Oliver Meakings

I'm the founder of Senja.io, a bootstrapped SaaS that helps you collect, manage and share customer testimonials. 

Senja helps you collect testimonials using automations, and share them as images, widgets, popups, Walls of Love, links and videos.

I'd love you to try it: Senja.io

Co-Founder

Co-founder of Senja.io. Collect, manage and share your testimonials.

Olly Meakings

I want to spend $120,000 on marketing

$20,000/month over six months

This will be my biggest ever marketing bet at Senja

But I want to scale from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 ARR and need to take bigger bets

My brain is telling me to try and scale something measurable - meta ads, Google Ads, cold outbound

But my gut thinks I should focus on the hard work of building relationships with power-users and influencers of our ICP

Less measurable, slower to ramp-up, but a genuine opportunity to find and persuade the right people to use Senja, and get to success

This work would then act as the foundation of future marketing activity

So I'm torn

What would you do #BuildInPublic?

Building a bootstrapped SaaS in public, without the BS

I got roasted by 250 people

I knew my post would be controversial, but I had no idea it would also totally change my thinking

I thought people would focus on the measurable vs unmeasurable marketing question, or discuss head versus heart when making strategic decisions

Instead some very smart people focused on me fixing fundamental issues with the product and our product-led growth (now) before sequencing in paid (later)

Senja is product-led but I've drifted way from this over time because our churn and TOF sign ups have met and I have been looking to throw money at the problem

I'm starting to realise that paid will compound existing issues, whereas (unmeasurable?!) relationship building will not only drive TOF but assist throughout the funnel -> activation -> retention -> referral -> churn

We help our customers collect and share video testimonials and stories, and tell them this is how to grow, so it's critical that this is the foundation of our own marketing

Finally I need to look again at our product growth loops as we're uniquely positioned to grow from them IF enough news customers are getting to success

Our tool creates (awesome) assets for our customers that can drive awareness and TOF but only if they are being shared

Thanks to everyone who commented and especially to Olya Grovel 👩🏼‍🔬 who challenged my key assumptions

This is exactly why I LOVE #buildinpublic

I’m hiring my first marketer for Senja

Where should I look?

I'm hiring at Senja!!

Let's start 2026 getting the world's best creator educators on Senja!

I'm looking for someone to manage concierge migrations.

You will lead our efforts to find the best creator educators, tell them about Senja, migrate them to our platform, and ensure they get to success.

If you’re interested, application in comments below.

Your annual reminder that #buildinpublic is for this:

→ Accountability
→ Reflection
→ Helping others through sharing
→ Building community
→ Hiring

Not this
→ Getting rich quick
→ Doing marketing
→ Getting likes on X

The most rewarding part of sharing my journey has been having a ritual to reflect on my progress.

And then sharing it in a way that can help others.

I know a lot of people see #buildinpublic as a way to market their business, and that's a nice second-order effect.

But fundamentally it's about sharing, helping and democratising information.

I'm particularly inspired by those who continue to do it at scale, like Joel Gascoigne at Buffer ✨

I have $12,000 to spend on Meta ads

I want to run 3 cycles of $4,000 of ad spend

Who should I talk to about Meta ads for SaaS?

Most testimonials are filler

Not because they're bad, but because they're untested and unmeasured

You collect them, edit them, and share them on your sales pages

But you have no idea if they're actually helping buyers to make a decision

What if your leads could tell you which testimonials were most helpful?

And you could use that information to show more of the most helpful proof in your marketing?

Over time, you could discover
→ Which stories resonate
→ Which formats work
→ Which proof belongs above the fold

And which testimonials should be hidden

This is something I've been exploring at Senja in our widget playground

Visitors can actually upvote the proof that was useful to them

What do you think?

Would visitors actually leave feedback on a testimonial? 

#buildinpublic

Kicking off 26 with some great news - another native integration live!!!

You can now find Senja inside Umso

Instantly add your customer testimonial widgets to your Umso landing pages

This type of integration Senja's customers get to success in other tools

And it increases the discoverability of Senja across the web

Plus, it's amazing to see Senja inside tools I love and use

Helping Junior Designers Secure Their First Job | Staff Product Designer at Juro

I'm an experienced Product Designer with a passion for creating design solutions that harmonize user, business, and stakeholder needs. My work is geared towards fostering innovation and delivering measurable results. 

Beyond my role, I'm deeply committed to helping the next generation of designers break into the industry. That's why I founded Open Doors, an initiative dedicated to equipping junior designers with the tools and insights they need to land their first job and make a meaningful impact. 

Let's build better products and careers together.

Florian Boelter

I recently asked for junior portfolios again.
Over 200 submissions came in — and Rita (Yirong) Wang’s was one of the first that immediately stood out.

There’s an uncomfortable truth about portfolio reviews that after all this time I just can’t deny:
most of the initial signal happens very fast. Sometimes in five seconds or less.

That doesn’t mean the work is judged in five seconds — but you can usually tell almost instantly whether a portfolio is cohesive, intentional, and operating at the level it needs to be.

And if it doesn’t click right away, I’ll still open at least one case study to double-check. I always do but many hiring managers might not.
When a portfolio passes that first check and holds up once you dig in — that’s rare.

Rita’s did exactly that.

Her portfolio feels calm, confident, and unusually considered for an early-career designer. Not flashy for attention’s sake — but curious, exploratory, and well put together.

What stood out most to me:
- A standout conceptual project (Night Bus Station) that goes incredibly deep for a conceptual project and really lets her craft shine
- Strong range without losing a clear design identity
- Thoughtful separation between core work and “play,” instead of mixing everything together
- Case studies that feel intentional rather than academic

There’s also room to grow — especially around business framing in a couple of projects — but that’s the kind of gap that signals readiness, not weakness.
This is the first portfolio I picked from the latest submission round, and it’s a great example of how clarity, experimentation, and restraint can coexist — even early in your career.

I wrote a full breakdown of what’s working, what could be sharper, and why this portfolio is already opening doors.

👇 Full showcase and link to Rita’s portfolio in the comments.

Showing early-career designers the way | Staff Product Designer at Juro

This portfolio explains why Leo Fu moved from student → Snap → a YC-backed startup so fast.

Leo hasn’t been in the industry long. He was a student just last year — and yet he’s already stacked internships, worked at Snap, and is now designing at Corgi in SF.

At first glance, his portfolio doesn’t try to impress you with flash. It’s calm. Confident. Almost understated.

And that’s exactly why it works.

Within seconds, you can tell this is a designer who understands his fit and how hiring works — and designs for that.

The structure is clean. The project previews do their job well. The case studies get to the point. Leo is very clear about what he owned, how he added value, and what moved forward because he was there.

No padding. No overexplaining. No hiding behind generic language.

One detail I especially liked: he’s comfortable working close to implementation. In one project, he contributes code and explains where it helped — and where it didn’t. Not to flex, but to show judgment. That’s a strong signal in 2026, especially for early-stage teams.

There are things to refine, of course. Some visual details could be tighter. A few case study openings undersell how good the work actually is.
But that’s the important part: nothing here suggests a ceiling — only momentum.

This is what a strong early-career portfolio looks like when clarity, taste, and forward motion come together.

I broke down in more detail what works so well in Leo’s portfolio and where a bit more polish could take it even further.

Link in the comments.

Not all design careers start — or should start — in-house.
When people talk about “design jobs,” they almost always mean the same thing:
an in-house role at a tech company.

And yes — in-house roles are still the most visible path. They dominate job boards, courses, and expectations.

But they’re not the only option.

And depending on where you are in your career, they’re not always the best one either.
Over the years, I’ve seen designers — juniors and more experienced folks — feel stuck not because they weren’t good enough, but because they were all competing for the same narrow slice of the market.

What’s easy to miss is how much bigger the design job landscape actually is once you zoom out.

There are real design roles in places people rarely associate with “design careers” at all.

Designers working in government and public institutions, maintaining large-scale design systems that serve millions of people.
Designers in agencies and consultancies, moving between industries and problems instead of living inside one product.
Designers working as freelancers or embedded contractors, shaping real products without ever being “in-house.”
Designers in universities, public services, healthcare, and infrastructure, where impact isn’t measured in growth metrics.

These roles don’t always show up on the usual job boards.

They don’t follow the standard hiring playbook.

And they don’t look like “product designer at a startup.”

But they are real. And for the right person, they can be a better fit — early on or later in a career.

This week’s newsletter looks beyond the default in-house path:
what these roles actually are, who they’re for, and how to think in terms of alignment instead of prestige.

If you’ve been feeling boxed in or stuck fighting for the most crowded door — this one’s for you.

Full breakdown in this weeks newsletter.
Goes out Wednesday morning (GMT) so make sure to sign up for free: https://lnkd.in/eWPDw_wj

There are ways out of the junior designer chicken-and-egg problem.
Most people just never look beyond study projects and bootcamp case studies.

If you’re early in your design career, you’ve probably hit this wall already:
You need real-world experience to get a job.
But you need a job to get real-world experience.

That loop feels brutal — and it’s why so many designers stay stuck polishing the same study projects over and over, hoping this iteration will finally be enough.

Here’s the thing though: real-world experience doesn’t only come from full-time jobs.

Every year, I review hundreds of junior and early-career portfolios. Some of the strongest ones don’t always have traditional “real” work — but they still feel grounded, credible, and convincing.

Why?

Because the designers behind them found ways to connect their work to reality without a full-time:
- real organisations
- real constraints
- real trade-offs
- real context

And importantly: they didn’t all get there the same way.

There are multiple paths out of the chicken-and-egg problem, and which ones make sense depends a lot on where you’re coming from.

Some options are more accessible if you’re a university student.
Others are far more self-initiated — and often a better fit for self-taught designers or career switchers.
Some require permission. Others don’t.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here — but there are patterns that work, and I see them repeat across the portfolios that break through.

That’s exactly what newsletter covers this week.

I break down:
- where real-world work can actually come from
- which paths tend to work best depending on your situation
- and how to turn that work into portfolio-ready case studies that hiring managers take seriously

If you’re stuck in the “experience required” loop, this one’s for you.

The post goes out to subscribers tomorrow morning (9am GMT+1).
Link to subscribe for free in the comments.

We talk a lot about designing with AI.
We talk far less about how to design for AI-native solutions.

Not because it’s less important — but because it’s harder to practice.

Tools are easy to jump on. You can try them, learn them, use them.
Designing for AI is different. Many designers simply haven’t had the opportunity yet — because their company isn’t there, their product isn’t there, or the decision hasn’t been made.

But sooner or later, every designer will be confronted with it.

Either because your company starts exploring AI — or because you are the one suggesting that AI could meaningfully improve a solution.

And that’s where things often go wrong.
Designing for AI doesn’t automatically mean adding a chat.

It means understanding when AI adds value, how it changes product behaviour, and which interaction patterns actually make sense — uncertainty, confidence, fallbacks, human-in-the-loop flows, trust over time.

Those are design problems. Not tool problems.

I’ve been working on AI-native solutions for a while now at Juro, and I keep seeing the same pattern: teams struggle when AI is treated like “just another feature”. Things move much faster — and work much better — when the experience is designed around AI behavior from the start.

That’s why I’m running a workshop on this topic on January 28, together with Uxcel.

I’ll cover:
- what actually changes when products become AI-native
- common (and avoidable) design traps
- patterns that work beyond “just add a chat”
- and how to show AI product thinking in portfolios or case studies — even if you haven’t worked on one yet

This is especially relevant if you want to be better positioned in 2026 — both in the job market and inside your team when these conversations start happening.

Join me on Jan 28 and make sure to RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/eegNAe2H

AI-native product design ≠ slapping a chat into your product.

Before I start: yes — LLM-based chat interfaces can absolutely make sense. This pattern established itself quickly and for good reasons. For certain jobs-to-be-done, it’s a strong solution.

But it’s far from the right one in every case.

AI has unlocked a much broader set of product opportunities and interaction patterns beyond chat — and often beyond simply “augmenting” existing flows.

A good example are button-initiated operations for very specific actions. Many of these are LLM-powered, but don’t require the user to type anything at all. Take features like rewrite, shorten, or summarise. These are single-purpose, clearly scoped jobs. Making users phrase an instruction in natural language often adds friction rather than value.
And even for more complex jobs-to-be-done, putting users in front of a chat interface is frequently not the best default.

In some cases, the best AI interaction doesn’t require explicit user input at all. This is where terms like agentic get thrown around — often without much clarity. There’s a lot of misunderstanding in this space, especially around what autonomy actually means in a product context.

The broader point is this: designers need to understand the nature of the underlying systems, the patterns they unlock, and concepts like agentic behaviour — because they directly shape the experiences we design.

Whether we realised it or not, design has always been constrained and enabled by technical capabilities. Those constraints have shifted. The design patterns that made sense five years ago don’t always map cleanly to AI-native systems — and that means we have to adapt our thinking.

I’ve been working on AI-native solutions for a while now. I’ve made mistakes, learned from them, and developed a much clearer sense of where these patterns work — and where they don’t.

On January 28, I’m running a workshop on designing AI-native products hosted by Uxcel. I’ll introduce key concepts, but the focus is hands-on: we’ll work with a concrete example and explore how to evolve it into a better AI-native experience — with some help from AI along the way.

Link to get your ticket in the comments.

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Florian Boelter

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