“Design used to be the seasoning you’d sprinkle on for taste; now it’s the flour you need at the start of the recipe.”
Design Thinking methods are being applied at every stage of business to uncover new opportunities, identify unmet customer needs, improve efficiency, and drive both top- and bottom-line growth. As it’s woven more tightly into the fabric of business, every organization needs design champions to help shape the strategy, deliver on the promise, and evangelize the benefits. Applying more than 15 years of broad and deep experience in both design and business, I lead product design teams to do just that. Each day I bring to work: humility, passion, curiosity, servant leadership, an ownership mindset, an iterative approach with a bias toward action, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
I’ve gained unique experience in a variety of business environments including: leading product design teams for startups (seed, series A, self-funded), bootstrapping my own startup, and standing up a design & development capability at global agency. My expertise includes:
Product Strategy: business requirements gathering and definition, translating user needs and research insights into measurable outcomes, roadmap development, stakeholder management, go-to-market strategy development, initiative prioritization.
Leadership: led teams as large as 15, $2.5M revenue responsibility, team performance, individual performance management/development, mentoring, staffing, and pipeline management.
Design Execution: user flows, information architecture, interaction design, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, and front-end development.
User Research: journey mapping, persona development, in-person interviews, quant/qual studies, card sorting, sketching sessions, design sprints, design thinking workshops
Evangelization: Storytelling, coaching, mentoring, internal training, external thought leadership.
VISION
I will be a product champion for a mission-driven company, while building a fun, high-performing cross-functional team. The team will rival the best teams in the world to deliver amazing experiences to customers. Members of that team are highly collaborative, outcome-oriented, systems-thinkers, dedicated to their craft, and embed design thinking into their work at every stage of the business.
VALUES
Embrace Ambiguity
Plan for unknowns and turn them into opportunities. Harness the collective knowledge of your team. Learn quickly and iterate.
Radical Candor
Give frequent honest, constructive feedback. Expect the same in return.
Purposeful Process
Processes should exist to empower teams to do more, faster.
Aim High
Care about quality; be a craftsman. Aspire to perfection, but be willing to ship “great” or “good” in the interest of getting early learnings.
“Tyler is one of those rare individuals who can wear the coveted ‘Unicorn’ title. What do you do when you need someone familiar with Product, Research, UX, Visual Design, Design Systems, Front End, and Analysis? Call Tyler.”
Rob Abby
Staff Engineer, PartySlate
“Tyler is a truly gifted design leader. He has amazing insight into the customer mindset and always makes clean and intuitive functionality a priority in his work.”
Tricia Cagua
Vice President of Marketing, Sittercity
“[Tyler is…] beyond experienced at all the usual Product Design processes, skills and tools. However, what sets Tyler apart is that he is a true leader and isn't afraid to ask the tough questions to help the company and everyone around him grow.”
Chhavi Tiwari
VP Product, PartySlate