I solve the UX problems in complex B2B products that are quietly costing you money.
Churn. Lost deals. Wasted engineering time. I find where the expensive mistakes hide — and fix them.
Trusted by
Emil has been our embedded design partner since 2025, leading UX across our telemetry and log management platform—a deeply technical product with dense interfaces and demanding users.
We're an engineering-led company and had no senior design leadership in-house. As the platform grew, UX was becoming a real constraint, and we needed someone who could own it strategically, not just execute screens.
Emil embedded directly in our product team, working alongside PMs and stakeholders across the org. He started our design system from scratch to unify the platform, and he's been a decision-maker on our most complex initiatives—the cloud version of our on-prem platform, the air-gapped deployment, certificate management, and more. He also matured the way we approach user research.
He raised our design maturity as a company and operates at the level of UX leadership without the overhead of a full-time hire. If you're building a complex product and UX is becoming a business problem, Emil is who you want.
We brought Emil in as our first design partner to design our platform from scratch—a genuinely complex product that unifies government contracts, trade flows, corporate data, and supply chain data into a single interface. The data is dense and our users are diverse—investment analysts, supply chain teams, government agencies—so the experience had to work for very different people without simplifying away the depth they rely on. On top of that, the platform leans heavily on powerful multi-field filtering—the kind of capability that quietly becomes unusable if the UX isn't right.
Emil worked directly with our stakeholders and engineers rather than at arm's length. He created the designs and iterated with us until the flows—the filtering in particular—matched how our users actually think and work. He understood the technical side well enough to design something we could realistically build, and he raised the bar on what good UX looks like for a data-heavy product.
We had no in-house design before Emil; he brought that thinking in from the start. The result is a platform that feels coherent and considered rather than assembled. If you're building something complex and need someone who can bring real design direction into a technical team, he's the person to bring in.
It was a pleasure working with Emil, who became a very popular member of our team very quickly.
Emil joined our successful SaaS company that was lacking a clear design strategy and ethos. He spent a lot of time discussing with customers to find the best UX and design solutions.
Emil was instrumental in designing our mobile app from scratch along with numerous features used by thousands of customers daily.
What's actually costing you money?
Most UX problems in complex B2B products don't look like UX problems. They look like churn, lost deals, and engineering time you can't get back.
Your product works, but it's hard to use — and it's costing you deals
Prospects get confused in demos, trials don't convert, and your sales team has to narrate around UX gaps instead of letting the product sell itself.
Users aren't adopting the features your team built
You shipped something valuable, but usage is flat — because the design doesn't match how your users actually think and work.
Your engineering team keeps rebuilding things that weren't designed right the first time
Without senior design direction, UX decisions get made by committee or by whoever's closest to the code — and the rework costs pile up.
You need senior UX leadership but can't justify a full-time hire
Whether you're a founder who's been doing UX yourself or a CPO who's outgrown "figure it out as we go" — you need the thinking without the headcount. Not a €120K+ hire. Not a junior pushing pixels. Senior direction, scoped to impact.
Your onboarding is leaking users before they see the value
New users hit a wall of complexity before they experience what makes your product worth paying for — and they leave before they get there.
You're scaling fast, but your UX isn't scaling with you
What worked at 10 customers breaks at 100. Inconsistent patterns, growing design debt, and no system to keep the experience coherent as you ship faster.
Senior UX leadership, scoped to impact. Three tiers — from strategic direction to full embedded design leadership. Pick the level that matches the problem, not a headcount line on your org chart.
Need more hours? Additional time can be added to any tier at the same hourly rate.
Simple, Transparent Process
Step 1: Discovery Call
We discuss your product, the UX problems that are costing you money, and whether there's a fit. No pitch — just an honest conversation about whether I can help.
Step 2: Choose Your Tier
Pick the level of engagement that matches the problem — from strategic direction to full embedded design leadership. Monthly rolling, no long-term lock-in.
Step 3: Start Solving Problems
First strategy session within 48 hours. I embed with your team and start working on the UX issues that actually move the needle — not a discovery phase that takes six weeks to produce a report.
Common Questions
Details on working together.
I work with B2B SaaS companies building complex, technical products — the kind where the workflows are deep, the users are sophisticated, and the cost of getting UX wrong shows up in churn, lost deals, or engineering rework. Typically post-product-market-fit, whether venture-backed or bootstrapped with real traction. My clients are founders, CPOs, and product leaders who need senior design thinking without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Reduced churn tied to UX friction. Faster deal cycles because the product communicates value in demos instead of creating confusion. Higher feature adoption because things are designed for how users actually work. Less engineering rework because design decisions are made right the first time. And a UX foundation that scales with you — not one you have to rebuild every six months.
All tiers are monthly rolling contracts. Many teams start with 1–2 months for immediate clarity and then extend for deeper design leadership and systems.
You're not hiring a junior designer to push pixels. You're getting 20+ years of experience with complex B2B products — the strategic thinking, research, and hands-on execution of a Head of UX, without the salary, benefits, recruiting process, or ramp-up time. My lightest tier costs less than a month of recruiting fees for a senior design hire.
To make starting easy, I only require 50% upfront for the first month. At the end of month one, we settle the balance for that month and prepay 50% for the next. From month two onwards, each month is billed 50% upfront at the start.
Additional time can be added to any tier at the same hourly rate. If you consistently need more, we can adjust the tier.
Yes. Upgrades can happen at any time. Downgrades require a 10-day notice before the next billing cycle.
Yes. All tiers are monthly rolling contracts with a 10-day cancellation notice.
If there's availability, onboarding can begin within 5 business days. I'll always communicate timelines clearly upfront.
I'm based in EEST (UTC+3) and work flexibly across European and US time zones. We'll find effective overlap for collaboration.
Strategic Design Partner for Complex B2B Products
I’m Emil Ivanov, a strategic UX/design partner for complex B2B products.
Over 20+ years, I’ve worked across telemetry platforms, property management SaaS, betting/casino back-office tools, engineering software, government systems, design systems, user research, and technical workflows.
I’m usually brought in when the product already works, but the UX is starting to cost the business: sales friction, onboarding problems, low adoption, repeated rebuilds, or product/design decisions made without enough senior judgment.
Based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Working globally.
