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billyno.

Product Designer + Builder

Product Designer + Builder

Good ideas deserve to get built.

I design the experience. I build the product.

Maker Spark

Design.

Turn ideas into experiences.

01

Build.

Bring ideas to life.

02

Ship.

Get it into the world.

03

Selected work

Made real.

From early ideas to real products — here are a few things I've designed and built.

View all work

01

Product · Web

Docket Tree

Vendor readiness for property operators.

Project story

Vendor Readiness SaaS

Docket Tree

Know who's ready. Know what's next.

A workspace designed to help property operations teams understand vendor readiness, outstanding document requirements, and what needs attention.

01 / The why

The problem.

Property operations teams need to understand whether vendors have the documents and approvals required for work. When requirements, expirations, and reviews are difficult to track, it becomes harder to know what needs attention.

02 / The idea

Make readiness visible.

Build a workspace that makes vendor readiness easy to understand at a glance, with a clear path from document request to review.

03 / How I built it

From product thinking to working software.

I shaped the product concept, defined the core readiness workflow, designed the interface architecture and reusable visual system, and developed the application through an iterative, AI-assisted engineering process.

04 / The decision that mattered

Readiness over generic compliance claims.

Rather than labeling vendors broadly as compliant, the product focuses on document readiness, missing requirements, and review status.

05 / What shipped

A live workspace.

The workspace includes a dashboard of what needs attention and vendor search. It keeps vendors, properties, requests, reviews, and documents, and shows readiness as ready, needs action, in review, or expiring soon, along with upcoming expirations and recent activity.

Docket Tree dashboard with what needs attention, upcoming expirations, and recent activity.Explore live product

02

Product · Web

PurrConnect

A lost-and-found community for cats.

Project story

Community Platform · Web + Native iOS

PurrConnect

  • Web
  • Native iOS

Every sighting matters.

Launched / Live on Web and App Store

I conceived, designed, developed, and launched PurrConnect to help reunite lost cats with their families. What started as an idea inspired by my experience rescuing cats became a location-based community platform available on both web and native iOS.

A quieter, more connected way for neighbors to report missing cats, share sightings, and help bring them home.

  • Founder & Product Owner
  • Product Strategy
  • UX / UI Design
  • Web Development
  • Native iOS Development

01 / The why

A problem close to home.

I've spent years rescuing cats, and I've seen how much a missing animal can mean to the people searching for them. When a cat disappears, information often becomes scattered across social media posts, neighborhood groups, and conversations that are difficult to connect.

I wanted to create something more focused—a place where people could report a missing cat, share a sighting, and contribute information that might help bring that cat home.

Sometimes the most meaningful products begin with a problem you care about personally.

02 / The idea

Turn neighbors into a network.

The idea was simple: bring lost-and-found cat reports, photographs, sightings, and geographic context into one shared experience.

Rather than forcing people to search through unrelated conversations, PurrConnect helps them discover reports on a map and contribute useful information to the community.

  • Location-first discovery
  • Simple reporting
  • Community participation
  • Clear, approachable interactions

03 / Why native iOS?

Because sightings happen in the real world.

A missing cat might be spotted while walking through a neighborhood, visiting a park, or driving home. The opportunity to help often happens away from a desk.

After building the web experience, I expanded PurrConnect into a native iOS application to bring the product into a more natural mobile context.

The goal was to make it easier for people to participate wherever they are, while maintaining a consistent experience across platforms.

One product vision. Two experiences designed for their platforms.

04 / How I built it

From idea to App Store.

I led PurrConnect from the initial concept through product definition, experience design, implementation, and launch.

I designed the reporting and discovery workflows, developed the interface system, and built the web application using Next.js and Firebase.

I then designed and developed the native iOS application using Swift and Xcode, with Cursor and Grok supporting my AI-assisted engineering workflow.

Working across design and development allowed me to continually evaluate decisions in the functioning product, refine the interactions, and carry the experience through to release.

Web application
Next.js, Firebase, responsive web UX, location-based reports, authentication and community interaction flows.
Native iOS
Swift, Xcode, native mobile UX, published Apple App Store application.
AI-assisted workflow
Cursor and Grok.

05 / The key decision

Location first. Community always.

Instead of creating another conventional social feed, I organized the experience around location-based reports.

Maps and geographic context help connect sightings with the places where cats were reported. Community contributions add the information that makes those reports more useful.

That decision shaped the product architecture and the way people explore and contribute to the experience.

Make relevant information easier to find—and easier to act on.

06 / What shipped

Designed. Built. Published.

PurrConnect marketing homepage with the headline Report a sighting. Locate and find your lost cat.

Live

Web

Next.js · Firebase

A live community web application bringing together location-based lost-and-found reports, photographs, map exploration, and community interactions.

PurrConnect New Report page with Lost selected, neighborhood search, photo upload, and a description field.
  • Missing and found cat reports
  • Location-based map discovery
  • Photographs
  • Authentication
  • Community comments

Published on the App Store

iOS

Swift · Xcode

AI-assisted workflow · Cursor + Grok

A fully native iOS application that extends PurrConnect's mission to mobile, designed and developed using Swift and Xcode and published through Apple's App Store.

PurrConnect iPhone report screen with a map pin in Portland, from the App Store listing.
  • Cat Digital IDs
  • Lost, found, and sighting reports
  • Map pins
  • Shareable flyers
  • Private tips
  • Suggested matches
Explore Web AppView on App Store

03

Product · Brand

Blend Republic

An editorial field manual for traditional bread, one living loaf.

Project story

Editorial Web Product

Blend Republic

A field manual for traditional bread.

An editorial experience that brings bread-making knowledge and practical digital interactions together.

01 / The why

Technique, timing, and experimentation.

Bread-making involves technique, timing, and experimentation. The opportunity was to bring traditional knowledge into a more useful, engaging digital experience.

02 / The idea

A field manual, not a directory.

Create a focused bread-making field manual instead of a generic recipe directory.

03 / How I built it

Direction, identity, and interaction.

I established the product direction, brand identity, and editorial UX, combining visual storytelling with functional web interactions. The bake experience is a Next.js application using Firebase.

04 / The decision that mattered

A practical field manual.

Make it a practical field manual, not simply a recipe catalog. Prioritize learning and using bread-making knowledge rather than only browsing content.

05 / What shipped

One living loaf.

It is one living loaf. The workbench includes a formula with baker's percentages, versions, a guided bake with a timer, Baker's Companion, and a baking journal.

Blend Republic living recipe workbench with a formula and baker's percentages.Explore live product

Process

The loop.

A continuous cycle from curiosity to impact. I design, build, ship, and keep iterating.

How I work

Discover

Understand people, problems, and business constraints.

Design

Translate insights into clear structures, workflows, and interfaces.

Prototype

Make ideas tangible and test assumptions through realistic interactions.

Build

Turn validated concepts into functioning products using reusable systems and practical engineering.

Ship

Launch usable experiences and get them into the hands of real users.

Iterate

Use feedback and evidence to refine the experience over time.

Lab

Think it. Design it. Build it.

A playground for ideas, experiments, and whatever I'm curious about next.

Explore the lab

Experiments. Side projects. Work in progress.

Same spark. Different playground.

The lab is where I explore new ideas, test technologies, and build just for the fun of it.

Mini builds

Small ideas, real code.

Experiments

Design, tech, and playful ideas.

Hello, I'm Billy.

Designer. Builder. Human.

I've spent two decades making complex software feel simple. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being satisfied with just designing the experience. I wanted to build the whole thing.

Today, I bring together product strategy, UX, design systems, and hands-on development to turn ideas into working products.

More about me

The person behind the pixels

Portrait placeholder.

Experience

20+Years

Designing digital experiences.

My creative philosophy

Curiosity leads. Craft matters. Shipping counts.

Let's build

Let's make something good.

Have a project in mind, a question, or just want to say hi?

I'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch
billyno.

Product Designer + Builder