About me
I love to build products that enable others to create, shape or become more effective. I’m currently doing exactly that at no-code design and development tool ConvertCalculator, and by building exciting features for my sideproject Shortcuts.design. When I’m offline, you’ll probably find me reading, cycling, roasting green coffee beans, brewing craft beer, or road tripping with my best friends.
We can build anything, but what is the future we want to build together?
— Branden Kowitz, Design Disruptors
When I’m happy at work
Over the last few years working and learning as a designer, I discovered that I’m at my best and most satisfied when I’m working on tools for others to create something themselves, work effectively, or lead a fulfilled life. I find myself being motivated when I believe in a vision and have ownership of my process and the product I’m working on.
Currently I'm @ConvertCalculator, a no-code design and development tool SMBs can use to create product configurators, calculators, forms, sales funnels and more. I just started here, but there are a lot of interesting challenges ahead in improving the visual and logic builder, lowering the barrier for non-designers and engineers to build great performing products, and telling our story to attract the right customers.
How I got here
Before all of this, I worked on native apps at YipYip where I also scaled up the design team from me-myself-and-I to a team of 4, built out a design system with our engineers to keep one of the products we were building maintainable, learned about accessibility for native and webapps, and balanced user focused, technical, and business-driven needs and constraints.
Earlier I designed mobile-first presentation software for Paste by WeTransfer, worked at Awkward on Coffee by Benjamin and learned a lot from being around the people building Sketch Cloud, taught courses to design students, and graduated cum-laude and with an 10/10 (A) at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Check out my resume
On the side: Learning & creating
I’m often reading books about design, productivity, and self-development, listening to podcasts, spending too much time on Twitter, and dabbling around with side projects. I’m currently working on a beer tasting web app, a Figma Vuetify UI kit and of course Shortcuts.design, my first side project that became Producthunt Product of the Day back in 2017.
On the side: Traveling
Every year, I try to visit at least two different countries, whether it’s a city trip or wandering around in nature. One of those trips is usually a road trip / camping trip with one or multiple good friends, and an old red 1992 Maza Miata.
I’ve got some epic travel stories to share when we’d grab a coffee, and I’ll probably convince you about how great Sweden🇸🇪 is, just check out how beautiful it is.
On the side: Discovering craft beer
I also enjoy discovering craft beers with friends or messing around with homebrew beer kits in my kitchen. For now, the homebrews are sadly a less successful experiment. It’s interesting tho! I’m learning a lot about recognizing flavors, what I like or dislike, and somehow it’s making me better at articulating thoughts.
On the side: Road biking
By night and in the weekends, I love to road bike on the Dutch island of Flakkee, where I live. Being active helps me feel good and focus better during the day.
Check out some photos on Twitter of where I live and ride.
On the side: Roasting coffee beans
Besides cycling, I’m roasting my own green coffee beans in a little oven in my backyard. I don’t know if it’s the IKEA-effect, or if I truly roast and brew the best coffee out there, but I believe it's the best.
Check out this Twitter thread if you want to learn more.
On the side: Star Wars Lego
Because I often want to create, but don’t want to look at a display for even more hours, I also started out building Star Wars Lego. The system behind those helmets or the Baby Yoda figure are an insane level of craftsmanship I one day hope to find in the little rectangles I’m drawing by day.
