From 2020 to 2024
Paris, France
Iteration X Co-founding, architecting and designing a contextual feedback ecosystem for tech, clients and product teams, from 0 to exit
Why this project matters
Building Iteration X from scratch was a major lesson in speed and focus. I designed the product from zero to 200+ clients, €4.7M raised, a $22M valuation, and a successful exit. Designing a tool with no existing model to copy taught me to make sharp product choices, balance quality with tight deadlines, and prioritize what truly drives survival and growth.
Problem
Solving an industry-wide challenge: how fragmented communication between teams drains time, drops critical data, and impacts revenue
Running an agency, we hit this wall daily. Client feedback was scattered everywhere across emails, Slack, screenshots, and PDFs. Even with tools like Asana, we still wasted hours taking manual screenshots and typing long notes, proving Asana’s own stat that switching between 10+ apps loses 27% of feedback. Outside studies back this up: workers lose nearly 8 hours a week just searching for context, costing companies over $12,000 per employee every year (Grammarly). So, we decided to tackle this frustration head-on and build our own solution.
Solution
Capture, manage, monitor:
Aligning internal teams, external collaborators, and toolstacks in one inclusive loop
The system replaces fragmented feedback loops by embedding multi-platform synchronization and granular role logic directly into a lightweight, unified browser experience.
Brand Identity
Designing an inclusive identity to humanize technical collaboration
Developer tools are traditionally cold, gray, and utility-first. Because Iteration X bridges developers with non-technical stakeholders like designers, PMs, and clients, the visual system needed to break away from rigid developer aesthetics while maintaining enterprise-grade credibility.
I built the identity around the modern SaaS playbook: a highly structured logomark balanced by an approachable, expressive visual system.
To give us a strong foundation across both product UI and brand communication, I introduced a vibrant color palette and a playful, humanized tone. This contrast grounds the product in technical rigor while giving marketing touchpoints an inviting, inclusive identity that appeals to every stakeholder.
The “X” logomark is engineered on a strict geometric grid, fusing three core collaboration primitives: a cursor, a feedback comment bubble, and an intersection point.
Phase 1: The extension
How a simple browser extension secured $5M by making feedback effortless
Why write a bug report when you can just point and comment?
Rather than forcing users to manually detail bugs, our extension captures the entire environment as they work. It automatically logs DOM metadata, viewport specs, OS data, and console output directly on the live product. To keep collaboration seamless, I designed a web-based viewing flow that allows guests to review, comment, and resolve issues instantly without ever installing the tool.
The design challenge
Since no benchmarks existed in 2021, we went through 5 to 6 major design iterations. Designing a modular overlay meant handling web environments we had zero control over: avoiding content collision across unpredictable viewports, keeping crucial underlying UI elements visible, and ensuring the interaction remained faster than logging a task in Asana or Jira.
Our biggest early mistake: how an extension-first architecture blocked adoption and stalled growth.
We crammed our entire product into the browser overlay: live DOM node mapping, issue tracking, project spaces, notifications, and granular roles. Requiring a plugin install just to review a single issue created a massive wall for external clients, guest reviewers, and mobile users. Static email workarounds couldn’t scale, crippling our viral sharing loop and forcing an architectural shift toward a web-accessible ecosystem.
The First Pivot: Turning the extension into a dedicated capture tool while moving project management to the dashboard
To move beyond one-off redesigns and become a daily workflow, we built with my cofounders and the engineers a web platform for project management while focusing the extension purely on capturing live feedback:
- What to keep: Sharing feedback in a couple of clicks, without forcing plugin installs for clients.
- What to fix: A workflow that forced users to either install the extension (which is painful for some profiles and on mobile users) or review issues on isolated public pages, making it impossible to scale for larger teams and complex projects.
- The main goal: Scaling web project management without sacrificing the fast, simple live captures and context that made Iteration X unique in the first place.
- What we expanded on the extension: Upgraded the extension from simple screenshots into a dedicated capture suite, adding full-screen video recording, window/tab capture, and precision area selection.
Step 2: The dashboard
Evolving from a constrained overlay to a high-density workspace for an optimized feedback loop
The Challenge was the cost of lost context: Our users were using us because static task boards detach issues from reality. Teams lose momentum when forced to leave a live site to report a bug, while reviewers waste valuable time jumping between tools just to figure out where an issue actually happened.
The Solution is a zero-friction, bi-directional loop: Partnering closely with engineering, I designed a flow that preserves context in both directions. Adding an issue on a live page instantly provides a direct option to open its detailed view in the dashboard. Conversely, triggering the live inspection shortcut within any dashboard issue brings you straight back to its exact visual location on the site. This seamless back-and-forth keeps developers, PMs, and clients aligned in a single, frictionless experience.
We moved project management to a dedicated web dashboard while keeping the extension focused purely on capturing bugs. To make sharing and viewing easy for everyone, we created three view modes:
- Split view: Quickly scroll through issues on the left and see details on the right.
- Full view: Open a complete ticket to inspect video recordings and technical notes.
- Public page: A simple Notion-style link for the stackholders who don’t have an account, because sharing is a key feature for our clients, even to the ones who are not a part of their team’s workspace.
But at the stage, I also had to manage high-density issue lists with many settings and layers.
As client’s teams size and issue volume grew, we introduced a structured triage system with custom tagging. Fitting status, priority, ID, assignee, tags, creation date, sync status (Jira/Linear), and capture source (extension vs. web) into a single row required a tight UI balance.
Beyond row mechanics, we had to solve list-level complexity:
- Advanced filtering: Sorting by project, priority, deadline, and tags without overwhelming the UI.
- Real-time update states: Visually distinguishing new comments, status changes, or freshly added issues from active or hovered states.
- Metadata hierarchy: Ensuring core identifiers remain readable at a glance despite high data density.
Modular issue panel: Building a scalable and modular layout template that adapts to any company’s issue type, media and content
A visual bug report isn’t structured like a feature request. Rather than building rigid templates for every edge case, we created a modular layout system that dynamically shifts data density based on attached assets, ensuring critical information remains readable at a glance. The challenge was building a single preview container capable of handling massive differences in content density without cluttering the UI:
- Multiple capture sources: Seamlessly displaying live web overlay captures alongside rich-text entries created in the dashboard.
- Flexible payload: Adapting the visual hierarchy when an issue includes heavy video recordings, multiple image attachments, or complex tag sets.
- Audit trail & performance: Keeping deep comment threads and resolution history scannable to help teams track velocity and output over time.
Turning our biggest UX challenge into our business model: How designing access permissions across the workspaces directly influenced our pricing plans
Product teams operate in complex ecosystems with internal members, freelancers, and external clients. Collecting feedback requires opening up access without compromising sensitive project data. I had to prioritize and consider:
- Stakeholder-specific workspaces: Workspaces were segmented to isolate external client feedback from internal team discussions and maintain clean data boundaries.
- Management and role controls: Critical admin actions like inviting, removing, or modifying member access were restricted to authorized roles to prevent accidental scope creep.
- Pricing plan: We aligned our business strategy with security needs, using granular permissions and custom workspace boundaries as key features for higher subscription tiers.
Turning Notifications into an Engagement Engine: The Shift to a Modular Home Feed
The challenge: Tracking project progress across teams is hard when updates are hidden inside detailed technical tickets. We noticed that notifications were actually the main way PMs, clients, and team members stayed up to date. People didn’t want to dig through complex boards; they just needed a quick, reliable summary of what changed.
The Solution: I turned notifications into a standalone, modular Home inbox that simplifies project tracking for every user.
- Centralized hub for non-technical users: A modular view that gives immediate visibility without complex project boards, opening the product to non-technical teams and expanding market reach.
- Unified, permission-based feed: Aggregates all updates, comments, and feedback into a single stream, dynamically modularized based on user rights and roles (PM, team member, or client).
- Streamlined alignment: Gives direct access to live progress, eliminating manual reporting and unnecessary status meetings.
Solving product complexity: designing search as a universal shortcut for both new joiners and power users
Challenge: As Iteration X evolved into a powerful, feature-rich platform, the product naturally gained depth. With advanced capabilities nested across workflows, guiding users through every layer became time-consuming: live demo calls were stretching out, and traditional onboarding couldn’t do justice to the platform’s full scope.
Solution: Instead of adding passive tutorials or heavy navigation layers, I proposed turning search into a universal shortcut by embedding documentation, shortcuts, and core assets directly inside it.
- Decoupling learning from navigation: Instead of forcing users through passive tutorials, I made search an active interface where users learn the product on demand while working.
- Transforming search into an operational lever: By embedding docs, tags, and quick actions directly into the query window, I turned a basic lookup tool into a self-service system, directly cutting down support overhead.
Step 3: The mobile app
Answering user demand without slowing down the roadmap of our core product
The challenge: Our desktop layout uses deep nested menus and side-by-side views. Packing all that data onto a phone screen without creating a slow, multi-tap experience was tough.
The UX Pivot: Instead of forcing users to click through folder after folder, I flipped the architecture. I grouped everything by type. All the issues, updates, and threads now live in clean, aggregated feeds right at the top.
The Result: A snappy app built for two main jobs, which are checking updates in seconds and drafting a new issue on the go. Everything else stays on desktop where it belongs.
Adapting the issue preview on mobile
Information hierarchy at a glance: I replaced desktop split views with a single-task bottom sheet. An issue contains metadata, visuals, tags, and conversation threads. To avoid a endless scrolling page, I prioritized top-level metadata into horizontal chip carousels right below the title, keeping status, assignee, and dates accessible at a glance.
I eliminated desktop hover dependencies: Key tools like file attachments and mentions are integrated directly into the sticky input bar, surfacing only when the user starts typing.
