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Filippos Protogeridis
Lead Product Designer at Manual
Professional Background
Filippos Protogeridis is a highly respected and award-winning product designer with over a decade of experience in crafting innovative solutions for leading tech companies both in Europe and the United States. His impressive portfolio demonstrates his strong expertise in strategy, research, and design, which are essential elements in creating products that address and solve real market needs. Throughout his career, Filippos has collaborated with a diverse range of consumer and business-oriented organizations across multiple industries, showcasing his versatility and depth of knowledge within the design landscape.
From serving as the Lead Product Designer at prominent companies such as Manual and Soundsnap to holding key positions at platform influential businesses like Youtility and ZOE, Filippos has consistently demonstrated his ability to elevate product design. His leadership skills have not only been evident in his role assignments but also in his ability to mentor other designers and inspire creativity within teams.
In addition to his professional endeavors, Filippos is an active speaker at conferences and seminars, where he educates audiences about the substantial role and impact of design in innovation-driven companies. His insights have made him a sought-after voice in the design community, directly contributing to the evolution of how companies view and implement design practices. Furthermore, his contributions have been recognized through numerous accolades, including features in respected online platforms such as AWWWARDS, Abduzeedo, SiteInspire, and Behance.
Education and Achievements
Filippos's educational foundation set the stage for his successful career in product design. He graduated from the Geitonas School, where he earned his High School Diploma, followed by completing his undergraduate studies in Computer Science at the Athens University of Economics and Business. This strong academic background has equipped him with the technical knowledge necessary to excel in the rapidly changing tech landscape.
As an industry leader, Filippos has also taken on the responsibility of serving as a jury member for the prestigious Ermis Awards, which celebrate excellence in advertising, design, and communication in Greece. Being part of such an esteemed panel further underscores his expertise and recognition within the field.
Achievements
Filippos's work has garnered significant recognition in the design community, as evidenced by his features on various award-winning platforms such as AWWWARDS and Abduzeedo. In addition to his design projects being highlighted, his expertise and contributions to the field have made him a valuable resource for aspiring designers and established professionals alike. His commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible through design has not gone unnoticed.
His remarkable career includes a series of notable roles:
- Lead Product Designer at Manual, where he has spearheaded multiple successful design initiatives.
- Former Product Designer at Programmai, contributing to innovative software solutions.
- As Head of Product Design at Soundsnap, he played a critical role in enhancing user experiences.
- Previously, as Lead Product Designer at both Youtility and ZOE, he drove user-centered design projects that directly improved client engagement.
- His role at incrediblue as a Lead Product Designer further solidified his influence in the travel tech sector.
- At Transifex, serving as Senior Product Designer allowed him to deepen his expertise in localization and user experience.
- Filippos also made significant impacts as the Head Of Design at Yatzer, where he focused on blending design with digital publications.
- More recently, he excelled as a Lead Product Designer at Welcome Pickups, e-FOOD.gr, and Warply, showcasing his adaptive design skills across multiple sectors.
- Additionally, his entrepreneurial spirit was evident during his time as Co-founder at Eclipsis, where he merged technology with innovative ideas.
- His experience as a Student Partner at Microsoft highlighted his early involvement and commitment to technology and design.
Through each of these roles, Filippos Protogeridis has left an indelible mark on the design community, with his innovative contributions and tireless passion for producing exceptional design solutions. Whether through launching products that reflect user needs or through speaking engagements that foster knowledge sharing, Filippos continues to develop his career and the broader industry, ensuring that design remains a catalyst for innovation and growth.
Highlights
Making design decisions is seemingly simple yet deeply complex.
Junior designers usually make decisions based on:
- Whether they have seen something elsewhere.
- Whether they like it.
Senior designers should be able to think of the following:
- Will it solve the problem?
- How much effort will it take?
- Is it standard practice?
- Are our users familiar with it?
- Does it scale? Does it need to scale?
- Does it follow the design system?
- Is it accessible?
- Does it create any risks?
- What other product areas would be affected?
- Will we learn something if we launch it?
(The priority of each of these parameters will largely depend on your product, team, and organization)
Embracing and articulating that thought process is key.
- Key to becoming an analytical thinker.
- Key to educating and convincing stakeholders.
- Key to building design authority in an organization.
So, next time you are presented with a decision, try incorporating that thinking into your process. Most importantly, make a habit of communicating it whenever you share your work.
What else would you add?
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If you found this helpful, consider reposting ♻️
#productdesign #uxdesign #uiux
If I had to pick 5 things to practice in my first year in Product Design, they would be the following:
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UI design
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User Interviews
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Sketching
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Journey maps
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Surveys
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Practice UI Design
No matter what people say, in your first 2-3 years as a product designer, solid UI design skills are key in getting you hired.
Secondly, UI design is an empirical skill. No matter how much theory you read, unless you practice consistently on different products and concepts, it will be impossible to improve.
I recommend:
- Reading a book with actionable tips, such as Practical UI
- Make a habit of recreating popular apps from Mobbin
- Working on conceptual ideas by following a design challenge, such as Designary
- Becoming comfortable with following design systems by using examples from the Figma Community
- Asking seniors to give you candid, unfiltered feedback
- Learn to conduct User Interviews
If there is one research methodology that will carry you from your junior to senior years, that’s user interviews.
It’s the bread and butter of discovery and testing and a crucial skill whether you work in a team of 1, 5, or 500 designers. The learning curve isn't very steep, and practicing from early on will set you up for success.
I recommend:
- Interviewing your friends and family about products they use.
- Using a research question library to draft your discussion guides.
- Using an interview template from the Miro or Figjam community.
- Make a habit of sketching
Sketching is a powerful habit to unlock new ideas and solutions to problems, and it’s a very useful activity to do as a group.
I recommend:
- Sketching out new ideas before moving to high-fidelity mockups
- Choose sketching over low-fidelity wireframes
- Learning how to run Crazy 8’s
- Learn how to create Journey Maps
Customer journey mapping is one of the most powerful exercises you can do in user experience design.
It’s a brilliant exercise for putting the customer at the forefront and building empathy while changing your frame of mind from screens to journeys.
I recommend:
- Using a template from the Miro or Figjam community
- Creating the journey map of one of your favorite products
- Become comfortable with Surveys
I still meet many product designers who are frightened by surveys.
While you don’t need to learn how to run perfect surveys, it’s important to become familiar with standard templates & question types.
I recommend:
- Practicing by running short surveys with your friends/ family on Typeform
- Browsing through available templates on Typeform; it will give you an understanding of what questions are used for which purposes.
- Studying a survey question library and understanding key question types like Likert and ranking matrices.
-- You can find links for all the tips mentioned in the comments. 👇
If you found this useful, consider reposting ♻️
#uxdesign #uiux #productdesign
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.