So, here goes. I grew up in Hong Kong and absolutely loved the food and culture there. Everyone was scrappy and believed that hard work would lead to success one day.
When I came to the states in 2003, I was sure that I would only stay until I finished college. But the more people I met and talked to, the more I fell in love with, well, everything. I love that everyone is encouraged to express themselves and to become whoever they choose to be.In my case, I chose to be a designer. I’ve been doing design since I graduated from University of Texas at Austin.
Even though I have an advertising degree, I am more of a fan of the SaaS business. Both require research, experimentation and market testing. However, with product development, I get to interact with end users and design in an iterative manner.
Finally, I consider myself a leader and a helper at the same time. I especially like it when I can speak up for others (when necessary). I feel stronger when I feel like I’m in a position to show others my compassion. For example, one time at a HR conference, the team was asked to give a product presentation last minute and had very little time to prepare. Everyone was a little nervous and on edge. I took it as an opportunity to help the team out and practiced many many times for the presentation. I ended up showcasing our new design concepts in front of 100 people (most in my career) and got some good feedback on my presentation style. I guess all those TED talks I had watched paid off.
Oh my… So, let’s talk SaaS. The first company I was at managed to raise $2.5M in first round funding. I was the sole UX/UI designer (surprise surprise) who helped come up with a basic/reusable style guide for the early MVPs. I also helped with marketing and product management.
Second company I joined, which I now returned to, managed to refresh an 18 year old product and launch a few brand new products that produce constant traffic and measurable successes. One of the products, which is mobile friendly and B2C, is tracking over $15,000/mo revenue and continues to grow.
Third company added $6.6M dollars in funding soon after I joined. I worked closely with front-end engineers to select and modify a reusable ReactJS library so we can quickly deploy and design. I also introduced Design Thinking and usability testing in their product development process.
- Kai Ho, 2020
