Philip Blaikie
Freelance product designer, advisor & mentor
I partner with ambitious companies to take fresh ideas to market and make them scale.
I bring more than 10 years experience to the table. Most recently as lead designer at ZOE — the personalised nutrition start-up that “everyone’s talking about.”
Previously, building enterprise tech at Google and developing fraud prevention tools for Facebook.
Work
Doctify
Product-led growth and new feature development
I was a design advisor at Doctify, a patient review platform and healthcare marketplace. My role involved team mentorship, hands-on design, and UXR support. I particularly focused on identifying opportunities for product-led growth for both specialists and patients.
ZOE
Zero-to-one service prototyping with minimal code
I joined ZOE as one of the first designers, collaborating with a cross-functional team to bring the personalized nutrition service from concept to market. I lead extensive user research and utilised wizard-of-oz techniques to rapidly deliver a proof of concept that helped us secure a $50M Series B.
ZOE
Identifying the ideal customer profile and their jobs to be done
Acting as the lead user researcher, I conducted weekly interviews with ZOE’s early adopters. Using demand testing techniques, I uncovered their jobs to be done and analysed this alongside app usage and satisfaction data to define our ideal customer profile and inform our product positioning strategy.
ZOE
Experimenting to find product → market → price fit
I used Van Westendorp-method surveys and interviews to understand user perceptions of our pricing and willingness to pay for features. We then used A-B tests to optimize our pricing, including one that increased initial order value by 75% and boosted lifetime value through a subscription model.
Google
Improving privacy-by-design for people using Android at work
I worked with the Android team to evolve the work profile feature and expand it’s adoption. My work involved field research and lab testing with IT procurement teams and their employees. I designed interface enhancements to improve transparency of device management and collaborated cross-functionally to successfully advocate for certain API features to be deprecated.
Facebook
Optimising workflows for content moderation & fraud prevention
Content moderation and fraud prevention are hot topics for a platform with 3 billion monthly active users. I was brought in, while working at Normally, to improve the “single review tool” which is used to monitor and resolve thousands of issues daily. We shadowed workers to understand how they use the tool and redesigned the interface to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their work.
Testimonials
Sara Gordon
Former VP of Brand & Marketing at ZOE
“Philip is an A player you want on your team! He’s strategic, thoughtful, collaborative and proactive. He designs to solve people’s needs and therefore truly leverages research and JTBD mindset in his work. His work has attention to detail and taste. And finally, he cares about the team and culture he works in, leading efforts to bring people together.”
BASIL SAFWAT
Head of Design at Adept AI,
Formerly at Normally
“An incredibly talented and versatile designer who can move across across the spectrum of design with ease – from thinking about systems and society to crafting detailed and beautiful interactions.”
Melinda Klayman
UX Researcher at ZOE,
Formerly at Google
“Philip is a bastion of level-headed sanity in a startup environment that is often fast-paced and reactionary. Before I came to ZOE, Philip had been leading user research in an unofficial capacity and I was pleased to step into a space that already adhered to best practices. He's really great at moderating interviews -- never leading, always open-ended, but very warm and approachable.”
Stephanie Chin
Creative Director at Grubhub,
Formerly at ZOE
“Working with Philip was one of the highlights of my time at ZOE—he's not only an incredibly talented designer and an expert at his craft, but his intuition and strategic insight when it came to branding impressed me time and time again. Plus, he's a designer who can write!
What Philip truly brings to any team is his creative leadership and dedication to building creative culture. He's committed to mentoring those around him, lifting up others, and making sure we have some fun along the way. I could not recommend him enough.”
Experience
Freelance Lead Product Designer
December 2022 - Present
Lead Designer for Growth & Marketing at ZOE
March 2022 - December 2022
Senior Product Designer at ZOE
December 2019 - March 2022
UX Designer for Android at Google
January 2019 - December 2019
Senior Product Designer at Normally
July 2015 - December 2018
Senior UX Designer at Moving Brands
April 2015 - July 2015
Senior Interaction Designer at Method
January 2014 - April 2015
Visual Designer at Method
January 2013 - January 2014