AI Product · Fractional CPO Under NDA

Turning a feature factory into a product that compounds.

A growing startup had momentum but no coherent design language or research practice. I built both — and kept shipping velocity high with AI in the loop.

Year
2024 – Present
Role
Fractional CPO
Product & design leadership
Client
AI productivity · LATAM
Founders + engineering
[ HERO VISUAL ] — design-system snapshot / NDA-safe component library
The Problem

Features shipped without a shared design language — so the experience didn’t compound.

The product had real traction signals, but each release felt like a separate thing, and users weren’t building trust in the product. There was no way to learn from users systematically.

The Solution

Two foundations laid in parallel — without slowing shipping.

A lightweight design system for consistency, and a repeatable practice for gathering and acting on customer signal.

01
A lightweight design system
Enough structure to make the product feel like one product, not ten features.
02
A research / feedback loop
A repeatable, low-overhead way to capture customer signal and route it into the roadmap.
03
AI in the loop
Kept velocity high while raising the quality floor.
04
Roadmap from evidence
Shifted decisions from loudest-opinion to clearest-signal.
Background
+ To add · NDA-safe · medium
NDA-safe context — stage, the “feature factory” symptom, why coherence mattered now.
Research

Standing up a research practice from near-zero.

+ To add · medium
How you stood up a research practice from near-zero — what signal you started capturing and how. Generic is fine.
+ To add · generic
Generic user archetype for the productivity tool.
How Might We…

…make every release add up to a product users trust — without slowing the team down?

Ideation

Consistency is a feature.

A coherent design language and a steady feedback loop turn scattered shipping into a product that earns trust over time. AI tooling meant we didn’t have to trade speed for that coherence.

Design
+ To add · medium
The design system you built — tokens, components, patterns — and how you rolled it out without halting feature work. Describe the leadership move, not just the artifact.
[ IMAGE ] — design-system tokens / components
Testing & Iterations
+ To add · anonymized · medium
2–3 anonymized examples of the feedback loop changing a decision.
Results
+ To add · highest impact · NDA-safe
Consistency metric, activation/retention movement, qualitative shift in how the team makes decisions, faster onboarding of new features into the system, etc.
Final Thoughts
What I learned
+ Genuine lesson about installing design maturity in a fast startup.
Next steps
+ Where it’s heading.
Most proud of
Giving a team a way to iterate on evidence instead of opinion — and watching the product start to feel like one coherent thing.
Next project →
Scalable Path
↗
Like what you see?

Let’s build something together.

felipelebrun@gmail.com →
© 2026 Felipe Restrepo LinkedIn ↗ Behance ↗ Remote — Colombia / France · EN · FR · ES