Long story short.
In 7 years, I built UI Bakery’s entire product design foundation — from the first color tokens and theme generator to a complex, AI-powered low-code IDE. As the sole designer, I designed every layer of the platform: builder, database, workflow editor, organization system, theming, and the latest AI Agent that generates full apps from a prompt. I created scalable design systems, established the UX patterns developers now rely on, and led multiple full-product redesigns through each pivot. The result — a product that grew from zero to a profitable $1M+ ARR SaaS, trusted by hundreds of enterprise teams and recognized for its clean, design-conscious experience.
Context
Over last 7 years, UI Bakery evolving through multiple pivots from a simple theme generator to a platform where users can build and customize apps with code-level control or by chatting with an AI Agent:
2019
Theme generator
Eva DS, Eva colors, Nebular (I also was a key designer on those products) dashboard theming tool.
2020
Website & app builder
No-code (with low-code elements) builder for apps & websites.
2022
Low-code platform for internal tools
Pivoted to a low-code platform for internal tools. This required a complete redesign of workflows, drag-and-drop UX, IDE experience, and integrations.
2024
Low-code platform with AI-powered low-code IDE
Same system, but with AI chat-based in-code debugger, documentation, and coding assistant. Check PH release.
2025
UI Bakery Agent for internal app generation
Shift towards an AI-powered app generator, again reshaping the product experience. Check PH release.
Product–market fit pivots
The product radically shifted 3 times: theme generator → no-code builder → low-code internal apps → AI app generator.
I joined PMF workshops and translated strategic outcomes into UX flows, prototypes, and redesigns.
Solo design role
No design team to share the workload.
Single-handedly managed the entire process end-to-end: research, discovery, prototyping, testing, and delivery.
Had to move quickly while ensuring consistent quality across the product.
Redesigning end-to-end experiences
Each pivot required radical changes in onboarding, workflows, developer-facing IDE patterns, and sometimes design systems.
Competing with larger players
The market included Retool, Appsmith, Appian, and more recently, Lovable, Cursor, Bolt.new, Replit and v0.
Developers / Makers
Expected a code-native environment — VS Code–like precision, structure, and speed.
Needed visual clarity and transparent data-to-UI mapping.
Wanted flexibility and fast iteration — the ability to prototype logic visually without engineers.
Decision-makers
Focused on reducing delivery time (up to 10× faster).
Wanted to minimize team dependency (no extra QA, design, or frontend resources).
Enterprise teams
Required scalable structure, roles, and environment control for collaboration.
Solutions
What was done and what benefits were achieved for each solution:
Continuous feedback & metrics
Collected insights via support, AMs, and in-product analytics to spot user pain points early.
User research & testing
Ran surveys, CustDevs, and usability tests (corridor, A/B) to validate design decisions.
Behavioral analysis
Used FullStory & PostHog to review sessions and map friction–energy patterns.
Business outcomes
Reached $1M+ ARR without external funding (2024 and growing).
Achieved x5 higher activation in AI Agent vs traditional low-code builder.
Adopted by thousands of SMB and enterprise clients globally.
Up to x15 faster time-to-release with the low-code platform.
Average 2-minute app generation via AI Agent.
Reduced the number of people required for a project by an average of 3 times.
High funnel retention post-activation >80%.
Design leadership impact
Led end-to-end product design across all directions: IDE, Builder, Theming, Database, Organization, and AI Agent.
Scaled 2 unified design systems, reducing design debt by ~25% and doubling iteration speed across teams.
Maintained strong UX satisfaction — ease-of-use and clarity ~81–84%.
Unified design system improved perceived maturity and visual consistency.
Achieved measurable design gains: +16% visual modernity with last redesign in 2025 before AI release.
Onboarding conversion +2 - 4% per iteration, supported by improved flow predictability.
Solo-led multiple pivots, +10 Product Hunt launches, and enterprise releases.
Results, Reflections and Takeaways
Led end-to-end design for an AI-powered low-code IDE, growing from internal prototype to $1M+ ARR SaaS used by 500+ enterprise teams — as the sole designer.
Working through constant pivots and developer-driven workflows pushed me to become faster, sharper, and more systematic.
I learned to stay flexible and seek early feedback from users, teammates, and metrics as the main source of truth.
Over time, I realized that simple, “good-enough” MVPs often bring more real value than polished but overdesigned ideas — because true insight appears only through use. This experience strengthened my product thinking: clear, functional design drives both impact and revenue, while lasting quality comes from continuous iteration, not perfection.
