Nazar Kulikov

January 2026 – Present

• Defined JOLT’s product direction through deep market and competitor analysis, researching the strongest UX patterns and UI practices across global activity-booking platforms. Turned these insights into a clear product structure, feature priorities, and a scalable user experience.
• Designed the complete product ecosystem from the ground up: iOS and Android apps that help users discover and book activities, and a web platform for studios, gyms, and sports venues to manage their services, schedules, availability, and bookings.
• Expanded beyond design into hands-on product development, using AI-assisted workflows to implement front-end and back-end features with Supabase, Vercel, and Resend, including database schemas, authentication, storage, CRUD operations, API integrations, transactional email, and production deployment.
• Supported JOLT’s go-to-market and fundraising efforts by creating marketing campaigns, investor presentations, product demos, and other strategic materials that clearly communicated the product’s value, business model, and growth potential.

August 2024 – January 2026

• Set product and design direction and led four initiatives end to end for a 5K+ holder community: Pizza Pets, Ninjalerts V2, Pizza Ninjas Mint #2 with live customization, and a full brand-system overhaul.
• Owned the complete product development cycle as the sole design lead, moving from ambiguous concepts and UX architecture to interaction patterns, high-fidelity prototypes, production handoff, launch, and iteration.
• Designed Pizza Pets from zero to launch, creating novel flows, states, and interaction patterns for on-chain evolutionary and collectible mechanics with no direct category precedent.
• Built an AI-assisted creative and design-to-code workflow across Midjourney, Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and Codex, increasing output across product, brand, marketing, UX writing, and implementation support without additional headcount.

January 2024 – January 2026

• Initiated and led a full redesign of the lending protocol, simplifying complex borrowing and liquidity flows while delivering a complete UI overhaul across core product surfaces.
• Partnered closely with founders and engineering to shape product direction, introduce new features, resolve edge cases, and expand the platform beyond its initial MVP scope.
• Delivered a launch-ready experience before the protocol reached $75M+ TVL and secured $3.5M in seed funding from investors including Binance Labs, Draper Associates, and Flow Traders.

Zest Protocol Ecosystem

January 2024 – January 2026

• Led a complete redesign of the Stacking DAO app, rethinking the core UX and creating an entirely new UI that made the product clearer, more intuitive, and ready to scale.
• Defined the brand’s marketing language and visual communication across every major touchpoint, including a new landing page, social media presence, campaign assets, and supporting product materials.
• Delivered the redesigned product and brand experience ahead of Stacking DAO’s $4M+ seed round, helping position the company with a more polished, credible, and consistent presence for users and investors.

February 2022 – January 2024

• Led Carbon DeFi from concept to launch: a category-defining automated on-chain trading strategy builder with no direct UX precedent, reaching $180M+ in trading volume.
• Owned end-to-end UX across major product flows, translating complex protocol mechanics into intuitive experiences for both retail and advanced traders through systems thinking, interaction design, and high-fidelity prototyping.
• Partnered across a distributed team of 20-30 in engineering, protocol research, product, and marketing; led design reviews, communicated rationale, managed async handoffs, and aligned stakeholders across time zones.
• Established reusable design patterns while consolidating Bancor's legacy protocol flows into a unified interface, then evolved the system for Carbon DeFi as a standalone product.
• Created Figma and Framer prototypes for validation, community feedback, investor demos, and engineering delivery; launch coverage included CoinDesk and The Block.

January 2020 – December 2021

• Delivered end-to-end product design for VC-backed startups, including companies backed by Google Ventures, Village Global, Redpoint Ventures, and Snowflake; covered discovery, user research, competitive analysis, flows, wireframes, prototypes, and production-ready UI.
• Led the full redesign of Automate.io as sole product designer; the company was subsequently acquired by Notion.
• Designed responsive web and mobile experiences for global consumer brands including Procter & Gamble and SodaStream while balancing multiple fast-moving engagements.
• Presented work and design rationale directly to client leadership, facilitated critiques and design reviews, and translated feedback into clear product decisions and implementation-ready specifications.

September 2017 – December 2019

• Owned research, information architecture, wireframing, prototyping, usability-focused iteration, and final UI handoff across SaaS, healthcare, and startup products for clients in the US and Europe.
• Maintained a 100% Job Success Score and 5.0-star rating on Upwork across all engagements through clear communication, reliable ownership, and consistently high craft quality.

January 2016 – August 2017

• Worked within a 20-person multidisciplinary team across brand, digital, and product engagements; owned user and market analysis, concept development, interface design, and client presentations across concurrent projects.

January 2015 – January 2016

• Built an early freelance practice on Upwork and with local companies, establishing client relationships and developing foundational visual, interaction, and product design skills.