Datalogz

Help BI admins govern complex BI environment by designing an intuitive BI ops product & workflow.
First product design hire.

Product Designer

Late Checkout

Product Manager

Evolving Web

Revamped the sales-to-fin-ops workflow. Automated HubSpot to Airtable for clearer, faster revenue forecasts.

Internal Product Manager

Onward

Help divorced parents navigate the money talk.

User Experience Designer

unseem

Founder & Product Designer

Toybox Labs

Interim Controller

airCFO

Senior Consultant

LOI - League of Innovators

Labs Batch 8 Founder

Applift and IQM Company

People Operations Manager

Cloudcade, Inc.

Financial Controller

Generalist product designer, driven by curiosity and agency. I enjoy building products that make users love their everyday work a little more. Currently learning to design in code.

Viya Q.

Great event on design and engineering at Shopify’s Montreal office 🤩

Key takeaways:
1. “Design engineer” is not a title the Shopify team is currently hiring for. It means the team looks for designers with an engineering mindset and vibecoding skills, and engineers with taste and a strong design point of view.
2. As designers, try not to tie jobs to titles. The old mindset, “I’m a UX designer, not a graphic designer,” no longer works. The lines are blurring.
3. Shopify’s design teams already use Cursor, vibecoding, and prototyping in an internal product playground, and are expected to ship PRs to production.
4. Designers should keep an artistic point of view and lead with taste. Follow our curiosity, and learn new tools.
5. The highest leverage now is to learn from AI, don’t outsource thinking. Go down the rabbit hole of coding, fill our blind spots, and educate ourselves with AI.

Stay curious, master the craft, start shipping small. In the end, “Good tools make a skilled craftsman better. They will not make a poorly skilled craftsman great.” 

#product #design #designer #vibecoding #community

Viya Qu

Carolina Poll

Helping teams move faster, align better, and build user-centered products.

🧭 What I Do:
I support startups, scale-ups, and growing product teams with:

- Product Design – Crafting intuitive, accessible, and impactful digital experiences that bridge business goals with user needs.
- Workshop Facilitation – Designing and leading high-impact sessions that align teams, spark innovation, and accelerate decision-making.
- Strategic Product Discovery – Helping teams validate ideas, reduce guesswork, and prioritize the right features.
- Training & Mentorship – Up-skilling teams in facilitation, collaboration, and UX best practices through hands-on, real-world training.

🎯 Why Work With Me:
- 16+ years of experience transforming ideas into impactful products.
- Proven frameworks that bring clarity to chaos and create space for meaningful collaboration.
- Real results, from accelerating product roadmaps to improving team alignment.

✨ My Approach:
I believe in creating space for collaboration, clarity, and creativity. My work is all about turning complex challenges into clear, actionable solutions that drive real impact.

👉 Let’s connect if you’re ready to unlock clarity, build smarter, and move faster.

Founder | Strategic Product Designer & Workshop Facilitator

R GENERATION

As a Pioneer Member of the R GENERATION Community, I am part of a global movement dedicated to shaping the future of remote collaboration, AI-powered work, and borderless innovation.

As an early adopter, my role contributes to:

✅ Building & expa﻿nding a remote-first, AI-enhanced professional network.
✅ Engaging in community-driven initiatives that foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
✅ Participating in exclusive events, workshops, and discussions to push the boundaries of remote work.
✅ Championing a culture of innovation and co-creation within a diverse, cross-disciplinary community.

Remote Pioneer

Femme Palette

Femme Palette is a global community that supports women and underrepresented groups to grow through 1:1 mentorship, career development, and meaningful connections.

Mentor

MVP Factory

- Leading the strategy, team and operations of the Design Practice
- Managing, mentoring and coaching a team of 16 strategic and product designers
- Driving product innovation and modernisation for clients in Germany and the US
- Design consulting for the digital ventures of DB Schenker

Design Practice Lead

CoachHub - The digital coaching platform

Over my more than three years at CoachHub, I've grown from a Senior Product Designer to the Head of Product Design and Research, shaping the structure and strategy of Design and driving the user experience of both B2B and B2C products into the next level.

Key Achievements:

Team Growth: I'm proud to have grown our Design & Research team from 4 to 25 talented individuals, and escalating the Design Operations to support the growth and the team needs.

Product Discovery: By implementing a flexible Product Discovery process, we kept each independent team free to adapt to their needs and focus on building the right things for our users.

User Retention: Through a strategic redesign of our onboarding experience, we achieved a remarkable improvement in user retention, enhancing the overall user journey, driving long-term engagement and reflecting on an NPS of 75.

Efficiency Gains: By improving the automation of internal tools, we significantly reduced customer support needs, enabling the company to allocate resources more effectively.

Workshop Facilitation: I've had the privilege of designing and facilitating more than 30 internal workshops, spanning topics such as team alignment, product discovery, and journey mapping. Additionally, I've led more than 3 client workshops, resulting in notable achievements such as the acquisition of the biggest deal at that time, from a single-day workshop.

Design Sprints: Through the facilitation of design sprints, we've accelerated our learning process, launched new features faster, and swiftly implemented crucial changes in the user experience of our products.

Design System & Design Process: By implementing a Design System and refining our  processes, we've reduced iteration cycles, maintaining a high standard of quality reducing delivery times.

Head of Design & Research

›  Design Thinking workshop facilitation
›  Shape Design Ops
›  Lead 7 Product and Communication Designers 
›  Recruit and mentor Product and Communication Designers 
›  Lead the implementation of CoachHub’s Design System
›  UX/UI | User Flows, Journey Maps, Wireframes, etc

Design Team Lead

› Lead the implementation of CoachHub’s Design System
› UX/UI | User Flows, Journey Maps, Wireframes, etc
› Design thinking workshop facilitation

Sr. UX/UI Designer

heartbeat medical

As the Sr. Design Manager with focus on UX/UI I'm responsible for adding a user centered mindset to the product team. On a daily basis, my main activities are:

- Understand the requirements and main processes of Health Care Systems and Patient Reported Outcome Measures;
- Iterate with the Sales, Customer Success and Tech Teams to understand the different aspects of the business;
- Educate the Product team into an Lean UX mindset
- Implement regular user research
- Create and implement a Design System
- UX/UI for web app and mobile apps
- Facilitate design sprints and other group dynamics and workshops
- Work together with the developers to implement a high quality product;

Sr. UX/UI Design Manager

Toptal

Freelance Senior Designer

MODIFI

As the Sr. Design Manager with focus on UX/UI I was responsible for creating the user experience and interface of MODIFI's MVP. Working alongside the product managers and the development team, my main achievement was the launch of the MVP:

- Understand the needs, requirements and main processes of international trade;
- Iterate with the Sales, Business Development and Tech Teams to understand the different expectations and needs;
- Work together with the PM, the CTO and the CPO to define the list of main features and requirements for the MVP, taking into consideration the user needs during the trade process and the technological and bureaucracy requirements;
- Create the first design system;
- UX/UI of the MVP;
- Work together with the Front-End developers to implement a high quality product;

UX/UI Sr. Design Manager

Campsy.com

Campsy was a Rocket Internet Venture, and my main goal as the designer in the Berlin team was to work alongside the product manager and understand the user behaviour to design and implement a new user experience for the merge of Campsy website with Camping-and-Co e-commerce. Among my daily activities were:

- Implement the new brand and design system in the merged platform;
- User Interviews, user testing
- A/B testing and data analysis 
- UI for in different languages, such as German, English, French and Dutch

Lead UX/UI Designer

e-Core

As the Design Coordinator and part of the marketing team my main goal as a designer was to spread and consolidate e-Core's brand throughout Brazil and US markets, specially as on of the main Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner in Latin America. 
 
Main Achievements:
 
→ Design and execution of external campaigns to strengthen and spread the company's brand, attract new leads and business opportunities.
 
→ Design and promotion of more than 5 events in Brazil and in the US with the creation of branding, landing pages, promotional materials and email marketing campaigns.

Design Coordinator

As the Brand Designer and part of the marketing team my main goal as a designer was to spread and consolidate e-Core's brand throughout Brazil and US markets. 
 
Main Achievements:
 
→ Design and implementation of e-Core´s rebrand with the goal of consolidating the company's image. Development of the company’s new brand book. Creation and design of the brand guidelines, with new logo, typography, colors, illustrations, stationery, templates and promotional materials.
 
→ Design, illustration and layout for inbound marketing campaigns, blog posts, infographics, case studies, presentations, posters, social media, etc.

Brand Designer

Head of Design & Research at CoachHub - Design Leadership | Workshop Facilitation ⎮ Currently on Maternity Leave 🤱🏼

I build systems for SaaS product and design teams cut through complexity and find alignment.

As a Strategic Designer and Workshop Facilitator, I create the structure and clarity that teams need to make better decisions, faster. My work combines strategic product design with facilitation methods to help leaders:

	•	Align stakeholders around shared goals
	•	Prioritize with confidence
	•	Accelerate product decisions without endless debates

I’ve facilitated workshops and strategy sessions that led to multi-million-euro enterprise deals, built scalable frameworks used by hundreds of teams on Miro, and guided startups through the messy middle of growth.

If your team is scaling fast but struggling to align, I can help design the path forward.

I just had ChatGPT write my entire Business Plan in one hour — in German.
And my consultant said it’s one of the best they’ve ever reviewed.

And no, this isn’t an exaggeration.

But here’s what I didn’t mention.

This wasn’t a one-hour miracle.

It was the result of ten months of conversations with AI — 
the slow, honest kind — 

about my ideas 
what I love doing
what energises me
what I never want to do
what drains me
what I can talk about for hours 
what people consistently tell me I’m good at
what I’ve learned in the last months
what I tried, failed, adjusted, and tried again

And in this long back-and-forth, I’ve:

collected
challenged
rewritten
ideated
reflected
iterated
refined
…over and over again.

Because when you work solo, 
you’re often building in silence.

There’s no partner in the room.
No team to bounce ideas with.

So I turned AI into my sparring partner.
My coach.
My second brain.
My business consultant.

Together, we shaped everything:

my ideal customer
my positioning
my offers
my content strategy
and, eventually, my Business Plan.

Somewhere along the way, 
I also became fluent in German bureaucracy 
and the art of applying for the Gründungszuschuss.

And now, it’s done.
Submitted.

Fingers crossed.
Wish me luck.

I never expected writing to shape my year as much as it did.

When 2025 began, I told myself I would write weekly on Substack and show up daily on LinkedIn.
Not for growth. Not for numbers.
But to find my voice again.

One year later, writing became one of the most meaningful parts of my work.

It gave me clarity — about what I do and who I want to help.
It gave me confidence — the grounded kind you build sentence by sentence.
It gave me momentum — shaping my positioning and supporting my business.
And most of all, it gave me connection — with thoughtful, generous people across Substack and LinkedIn who made this year even more meaninful.

Here’s what this year looked like:

𝗢𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 - Behind the Screens

557 subscribers
48 posts
642 notes
16.2k views
32% average open rate
Readers in 66 countries

𝗢𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻

200 posts that sparked real conversations
310k impressions
120k people reached
3.7k followers

None of this was overnight.
All of it was slow, steady, and built in the margins of client work, parenting, health issues, and the messy middle of building a business.

I wrote a full reflection on my first year of publishing online — what worked, what surprised me, and what writing gave me.

You can read it here:
https://lnkd.in/dJ_tYV9e

Let’s talk about the 3 design sins silently killing your conversions.

I’ve seen all of them across early-stage SaaS.
I’ve watched teams lose time, money, and momentum because of them.
And I’ve learned — sometimes painfully — how avoidable they are.

Here’s what most people don’t say out loud:

1. Pretty ≠ Profitable

Visuals matter, but they alone don't solve problems.

Start with a pain – a real deep pain.
Solve that.
Then make it feel good to use.

Design is problem solving first,
and building great experiences on top of that.

---

2. Fancy Kills Flow

I’ve worked with SaaS products that had:

- Complex navigation
- Hidden features
- Cool animations

It looked impressive in demos.
Users were completely lost in the real world.

When people cannot find what they need, they leave.
Churn rises.
Revenue suffers.

The fix is almost always simple:

Make everything obvious.
Reduce cognitive load.
Keep key actions within two clicks.

Clarity wins over cleverness every single time.

---

3. Assumptions = Slow Death

Teams often think they know what users want.
I’ve been guilty of it too.

We ship features we love.
We prioritise what feels intuitive to us.
We skip conversations because they take time.

But want ≠ need.

Talk to users weekly.
Watch what they do more than what they say.
Adjust quickly.

---

The takeaway?

There’s no perfect design.
There’s only continuous refinement.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲?

---

PS.: If you’re unsure where the real friction sits, I do a short 𝘖𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘯 for early-stage teams – a simple audit that uncovers the biggest opportunities to improve conversion and retention.

No commitment.
Just clarity on what to do next.

If it would help, send me a message.

---

🔔 Follow me for more insights
↳ Solving design challenges with early stage Saas founders
♻️ Share this to help your network

No alternative text description for this image

Some people measure their year in milestones.
Apparently, I measure mine in sticky notes.

It’s no secret that Miro is my second home.

I use it to think.
To plan.
To teach.
To design.
To bring clarity into rooms that feel messy.

And this year, it turns out I spent a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of time doing exactly that.

My 2025 recap came in today and it honestly made me smile.
Not because of the numbers themselves.
But because of what they represent.

9751 ideas dropped onto the canvas – and I’m usually the one facilitating, not participating.
Dozens of workshops, and quite a few mentorship sessions.
Almost 200 formats used to turn half-baked thoughts into something teams could act on.
43 collaborators.
18 countries.
Top 2 percent of Miro power-users.

When I look at this, I don’t see hours.
I see the founders who arrived overwhelmed and left with clarity.
The teams who rediscovered alignment in a single afternoon.
The communities who’ve used my templates to build, learn, and experiment on their own.

Miro has been the place where I’ve built my business, shaped ideas, and made sense of a very full year.
And I’m grateful for the tool, the work, and especially the people who stepped onto the canvas with me.

Here’s to more clarity, more collaboration, and more breakthroughs in 2026.
I’m just getting started.

---

PS.: And if you join a board with me until Jan 31st you will see that cute diamond on your canvas – isn't it adorable? 💎

“When this year began, I imagined momentum.
A business taking shape. A handful of great clients.
A growing audience. A voice that felt like home.

Space to create, space to learn, space to be with my daughter and still care for my body and mind.

I imagined progress — even if messy — and enough stability to breathe.

And in a way… that 𝘪𝘴 what happened.
Just not through the door I expected.”

—

This is the opening of my 2025 retrospective — 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘺 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘎𝘗𝘛.

Every December, I sit down to reflect on my year.

But this time, I tried something new:

I asked ChatGPT to 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 my annual retrospective, the same way I’d guide a team through a workshop.

And honestly?

The result surprised me.

It wasn’t generic.
It wasn’t shallow.
It actually helped me articulate what shifted in my life this year… and what I want to carry forward.

So I decided to share it — and hopefully give you a gentle moment of clarity too.

And because it’s me, of course I turned it into a Miro template too.

The prompt + the board work beautifully together.

If you want to try your own year-in-review ritual, just comment 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 and I’ll send the kit your way.

It’s simple, honest, grounding — and it helped me see my year with softer, clearer eyes.

---

🔔 Follow Carolina Poll for more insights and clarity
↳ Strategic Design partner for early stage SaaS startups
♻️ Share this to help your founder friends

If your user interviews feel unhelpful, it’s not your users.
It’s how the conversation is being held.

Running user interviews looks simple from the outside.
It feels like it’s just talking to users and showing what you’re building.

But the moment you’re in the room, everything shifts.

You want to make them comfortable.
You want to explain.
You want them to understand your idea.

And without noticing, you start guiding instead of listening.

I’ve seen this happen with founders, PMs, designers —
and honestly, I’ve done it myself too, especially early in my career.

Because silence feels uncomfortable.
Curiosity feels slower than pitching.
And we’re afraid of hearing something we didn’t expect.

But here’s the truth I’ve learned over 17 years in design —
and hundreds of conversations with users:

Real insight comes from slowing down,
letting people speak in their own rhythm,
asking about their reality instead of our solution,
staying neutral, even when the answers sting a little.

Below are the foundations that consistently lead to clearer, more honest insights.

If you’re talking to users this week, this one might help.
And if you’ve been collecting polite feedback instead of meaningful signals,
it might be time to revisit how you’re running these conversations.

What’s the hardest part of interviewing users for you?

PS.: If you’re unsure whether your interviews are giving you the right signals, I can take a quick look and help you recalibrate. Send me a message.

How to run better user interviews

Everyone talks about overnight growth.
But most of us are living a very different reality.

December arrived, and like many of you, I’ve been looking back at my year.

It was my first full year writing online, and my first year as a solopreneur… and honestly, it’s been a ride.

And here’s the part most people don’t say out loud:

For the majority of us, growth looks slow.
Messy.
Non-linear.
Nothing like the “I hit 10k in 3 months” posts that go viral.

Here’s what my year actually looked like in terms of content:

– I changed direction a few times
Trying topics, refining them, learning what resonates and what doesn’t.

– I experimented with four different visual styles
Playing with AI, figuring out consistency, and shaping a brand that feels like me (yes, I am my worst client 🫣).

– I wrote 48 Substack posts and more than 200 LinkedIn posts
Some days the words flowed. Other days the blank Notion page stared right back at me.

– I didn’t hit the milestones I set for myself
Not the 1k subscribers on Substack.
Not the 5k followers here on Linkedin.
Right now I’m a bit over 550 and 3700.

And yes, I could blame the algorithm.

But the truth is simpler: I’m a much stronger designer than I am a writer.
That’s precisely why I started writing — to stretch, to learn, to get uncomfortable on purpose.

But here’s the part I really want to highlight:

Even without the big numbers… the earnings were real.
The opportunities were real.
The relationships were real.

Because despite the slow growth, this year brought me:

– new clients who trusted my work
– collaborations that expanded my world
– projects I’m deeply proud of
– clarity about my direction
– and a community I’m genuinely grateful for

This is what growth actually looks like for most of us.
Not explosive.
But steady.
Grounded.
And full of doors that only open when you stay consistent.

As for next year?

I’ll keep showing up. 
Maybe in new formats, maybe with a camera and a microphone instead of a keyboard,
but always with the intention to grow and keep learning out loud.

---

What did consistency teach you this year?

---

PS.: The full stats breakdown is coming this Thursday on my Substack.

taplio

The Battle

Viya Q.

Carolina Poll

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreViya Q.'s LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreCarolina Poll's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Viya Q.

Carolina Poll

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);}Viya Q.'s LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreCarolina Poll's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreViya Q.'s LinkedIn Performance