I've spent my career in zero-to-one early stage startups
YC cofounder, indie hacker, product manager, and startup advisor. I understand the pull between shipping quickly and building something that lasts.
About
The design partner for your next stage of growth
I’m Sam Pierce Lolla , a New York-based design engineer and independent product strategist. Since 2017, I’ve worked with startups to make their products ready for their next stage of growth.
I'm an independent design engineer and product strategist for early-stage startups. I've had dozens of clients in fields like artificial intelligence, finance, healthcare, agriculture, higher education, B2B SaaS, and more.
Previously I was one of the co-founders of Y-Combinator-backed Precip, which uses machine learning to do hyper-local weather observation for agriculture, insurance, and other weather-dependent industries. Before that I was the first hire and design director at Y-Combinator-backed FarmLogs, an operating system for agriculture. We grew to from 3 to 80 people, raised $40MM, and were downloaded by ⅓ of American farmers.
I'm also the founder and sole designer/engineer of Shuffleboard, a brainstorming tool for remote teams. All of Shuffleboard's design and development was filmed and published on YouTube.
Years ago I taught a popular design course at the University of Michigan. Our students went on to become designers at Google, Asana, Microsoft, and other high-growth tech companies. I've also worked as an engineer, product manager, design coach, and startup advisor.
My degree is in Human-Computer Interaction. Originally from the Philadelphia area, I'm now based in New York City.
Experience
Design leadership + technical fluency + founder mindset
I love growing healthy, productive design teams
I have led design teams, coached designers, and taught product design—so the work leaves your team with better judgment, not just better files.
An engineer with 15 years of building experience
A useful system has to survive real feature work. I design alongside the implementation habits, tools, and decisions that make adoption possible.
Experienced product leader driving organizational change
I work with teams and leaders to shape clear product strategy. I've worked with leadership teams as a product manager, consultant, and advisor to shape their product strategy, build powerful brands, and guide teams to new ways of working.
Resources
Resources to improve your team's design
How to talk to users
A founder-friendly guide to learning from usability tests and conversations with users.
The founder’s guide to hiring product designers Clients only
A practical checklist for hiring a designer who fits your product, team, and stage.
Founder-fit assessment
A short assessment to help you decide whether a design partnership is the right next move for your company.
Design team health scorecard
A rubric for determining the health of your team’s design function.
Product design 101 Clients only
A quick introduction to the basics of UX design and design theory.
Journey mapping workshop Clients only
We'll map out your entire customer experience, highlighting critical UX opportunities
New feature kickoff Clients only
For PMs, designers, and engineers to brainstorm ideas before we commit to a direction
Design review Clients only
For designers presenting design work and soliciting feedback from the team
As a founder
Building for the love of it
Spooky 2025–present
An AI agent for building professional brands, websites, and sales materials.
Precip 2023–2025
A high-precision rainfall product. As a YC W24 cofounder, I designed and built the product; it reached #3 in the App Store Weather category and 100,000+ downloads.
Shuffleboard 2019–2023
A brainstorming tool for remote teams, built and shared in public from the first idea through launch.
Density UI
An agentic design toolkit for building data-dense user interfaces
Curious about working together?
Let's talk about your company, and I'll share some free resources to improve your design. 100% free for founders.