Work
Case Studies
Credit Tradelines
Making it easier to underwrite chattel loan applicants debts which has reduced time between loan stages.
Indicative Quote
Lowering underwriting costs & helping better serve ideal life insurance applicants.
Pixels
The following are examples of work that I either did myself or directed the design of.
Ethos
Innovation as Contextual Creativity
When people hear the word innovation, they often imagine groundbreaking inventions or Silicon Valley moonshots. But to me, innovation isn’t always about creating something the world has never seen. Often, it's about recognizing proven patterns, understanding their strengths, and applying them in new, thoughtful contexts. True innovation is just as much about insight as it is invention. Whether it's integrating a workflow that’s worked well elsewhere into a new team or creatively reapplying a classic framework to a modern problem, innovation often lives in the thoughtful remix—not just the brand-new.
Relationships Are the Real Infrastructure
No amount of process or tooling can replace genuine human connection. I believe strongly in investing in relationships —with direct reports, peers, and those I report to. Especially in today’s remote-first world, those natural moments of connection that happen in shared spaces need to be intentionally cultivated. Building rapport, understanding motivations, and finding common ground with others bridges the communication gaps that inevitably arise. My goal isn’t just better collaboration—it's to elevate others, create mutual trust, and ensure everyone is in the best possible position to succeed.
Striving for Great, Not Perfect
I hold high standards for the work my team and I deliver. I truly believe that producing great work—measurable, meaningful, and consistent—leads to real business impact. But I also understand the trap of perfectionism. Pursuing “perfect” often delays progress and exhausts energy that could be used more effectively elsewhere. Candidly this is a life long struggle for me. That’s why I advocate for great, not perfect. It’s a fine balance, but one that I’ve learned to navigate: delivering exceptional quality without getting lost in endless refinement. I'm comfortable pushing myself and my teams to be great—and knowing when it's time to ship.
The Value of Showing Up and Giving Your All
Finally, I deeply value working hard. Whether the task at hand is inspiring or tedious, rewarding or thankless—I believe in giving it your best. This doesn’t mean burning out or glorifying hustle culture. It means honoring your work with effort, discipline, and a sense of purpose. Sometimes the hardest challenges are the ones with the least immediate payoff, but I’ve seen time and time again how consistent effort, even in the small things, builds credibility, momentum, and results.
Experience
That’s me circa 2007, in the days when I had hair and had hair and was producing documentaries. At the time I had co-founded a record label/ event promotion/ production company, A Silence Production with my closest friends in Abilene Texas.
I've always been drawn to the intersection of technology and art. In 8th grade, I designed and built my first Geocities site, and that experience cracked open the world of web development and design for me. That early spark ultimately set me on a path toward a career in digital products, with a few creative detours along the way.
Over the years, I’ve launched businesses, produced albums, directed documentaries, and worked across nearly every aspect of digital product—from strategy to execution. I’ve found my sweet spot at the intersection of product management and product design. For the past decade, I’ve led teams in early-stage startups where doing more with less is the norm. Those experiences have shaped how I build high-performing, cross-functional teams. I focus on developing leaders who deliver, care deeply about the work, and bring each other along in the process.
Where I’ve Worked
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Head of Design & Product Manager: 2023 - 2025
Zippy is a technology-enabled lender focused on simplifying the process of acquiring funding for the purchase of manufactured homes. I joined Zippy as a founding designer to establish a Product Design capacity. My team helped support product design needs across all areas of our product including internal tools and Retailer & Borrower experience. Additionally I served the Retailer & Borrower Experience team as product manager. That team’s mandate was to build solutions for our external partners and borrowers to make Zippy more efficient and tailored to their needs.
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Head of Product Design: 2018-2023
I lead a ten-person product design team focusing on performant and intuitive product experience that meets the needs of compliance, conversion, and ultimately humans. We support the needs of all product teams, from acquisition to policy management to operations.
VP of Product: 2017-2018
At Bestow, we are re-engineering how life insurance is underwritten and sold through data and algorithmic underwriting.
As employee #3 I led product management, UX, engineering, and creative design for Bestow during seed and series A. Under my leadership, we successfully launched our first production-ready enrollment experience, policy management system, document generation system, and marketing website. In addition, we scaled our business from selling in one state in 2017 to 49 states + Washington, D.C. at the end of 2018.
Also, I was heavily involved in the creation of product documentation, insurance product filing and policy forms generation as well as the production of several marketing assets including online ads and print ads, photos, and videos. -
Design Director: 2013 - 2017
I helped lead Dialexa’s Experience Design practice. In my time at Dialexa my work was featured in TechCrunch, Fortune, BBC, Forbes, and CNET. Dialexa is a Technology RD&C (Research, Design, & Creation) firm who's brilliant team of researchers, designers, and engineers, builds products that disrupt industries of all types.
As part of Dialexa's Labs initiative I've had the opportunity to help launch 2 start-ups, Vinli, (the first connected car platform) and Robin (an all-robotic lawn mowing service). Both of which participated in TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco's Startup Battlefield, were successfully been funded, and are now operating as independent companies. -
Advisor: 2013 - 2017
Stayful was a platform that allowed independent, boutique hotels to find new clientele and streamline their booking experience.
I designed MVP product as well as advise on-going UX and design efforts. -
Senior UX Consultant: 2012-2013
Credera is a global, boutique consulting firm offering a unique consulting model for a changing world that combines business transformation capabilities with deep technology expertise to accelerate growth and build valuable customer experiences.
Lead design and UX on projects for a number of technologies including: responsive web, native mobile and other touch devices.
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Senior Product Designer: 2012
ShopSavvy was the original Android barcode scanner app. Over its history it focused on using the barcode scanning technology and applying it to frugal consumers looking for the best price online for the items they are seeing in a brick and mortar store.
Led design for iOS, Android and web initiatives. Working closely with engineering for each platform I oversaw and worked on UX and visual design for each experience.
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Senior UX Designer: 2011-2012
UX and visual design lead for the GameStop Downloads (IMPULSE) team who’s focus was to build a new download and streaming client to compete with Steam.
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Senior Interactive Designer: 2011-2012
As part of NBC’s Artworks division I Lead interactive design initiatives for NBC's local media and it's clients. This included: rich media advertisements, email campaigns, web apps, and mobile apps.
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Interactive Designer: 2008-2010
User experience design, usability testing and front-end development (css & html) of web sites built on Telligent’s Community and Enterprise platforms in the professional services area of Telligent (makers of enterprise-quality collaboration and analytics software). Clients include Microsoft, Dell and Electronic Arts.
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Developed print, web and new media for the Creative Services department. Collaborated with ACU’s enrollment marketing, alumni office, web management and athletics.
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Co-founder of A Silence Production, a multi-disciplinary creative agency with a distributed team between Texas and New York. Capabilities included: publication design, illustration, web design, and video production. Additionally, I served as technical director and audio engineer for all live shows we produced at Monks, a venue that we helped establish in Abilene, Texas. Artists that I worked with include The Album Leaf, Final Fantasy, Alan Palomo (now Neon Indian) and Nat Baldwin.
As part of our work we had the opportunity of producing and promoting several of our favorite artist’s music and decided to form a record label - Murkville music.
We had a catalogue of 8 releases that includes artists such as:
The Rocketboys, Beau Jennings, Comrade, and listen!listen! Along with my co-founders I played a hands-on role with our artist on PR, production, recording and creative direction of up-coming releases.
Original Content
The IveBenThinking Podcast
Featured
Writings
Featured
