Circoo

At Circoo, an early-stage social startup focused on reducing cyberbullying, I designed core product experiences including messaging flows, content posting, and behavioral safety features that helped the platform reach 280 early adopters after launching publicly in the App Store. I collaborated closely with the founding team to research online harassment by leveraging social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn to recruit participants and understand real user experiences. My work included designing interaction patterns such as toxicity filtering and safer communication flows intended to encourage healthier online conversations. Although the startup ultimately struggled to differentiate itself from rapidly evolving social media platforms and was not accepted into Y Combinator, the experience sharpened my ability to evaluate product-market fit, design for human behavior in social systems, and make product decisions in highly uncertain startup environments.

Product Designer responsible for product strategy, demand validation, and designing safety-driven interaction patterns.

Reframed cyberbullying as a product design problem rather than a moderation problem
Led demand validation through messaging, landing pages, and early user acquisition
Designed real-time toxicity feedback using Perspective API integration
Designed the Positivity Toggle to give users control over social tone
Built a lightweight component system to support rapid prototyping and iteration

Audited early product assumptions and conducted lean validation through messaging tests, landing pages, and direct outreach to assess real user demand and comprehension

Validated demand with 280 early adopters prior to full product buildClarified product positioning through iterative messaging refinementDeveloped an investor-ready prototype grounded in real user behaviorIdentified limitations of competing with platform-level network effects

Safety is not a feature — it is a behavioral system that must integrate into core interactions to scale effectively.