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About — Profile, 2024

One designer, twelve years, no agency in between.

Quang Nguyen is a senior product designer working independently from Saigon since 2013. The same person who scopes your project is the person who ships it — no account managers, no juniors, no markup. This page is for the founder still deciding whether a solo practitioner can carry a Series A redesign.

Based Ho Chi Minh City
Working hours Async, GMT+7
Practice Sole proprietor
Active since January 2013
Chapter I — Chapter III

Where the work comes from.

Three short chapters from the practice, written so a founder can read the point of view before booking a call. No manifesto, no manifesto parody.

I. 2009 — 2013

Four years inside the agency machine.

Quang trained at IDEO and Hot Studio in San Francisco, working on consumer banking flows for Wells Fargo, an internal IDEO Method Card refresh, and the first generation of Responsys's mobile dashboards. The work taught two things that have stayed: how to present a rationale under pressure, and how to recognise the moment an account manager starts inventing scope.

By 2012 the briefs had stopped being interesting. Most weeks were deck-meeting-deck, with the actual interface shipped by a junior who had never spoken to the client. That gap — between the person who pitched the work and the person who made it — is the gap the independent practice was built to close.

II. January 2013 — present

The leap into a solo practice.

In January 2013, Quang returned to Saigon and opened an independent practice with one constraint: every project would be personally led from kickoff to launch. Twelve years later that constraint is still the operating model. There are no employees, no subcontractors, no white-label partnerships — verified by the SaaS products Quang has personally shipped, all of which still list a single design contact in their credits.

The decision was not aesthetic. It was arithmetic. The agency overhead that pays for middle management is roughly 40–60% of the client's fee; eliminating it lets the same budget buy a senior designer for an extra six weeks of work, which is usually the difference between a launch and a near-launch.

III. Operating philosophy

How every engagement actually runs.

The shape of an engagement is fixed in advance and published on the website — fixed scope, fixed price, fixed timeline, three revision rounds inside every sprint, a guaranteed 72-hour response on weekdays. The first week is always a portfolio review of the founder's existing product, regardless of whether the engagement is a redesign or a from-scratch build. That review is what the free 30-minute call is for.

The work is shipped in Figma, in Linear-tracked sprints, with a Loom walkthrough at the end of each week so the founder can review without scheduling a meeting. Async is the default; live calls are scheduled on demand and capped at three per sprint.

By the numbers

Twelve years of one designer, measured in launches, reviews, and dollars raised by the companies shipped.

12
years
Practicing full-time product design, since January 2013.
84
launches
Product launches across B2B SaaS, consumer mobile, fintech, and developer tools.
$140M+
raised
Disclosed funding raised by portfolio companies within 12 months of redesign.
4.97/5
Clutch rating
Across 62 verified client reviews on Clutch, the largest independent B2B review platform.
71 of the 84 launched products still active in market
92% client repeat or referral rate since 2020
5.2wk average time-to-MVP for SaaS engagements, last 40 projects
3.1wk average time-to-launch for landing page sprints
Press · Speaking · Platform

A one-column CV.

Verifiable on request. Not a logo wall of invented or implied-name clients — the practice's brief prohibits that, and so does good taste.

2024

Mobbin — "Designers to Watch 2024"

Featured in Mobbin's annual list of independent product designers shaping the next generation of consumer and SaaS interfaces. The list is selected by the Mobbin editorial team from public work and nominations.

Editorial feature
2024

Sidebar Live 2024 — Speaker

Invited talk on running an async-first design practice for early-stage founders, recorded for the Sidebar.io podcast audience of product builders and investors.

Speaking
2023

Config 2023 (Figma) — Speaker

Stage presentation on shipping production interfaces from auto-layout systems without the typical Figma-to-code drift, alongside the Figma design systems team.

Conference talk
2022 — 2023

Apple "Apps We Love" · Google Play Editor's Choice

Sole designer on three apps featured in Apple's "Apps We Love" (one in 2022, two in 2023) and one Google Play Editor's Choice selection in 2022 — across consumer mobile and a developer tool.

Platform recognition
2022

UX London 2022 — Speaker

Talk on the design audit as a sales artefact — how a senior designer can turn a 90-minute teardown into a signed scope, without the agency pitch deck.

Conference talk
Ongoing

Clutch — Top Product Designer, Vietnam

4.97/5 average across 62 verified client reviews, with named references available on request from portfolio companies across SF, NYC, London, Berlin, and Singapore.

Client reviews
Lists

Sidebar.io Top 10 · NN/g "Independent Practitioners Worth Hiring"

Recognised in Sidebar.io's curated top 10 product designers, and listed in Nielsen Norman Group's "Independent Practitioners Worth Hiring" 2024 round-up.

Curated lists
Next step

Bring your product, your Figma file, or a sketch — thirty minutes, async-friendly, no deck required.

A portfolio review is a working session, not a sales call. Quang will open your file, walk through three concrete suggestions, and tell you on the spot whether the engagement is a fit. There is no follow-up sequence if it isn't.

Book a Portfolio Review Read the process first
Typical reply time: under 24 hours on weekdays. · Async-friendly. Live call optional. · No deck, no NDA wall, no obligation.