JORDAN KANAREK
I help big orgs move fast and help small orgs think big.
I am a UX designer focused on helping startups and scale-ups bring innovative products to market. I tap into my (deep) product design and (broad) technical background to help solve complex business problems. Much of my work surrounds personalization and data-intensive products, often touching healthcare, finance, media, and search.
I've been independently working and sleeves-up startup advising + investing with founders for the past 15 years.
Previously, I was a Principal Designer at frog and a product strategist focused on new video services at Verizon Labs. I finished my Master's in Human Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon back in 2004, and have 20 years of experience under my belt.
I help teams go from zero to one by collaborating deeply with founders and executives, leveraging the knowledge of domain experts and end-users.
While I've worked on a number of projects with some of the largest companies in the world (Chase, AT&T, Samsung, etc.), I'm most proud to have been involved super-early and longitudinally at small but mighty companies like DuckDuckGo, Evidation and Springshot. I'm currently working with Play Money as an advisor and am really excited to help them shake up angel investing. Want to talk? Find me on LinkedIn.
Some recent projects (happy to chat about these)
2025
Working with a enterprise AI company on a novel financial reporting application
Iterating on an agentic search concept
Provided UX and product support to an AI talent screening company as they prepared for launch.
2024
Took time off to spend time with my baby + work on some other homegrown projects.
Helped startup founders orchestrate a pivot after an it became clear that competing with a large incumbent wasn't going to be possible.
Worked with a HR-tech startup to strategize and design a new top-of-the-funnel talent screening application focused on deep personalization and powered by ML.
2023
Worked with a stealth startup on exploring consumer-friendly content personalization applications that promise to make social media a calmer place.
Helped a founding team design a new platform focused on widening access to angel investing.
2022
Iterative concept development and research for a neobank, focused on validating consumer interest in emerging, non-traditional lending opportunities.
Helped a digital forensics software company explore how new product and sales strategies would impact the design of their core product.
Worked on product strategy with a company looking at algorithmic choice and content filtering.
2021
Worked with doctors and public health experts to explore and develop a new digital health intervention focused on heart health.
Worked with a digital-first bank on developing and validating market interest in new "social money" concepts.
Worked with a VR fitness startup to rethink their product strategy to optimize healthy behaviors and subscription revenue.
2020
Worked with executives to define a forward-looking strategy for a widely used digital health app (4 million-plus active users). Then I worked with the executives to execute conceptual redesign of this application for use by internal product teams.
Worked on strategy and design of 3 widely-deployed mobile health interventions, including one focused on COVID-19 symptom checking.
2019
Worked with startup founders to understand how their product strategy could be realized in the design of ultrasonic medical imaging software with ground-breaking AI tumor detection features. Then I worked with this team to execute a (now FDA approved) product design.
Focused extensively on new product development and strategy @DuckDuckGo.
2018
Worked with pharmaceutical company to explore potential digital interventions for people with chronic migraines, specifically to help determine the root causes of their headaches.
Worked on strategy for two (now) major streaming services.
Worked on the product design of a niche human-in-the-loop (ML training) product for the regulatory oversight industry.
2017
Concept development around community solar energy trading for a venture studio.
Worked on productizing battery of early-onset dementia tests in concert with experts in the field.
2016
Worked on the product design of a computer-aided manufacturing application that helps mechanical engineers design and price precision parts.
Worked on product strategy for, and helped redesign, a popular cloud-based visual collaboration application.
2015
Helped a large enterprise-oriented company explore potential implications of pursuing a new, consumer-oriented product strategy.
Worked on product strategy for, and redesigned, a very large application used to manage large IoT deployments.
© 2025