InI'm a founding member of 3 startups, one of which,
ThoughtSpot, is said to IPO soon.
I build AI-native products end-to-end, from interaction design to production code, shipping across frontend and backend.
Over the past few years, I’ve shifted from designing interfaces to building systems directly, using AI in the development loop to move from idea to shipped product much faster.
My background spans both design and development, which lets me operate across the full stack and stay close to the system as it is built.
My focus is on agentic workflows, conversational interfaces, and human-in-the-loop systems where design does not sit on top of the product, it defines how the system behaves.
I am currently a founding designer at Typeface, where I have helped build the platform and brand from scratch, including agent-based systems, multimodal workspaces, and the brand intelligence layer that grounds AI output in real-world context.
I also established the design foundation across product design, visual design, and design engineering, and scaled the team from 0 to 7, while continuing to ship hands-on.
Before that, I was a founding designer at ThoughtSpot and worked across multiple startups that were later acquired (NetSpring & Fennel AI). I also spent time at Facebook, where I worked on Facebook Pay, one of the first cross-platform initiatives across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, launched at global scale.
I have spent most of my career building products from 0 to 1, shaping the systems behind them.
I am also a named inventor on 6 U.S. patents in AI and ML systems, covering areas like multimodal generation, personalization, and machine learning interfaces.
I care about making AI systems usable and predictable, turning complex model behavior into clear, controllable interfaces where humans stay in charge.
I’m always open to meeting new people and exchanging ideas. If you have questions or want to connect, feel free to reach out.
InIn 2022 I couldn't pass the opportunity to work with
Fennel AI as its Founding Head of Design. The company is in seed, backed by the co-founders of 3 unicorns: Confluent, Quora and ThoughtSpot. A lot of what I worked on there is not public just yet.
Fennel AI was my 3rd run at the zero to one after ThoughtSpot and NetSpring.
I'm now working on a 4th startup as a founding member.
It is currently in stealth, feel free to follow me on
Twitter for future updates on our progress.
Do you need some help with your startup? Don't be shy, reach out.
InHey there, I'm a self-taught designer with a background in software development.
I'm originally from Switzerland and was based in Silicon Valley for about 10 years.
I'm currently residing in the beautiful Seattle, WA.
As for my career journey, I started as a freelance designer/developer back in Switzerland in 2012 after getting my BA in Business Information Technology.
About a year into it I had helped bootstrap the (now 2x Apple Design awarded) indie development studio
Snowman as its first developer by building from scratch their first iOS app, Checkmark. The app got featured in WIRED, the App Store and various online publications. I subsequently helped them build their 2nd app Circles also heavily featured online.
At the time I was also working on design projects and
posting my work online. It got the attention of Ajeet Singh, co-founder and CEO of ThoughtSpot, who was looking for their founding designer. This led me to move to the US in 2013 to join them and build the company from scratch.
To date ThoughtSpot has raised a total of $663.7M with $4.2B valuation and counts today 4 Fortune 5 customers. It has been said to
potentially IPO sometime soon.
In 2016, after my time at ThoughtSpot I wanted to solidify my early-stage experience by working with various early-stage startups.
This led me to contribute at seed stage to the likes of Tekion, Mux, SuperHuman and Proxy — of which two are today unicorns. I also got to help Credit Karma successfully launch their Tax product which subsequently led them to get acquired in 2020 by Intuit, the owner of TurboTax, the industry leader.
Another goal of mine at the time was to complement my skill set by also working at a bigger scale.
This led me to work with various Fortune 500's on 0 to 1 projects. The most high-profile one was the global launch of Facebook's payment service to compete with Apple Pay and such. But I also got to help Samsung figure out the design foundation of a consumer product and Apple to wrap up a B2B project.
In early 2020, while at Facebook I was missing the joys and tribulations of building a company from scratch.
That's when Vijay Ganesan, ThoughtSpot co-founder, reached out to me. He was aiming to build another unicorn and looking for their founding designer.
Without hesitation I left Facebook and joined NetSpring. We got to work building the product from scratch for about 2 years. We
launched the company while announcing our series A with a total raised of $17.7M.
Over these first 10 years of career learnings and experiments I started to realized that my sweet spot — what I enjoy the most creatively an
d where I believe I bring the most value — is to partner with founders very early on helping them build their company from scratch.
To quote NetSpring's co-founder: "The number of people of Jonathan's caliber and capability in the industry could be counted on finger tips. That's primarily because his skill set and experience goes wide and deep across design, product, marketing, and engineering."
As for today, I most recently joined another early-stage startup
Fennel AI to build their design function from scratch. This is my 3rd run at building a company from zero after ThoughtSpot and NetSpring. I'm pretty excited as we have gathered a very strong founding team of Facebook/Google alumni and are backed by the co-founders of 3 unicorns: Confluent, Quora and ThoughtSpot.
Expect some updates soon!
In the meantime if you're looking for a design partner/advisor to help you out with your design needs, I have some capacity during my personal time, so please feel free to reach out.