The collected works of designer Jamal Nichols

Built Several Products 0→1, end-to-end, as a senior IC

Grocery delivery MVP in 10 weeks, quickly scaled to 100K MAU → Case Study

Additional product iterations led to a 20-30% increase in orders → Case Study

Overhauled an entire peer-to-peer payments flow, leading to 25% increase in completed payments → Case Study

Built several complex enterprise applications in obscure domains

Fleet management for rental car companies

Enterprise scheduling applications for recruiters

E-Procurement software for governments

AI tax accounting software for businesses

Built an Online Magazine and grew it to 400k MAU in 12 months

Wrote HTML / CSS / JavaScript

Used AI in various capacities to accelerate progress

Handled SEO and Content Strategy

Built and optimized the tech stack

Designed entire hiring pipeline to grow design team from 10 people to over 40

Worked with Recruiting Team to understand their processes

Mentored Design Team to incorporate new interview processes

Decreased time-to-hire by 200%, increased retention of talent by 150%

About Me

I speak German and English fluently. Dual US / EU Citizen.

In terms of design, I’m pretty good at everything, and exceptional in a handful of things:

  • Product Thinking
    How to frame up a problem, what makes products great
  • Interaction Design
    “If you click on this, what happens”
  • Rapid Prototyping
    Building end-to-end prototypes fast to facilitate conversation
  • Storytelling
  • Pitch Decks
  • and Hiring (I’m really good at spotting talent).

I prefer work environments where folks are good communicators. Grateful to have learned from some of the best in my field.

In my spare time, I mostly spend time with my family and friends, and try to stay fit. I also have recently taken up music production (Ableton) and 3D Animation (Unreal Engine 5).

How I work

When joining new organizations, I start by listening closely to the people I’m working with.

Depending on the complexity of the problem space and previous knowledge I might have about the space, the initial ramp up can take anywhere from a half day for a straightforward C2C app, to 1-2 weeks of iterating on rough prototypes with subject matter experts as I begin to understand the intricacies of a E-Procurement for governments, or german Tax Law.

As mentioned above, I’m good at all parts of the design process, so after I’ve understood the initial context and properly framed up the problem, I adjust on-the-fly which tools I need to get the job done.

I tend to thrive in environments where folks understand that the product is built through conversations among people, and the Design prototypes are merely the conversation starters.