Hi! I’m Matt, a product designer, currently in Savannah, GA (previously LA and Austin).
I came to design from a background in tech sales, photography, and computer science.
My Story
When I was in high school, I convinced my mom to sign up for UserTesting.com (you had to be at least 18). I thought getting paid to try new apps and prototypes was the coolest thing.
I also used to design landing pages with WordPress to advertise CPA/CPL offers from MaxBounty. Then I used a tool called FollowLiker to automate social media outreach. I thought I was pretty cool waking up to a sale or two.
Then I went to Virginia Tech for a bachelor’s in Business Information Technology. I was our Web Development Club’s outreach chair. I also started Blockchain at Virginia Tech and crafted our website. Dylan Love, the former head of content for Cointelegraph, happened to find my website and hired me to write press releases, articles, and news for crypto-related startups. During college, I also interned for Samsung and worked for the CEO of a tech startup called Empiric.io, doing sales engineering and sales.
I graduated and started working in data center/cloud sales at Dell in Austin. Surprisingly, the only sales tools available were Salesforce and ZoomInfo. So, with my VBA skills from college, I designed an automated email management system in Excel. My teammates and I could import contacts from ZoomInfo, create custom messages, email customer lists, track sent emails, and send future emails. It saved my teammates hours and led to huge sales opportunities.
During that time, I visited LA twice and fell in love. Unfortunately, Dell didn’t have any openings there, so I put everything in my Prius (including my dog) and left Dell on good terms. In LA, I had a few TikToks go viral and happened to meet a lifelong fashion photographer named Ivy. We became best friends. She and I worked on many fashion photography shoots, some of which were published in Malvie, The Untitled Magazine, and Vogue. I also got signed as a commercial actor with TheOptionAgency.com.
Why I Love Design
I learned to empathize deeply while working with customers, craft creative solutions in LA, and communicate or build technically while studying computer science. So, I transitioned my career to product design. I started a usability testing platform called Test4Test.io, where my design decisions led to a 23% user satisfaction increase and Test4Test’s first paid customer.