About
I'm Ryan Byrne. I've been designing products for over a decade, starting in fintech in Cape Town and now leading design at a travel SaaS platform used by thousands of agencies. On the side I build my own products — the main one right now is CardSort (freecardsort.com), a UX research platform I designed and built with Claude Code that has paying customers.
The way I work has changed a lot. I design in code — Claude Code is my primary build tool, and the gap between having an idea and having something real to test is basically zero. I've shipped a full SaaS platform this way: designed, built, iterated, and monetized. I still use Figma, but I'm not precious about it. The thing that matters is whether the product works for real people.
What I care most about is the invisible problem — the gap between "the tool works" and "people actually use it successfully". On CardSort I dug into usage data and found that 51% of custom studies with 10+ cards got zero participant responses. The tool was fine. The problem wasn't on the screen at all. That kind of problem is the most interesting kind, and it only shows up if you're paying close enough attention.
Career Timeline
Design Team Lead • Travefy (Travel SaaS, Inc. 5000)
- Leading design at a travel SaaS platform used by thousands of agencies worldwide.
- Modernized an aging platform into a modern SaaS with a full design system rollout.
- Built and scaled a beta testing community from 0 → 500+ users, enabling rapid iteration and validation.
Founder • CardSort (UX Research Platform)
- Designed and built a UX research platform entirely with Claude Code — from study creation to participant experience to results analysis.
- Discovered 51% of custom studies got zero participant responses and shipped a mandatory recruitment flow to fix it.
- Paid product with paying customers, $150 MRR and growing. Pivoting from card sorting tool to lightweight UX research workflow platform.
Founder • ChatClick.io (AI Search Visibility Tool)
- AI-powered audit tool that checks how local businesses appear across AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
- Designed a self-propagating distribution mechanic: businesses see competitors' visibility scores, which creates demand for their own audit.
- Early stage — ~150 outreach emails sent, building distribution.
Co-Founder • HourlyRate.ai (SaaS)
- Built a SaaS platform helping freelancers value themselves in the market, set competitive rates, and plan their financial futures.
- Grew to 3,000+ signups in beta. Featured on Betalist, ProductHunt, and Hacker News.
- Designed product strategy, core UX, and growth loops. Not the active focus right now.
Co-Founder • 2099 (Design & Strategy Consultancy)
- Delivered digital strategy and product design for corporates (Standard Bank, Old Mutual, Sanlam, FNB) and startups.
- Partnered with climate and fintech innovators, including CarbonPath (blockchain carbon credits), Wafunda ISA (student financing), and Meadow (US student debt platform).
- Supported clients in raising $2.5M through product strategy and pitch design.
Lead Product Designer • Shyft Forex App (Fintech, Standard Bank)
- Introduced and delivered a design system to unify teams.
- Helped scale to 100K+ active users.
- Improved onboarding completion by 35%.
Senior Product Designer (Freelance/Toptal)
- Led product design for SaaS and fintech clients.
- Specialized in rapid prototyping, AI feature validation, and design systems.
- Example: Delivered a 3-day sprint for an AI trip preview prototype, validated by 200+ testers and shipped in 2 weeks.
Senior Product Designer • Byte Orbit (Fintech/E-commerce)
- Shipped fintech and e-commerce products, including Shyft Forex app (initial phases).
- Ran workshops, user research, and system design.
- Designed flows supporting multi-million rand transactions.
Product Designer • Dine4Six & Freelance
- Designed and shipped startup products, including a social dining app featured across South Africa.
- Freelanced globally (Bangkok, Cape Town), working on websites, SaaS, and brand design.
Network Engineer → Transition to Design
- Early career in IT infrastructure (corporate networks, architecture).
- Transitioned into UX/UI design with Web Courses Bangkok, shipping 50+ small products and learning to move fast, test, and iterate.
What I Do
Strategy
- Product vision & roadmapping
- User research & validation
- Information architecture
- Design sprints & workshops
- Competitive analysis
- Product analytics & funnel optimization
Design
- Design systems at scale
- Responsive web & mobile
- Complex data visualization
- Rapid prototyping
- Accessibility (WCAG 2.1)
Leadership
- Team building & mentoring
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Design ops & process
- Stakeholder management
- OKR planning & execution
Technical
- AI-native design workflow (Claude Code)
- Code-based prototyping (HTML/CSS/JS, React)
- React/Vue components
- API design collaboration
- Performance optimization
- Analytics & A/B testing