# Hristo Butsev
> Head of Design at neoshare AG · AI Products Based in New York City.
---
## About
## Intro
I'm Hristo, a product designer working across SaaS, fintech, and internal tooling. I help teams turn fuzzy product ideas into shipped interfaces — usually starting from research, ending with a design system that survives the next quarter.
I care most about the seams: the moments where a workflow either clicks for a user or quietly falls apart. Most of my best work has been about making those seams disappear.
## How I work
I default to working close to engineering, in the same tools, with the same rituals. I prototype in Figma and Framer, but I'll spec it in code if that's the faster way to make a decision. The point of design isn't a deliverable — it's a thing that ships.
I keep a short list of opinions:
- Specifics beat generalities. A real workflow with real data beats a moodboard.
- The first version doesn't need to be exciting. It needs to be honest.
- Patterns earn their keep. New components have to justify themselves against existing ones.
- Animation is a writing tool: it tells the user what just happened.
## Selected experience
- **Head of Design · neoshare AG (AI Products)** — current
- **Invest.com**
- **Carhub**
- **ThinkPortal**
- **gInfinity**
- **TheSesame**
## Education
- **Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"** — 2017–2019
## Languages
English (full professional), Bulgarian (native), Chinese (elementary)
## Recognition
- National Graphic Design Awards — First Place (Apr 2011)
- "Bulgarian Rose" — Second Place (May 2011)
- National Youth Competition for ecology and clean energy — First Place (Apr 2012)
- "Sofronii Vrachanski" Education and Science competition — First Place (Nov 2012)
- Saatchi Circle — Second Place (Sep 2016)
- PaySafe Mobile Hackathon — Third Place (Oct 2020)
- Oxford Hackathon (Nov 2020)
- Open Banking Hackathon (2021)
## Tools
Figma, Framer, Linear, Notion, Cursor. A bit of TypeScript when it matters.
## Get in touch
- Email — [hristo@productpal.io](mailto:hristo@productpal.io)
- LinkedIn — [linkedin.com/in/hristobutsev](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hristobutsev/)
---
## Projects
### CarHub — car ownership lifecycle · 2024 · CarHub · Product Designer
An end-to-end product for car owners covering the full ownership lifecycle — buying, owning, and selling.
**Problem:** Car ownership is scattered across a dozen disconnected tools — one for buying, another for service history, another for insurance, another for the eventual sale. Owners lose context (and money) every time they switch.
**Solution:** One product that stitches the ownership lifecycle together. Purchase decisions carry forward into maintenance records; maintenance records feed the resale flow so owners can prove condition when it matters.
**Outcome:** A single place to trace a car's whole story from purchase to sale — turning the story itself into an asset at resale.
**Tags:** Automotive, Lifecycle, Consumer
[Visit → http://alj-enterprises.com/carhub/](http://alj-enterprises.com/carhub/)
---
### neoshare — syndicated loans platform · 2023 · neoshare AG · Head of Design
A syndicated-loans platform connecting real-estate businesses and banks, scaled from bank-to-bank into four tailored deal types with a custom chat and invitation system.
**Problem:** The original scope was narrow — bank-to-bank cooperation on syndicated loans — but real-estate and banking relationships needed more nuance: different communication patterns per deal type, no shared context across parties, and slow funding cycles for mid-to-large scale projects.
**Solution:** Expanded the product into four business cases fitted to distinct real-estate ↔ bank relationships. Built a custom chat system that keeps negotiation-relevant material one click away, and a from-scratch invitation flow so onboarded users can pull in banks and businesses per project.
**Outcome:** Broader platform coverage, faster funding cycles, and more flexibility for risk-takers to source capital from multiple angles.
**Tags:** B2B, Real Estate, Banking
[Visit → https://neoshare.de](https://neoshare.de)
---
### Sesame — fractional art investment · 2023 · Sesame · Product Designer
A fractional art-investment product that drops the entry barrier to $1 and curates museum-grade pieces with proven authenticity.
**Problem:** Alternative investment products — art in particular — sit behind five- and six-figure minimums, keeping ordinary investors out of an asset class with strong long-term performance.
**Solution:** Rebuilt the entry point around $1 fractional ownership, backed by curated museum-grade works with verified authenticity and provenance. The product makes the story of each piece — not just its market performance — part of the decision.
**Outcome:** Art ownership opens up to a much wider public without diluting the quality or authenticity of the underlying pieces.
**Tags:** Fintech, Alternative Investment, Art
---
### Garten — wellness product discovery · 2023 · Garten · Product Designer (Research + Design)
Discovery-phase research and design for a new employee-wellness product — decoding the 'why' behind wellness so features could speak to it.
**Problem:** A new wellness product with a strong hypothesis but no evidence — why would company employees actually open it, and what would keep them coming back?
**Solution:** Ran a discovery phase built on online interviews (via userfeedback.com), documented and quantified analysis, and a customer journey that started before the app was opened — mapping the trigger, not just the interaction. Translated the findings into engaging features and high-fidelity prototypes for validation.
**Outcome:** A validated feature set tied to concrete user motivations, and a discovery playbook the company could reuse for the next release.
**Tags:** Research, Wellness, Discovery
[Visit → https://garten.co/](https://garten.co/)
---
### DROP — points, crypto & referrals · 2022 · DROP · Product Designer
New business model built around crypto-backed loyalty points and a peer-to-peer invitation loop.
**Problem:** Users were earning DROP points but redemption was flat — the reward loop wasn't closing. Invitation growth had also plateaued around a small peer-to-peer base.
**Solution:** Reframed the business model around cryptocurrency redemption to give points real, portable value, and rebuilt the invitation surface so users could grow the network peer-to-peer without hitting the previous ceiling.
**Outcome:** Higher redemption of earned points and a broader p2p invitation base than the closed model supported.
**Tags:** Crypto, Loyalty, Growth
[Visit → https://www.earnwithdrop.com/](https://www.earnwithdrop.com/)
---
### Invest.com — trading platform (web + mobile) · 2020 · Invest.com · Senior Product Designer
A cross-platform trading experience measured in clicks-per-action, with a consistent visual and interaction language across web and mobile.
**Problem:** The retail investment platform market is crowded, and users decide within minutes whether they'll come back. The existing platform was capable but heavy — routine actions took too many clicks, and web and mobile felt like different products.
**Solution:** Built the whole UX strategy around ease of use — measured by clicks-per-action and by the visibility of features users touch daily or hourly. Kept web and mobile visually and interactively consistent so switching devices didn't feel like starting over. Tight collaboration with the tech team kept design decisions grounded in what could actually ship.
**Outcome:** A platform that stayed engaging across the two surfaces users actually live on, with fewer clicks blocking the most-used flows.
**Tags:** Fintech, Trading, Cross-platform
---
### Invest.com — brokerage CRM · 2019 · Invest.com · Senior Product Designer
A brokerage CRM built for risk teams — powerful enough for the operational reality, simple enough for a new junior hire to run day one.
**Problem:** Brokerage firms live and die on client communication and activity tracking during and after onboarding. The existing tooling was powerful but built for veterans — every new hire in the risk department needed weeks to become useful.
**Solution:** Working closely with an experienced risk-management team, we mapped the customer journey and the actual day-to-day of the risk desk, then built a platform around those core operational tasks. Cross-role features were validated through visual artefacts tested inside the company.
**Outcome:** A CRM the operational team could execute fast on, and one that stayed learnable for junior joiners — reducing ramp time on the risk desk.
**Tags:** Fintech, CRM, Brokerage
---
### ThinkMarkets trading platform · 2018 · ThinkMarkets · Senior Product Designer
Redesigned a multi-asset trading platform serving millions of users across web and mobile.
**Problem:** A 10-year-old platform had become a thicket of overlapping screens. Power users tolerated it; new users churned in week one.
**Solution:** Built a modular workspace layer that lets traders compose their own screen and saves layouts per account.
**Outcome:** New-user retention at day-30 +34%. Time-to-place-first-trade −5min. Won internal award for platform overhaul.
**Tags:** Fintech, Trading, Enterprise
[Visit → https://thinkmarkets.com](https://thinkmarkets.com)
---
### Prospherious · 2024 · Prospherious · Product Designer
Case study coming soon.
[Visit → https://prospherious.com/](https://prospherious.com/)
---
### IoTx Platform · 2024 · IoTx · Product Designer
Case study coming soon.
[Visit → https://infosys.bg/](https://infosys.bg/)
---
## Contact
- Email: hristo@productpal.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hristobutsev/