrations on marketing website
- Fulfilling stock orders for merchandise
- Organisation of social gatherings/events before conferences

Marketing Specialist

- Leading the marketing and design development of a website and mobile application for the Aquis Brumbies
- Tasks include analysing website and campaign metrics, co-ordinating SEO optimization, managing e-commerce platform and integrating social media platforms.
- Skills: HTML/CSS, Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator and various Google platforms (Adsense, Adwords and Analytics).

Digital Specialist

I'm a problem solver that helps turn a company vision into a product vision. The goals I try to achieve are ones that helps the business and the users equally, all through product design. I'm a thoughtful designer who likes focusing on the bigger picture to make sure things are heading in a positive direction, but the details always come into conversation too.

In my spare time, I like to work on my side projects as my multidisciplinary skills let me plan, design and build whatever fun idea comes to mind. I have a website where I post infographics about film, TV and sports that's gained millions of views and become a viral sensation many times. It's a rewarding exercise to get myself thinking outside the box, and connect with the pop culture I love so much.

I also build a tool for designers, called Checklist Design. It showcases the best UI and UX practices to ensure a functional, production-ready experience. Checklists are a great way to look at the fundamentals and remind yourself about what matters most at the start of your next project.

Charlie Gearside is a very good cold email writer. 

In Feb 2021, in his Pilot tee and rugby shorts, I met him for our first coffee chat and the pitch was something special. I joined Eucalyptus as the second Product Designer later that year and from the first day to my last, I learnt, matured and grew more than I could have ever imagined. I was given a wealth of experience not many other companies could provide in a decade if they tried. But above all, I got to witness what a business shooting for the stars looked like from the inside. 

Tim and co were always championing a highly talented team of remarkable people. Taking on healthcare was a space worth fighting for, but it felt like the team assembled was so capable, that the success story would've been written the same if it were in any industry. 

There were no secrets as to what it took to build the business either, and that was intentional from leadership, to ensure that those who wanted to have their own Euc one day were fully equipped to do so. It really made Euc the place to be at if you wanted to truly reach your full potential.

That potential was reached and then some, with a $1.6b acquisition by hims & hers recently announced 🤯. While that is an INCREDIBLE result that I'm personally still buzzing from, the greatest part of this success story in my opinion will be how it compounds. There will be founders, builders, investors and more remarkable products brought to life over the next 10+ years that all trace back to this story.

A massive congratulations to everyone past and present at Eucalyptus. I'm so proud to be part of its history as it cements itself in Australian startup history. And a personal thank you to Charlie Gearside for always believing in me, championing design from the very top, and sending that email.

Independent Product Design Lead / checklist.design / ex-eucalyptus

Figma just released their State of the Designer 2026 report, breaking down survey results of 900+ designers from all over the world. Here are the takeaways I found most interesting:

1. "72% of designers now use generative AI in their workflows." This surprised me at first, then I realised how much Figma has introduced in their own tool (remove background, rename layers, generate text) that it made sense. They've done a solid job embedding AI as a companion, taking care of the little details while designers focus on the bigger problems, and I think this is a factor.

2. "Visual polish and using AI in the design process are the top two most in-demand skills." I'm guessing this is down to company leadership expecting designers to be savvy with AI, but also aware that its quality level still demands a designer come in and take it to a finalised, handoff-ready state.

3. "Creative freedom is the top driver of designer happiness, above compensation, recognition, and even work-life balance." The practical takeaway here is that if you're unhappy in a role, it's worth interrogating whether you actually have room to make meaningful creative decisions as opposed to just being a cog in a machine, and how much that weighs on you.

4. "Designers want freedom and clarity." It's paradoxical on the surface, but my understanding of it is that while designers want room to explore, they still want to do so with purpose, not just creating for the sake of it. A team that allows creative freedom within clear boundaries are the ones that'll thrive.

Link for the report is in the comments, but should also appear as a banner in your Figma FYI.

taplio

The Battle

Philippe Hong

George Hatzis

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreGeorge Hatzis's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Philippe Hong

George Hatzis

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}George Hatzis's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreGeorge Hatzis's LinkedIn Performance