Welcome 👋

My name’s Shavin Peiries. I’m a writer, designer and engineer.

After years of being a frontend engineer, I transitioned to becoming a designer because of one big reason:

You can't just make things pretty or hack screens together. You must understand how customers are currently trying to make progress to design a better way for them.

Learning this enabled me to help teams and founders create digital experiences they know people will want instead of guessing or having to create multiple failures to achieve one un-replicable win.

Writing

Drawing on my learning journey, I'm now using what I know to help other product managers, designers and founders to do the same.

You can also browse my articles here →

Designing

The primary industries I've worked with or designed for in the past have been health, education and platform marketplaces.

I specialize in B2B SaaS products. Write to me if you're trying to achieve product growth in this space.

Training, Education and Influences

I hold a Bachelor of Engineering in Software Engineering from Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom.

I've practiced and taken the Design Sprint Masterclass from the author of Google's Sprint Methodology, Jake Knapp and the Digital Product Design agency AJ&Smart.

Learning the Sprint methodology helped me build "Very Bad Wizards," a product design agency focused on providing the Sprint methodology as a service to corporates who needed innovation guidance. We were in business for three years.

I'm a big advocate of Clayton Christensen's jobs-to-be-done theory. I use it to guide my choices and help predict what customers will adopt to make progress.

Core Influences

  • Ryan Singer (Product Strategist and author of the Shape Up Methodology) for exposing his knowledge of software design and development at all levels of the process. Shape up in a nutshell.
  • Jason Fried (CEO of Basecamp) for showing how delightful companies can exist without hustling so much. Read Getting Real.
  • Bob Moesta (Co-creator of the jobs-to-be-done methodology and author of the book Demand Side Sales) for grounding innovation into practical knowledge that anyone can apply. Watch this video on jobs to be done as a primer.
  • Jake Knapp (author of the Sprint Methodology) and Jonathan Courtney (Founder of AJ&Smart) for their work in developing the Design Sprint methodology.
  • Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman (Co-creators of Sales Safari Methodology) for their insights on using "internet watering holes" (places where customers hang out online) to design and launch products people actually need (without guessing if they'll need it). Check out their articles.
  • Diego De Jodar (Founder of Please Don't Push). Diego's "Pull By Design Framework" teaches startups how to shift from pushing for customer acquisition and retention to creating a natural pull. It helps you intentionally design experiences where customers gladly integrate your product into their lives. Start here.

Here is a little more about me

I currently live in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I've been working remotely since 2019.

Let's keep in touch!

If you have any questions about the content, want to make suggestions for improvement, or want to say hi, the best way is to connect on Twitter or LinkedIn.