Michelle Kang — Product Design

What I Do

I run intensive design engagements for early-stage startups. When you're stuck with messy Figma files, unclear requirements, or a demo deadline looming, I parachute in and get you to polished and usable, fast.

No long onboarding. No months of discovery. Just focused execution under pressure.

MVP Design Prototype Rescue Figma Cleanup User Research Usability Testing

Background

S Stanford '13, d.school trained

12 Years in product design

Previously at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Pivotal Labs, and CivicActions. Founding designer for multiple early-stage startups. I've spent my career being dropped into ambiguous situations and shipping under pressure.

Selected Work

$249M Government Contract

Dropped into a 5-day design sprint with a team I'd never worked with. Led design for a mobile and tablet application from scratch.

Won a $250 million, 5-year contract with the VA.

YC Startup MVP

Founder came to me with a loose idea. Designed a multi-screen MVP with branding, ran usability testing, iterated quickly. Flexible, fast, high-quality delivery.

Startup accepted into Y Combinator.

FDA Prototype Rescue

Inherited a Figma file so bloated it wouldn't load. Scoped with stakeholders, rebuilt from scratch, delivered a clean working prototype.

Completed in a weekend sprint.

What People Say

"Michelle was a trusted thought partner and collaborator from day one. She led work across user interviews, branding, pitch decks, and the end-to-end design of our MVP, all with a high bar for quality. She is extremely professional, consistently met tight deadlines, and paid great attention to detail. I would highly recommend working with her."

Ben Collins

Founder, Woz (YC W25)

"Michelle has gone above and beyond in rapidly ideating on concepts and incorporating team and user feedback in a humble and collaborative manner. Through Michelle's work we have definitely come a long way in building an interface that makes a novel and complex set of concepts and processes easy-to-understand and easy-to-use."

Kyle Planeaux

Product Manager, CDC DIBBs

"It was such a joy to work with you on this project! Managing our project: taking the lead on estimating, communicating with our clients, setting up meetings, getting a Figma library file set up. Sharing the work seamlessly and mostly asynchronously. Couldn't have asked for a better partner to get it done with."

Jennifer Herzberg

Product Designer, Skylight