Nikolay Lechev

Designer. And developer. And builder.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

@UltraLinx If it chips like the current one, the black’s gonna be 😑

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Spent 2 hours building a custom 404 page nobody will ever see.

So I'm posting it here: https://t.co/jEjKpcsl7G

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

13 years working as a designer. I've never had a portfolio online.

That changes today. It's alive.

https://t.co/d6MeWgTXbg

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Woke up before my alarm this morning. Phone asked:

"It looks like you're awake. Would you like to turn off your alarm?"

Two buttons. Leave On / Turn Off. No ambiguous "Cancel".

That's what product design is. Read the intention. Clear up the ambiguity.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Pushing pixels in Figma by hand today. There's a faster way. I'm not taking it.

I don't know if it's nostalgia or just joy. Maybe that's fine.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

I told you I'd start building. Instead I'm bribing e-commerce store owners with $25 vouchers for 30-min calls about their product photography workflow.

10 interviews before I write a single line of code. If 7 say the problem is real, then I build.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

In 15 years my sons will ask me what I built in the beginning of the AI age. I don't want to have a blank answer.

So I'm giving myself 6 months to build as many things as I can. Starting today.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

I've been cold emailing, forcing LinkedIn posts, and over-relying on AI to write them. Got sick of it.

So I stopped. Going back to building things for fun. 6 months, as many SaaS products as I can. If nothing sticks, I'll get a job.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

1 button. That's what it took to double team invites at Harvest.

We added "Invite your team" to the main nav. The option already existed under Team. I didn't think it was hard to find. Invites went up 100%.

Stop assuming your users see what you see.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

@kashif__khan sorry to hear that man! I'm rooting for you

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

My son turned one yesterday.

A year ago I had 16 weeks of parental leave, feeling like the luckiest person alive. Then I got laid off in the last two weeks.

One year later I'm building my own thing. Not even close to that feeling yet. But at least I own my stress now.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Feynman said the pleasure is in finding out how things work. Vibecoding is the opposite bet: that you don't need to find out at all.

The slop doesn't come from using AI. It comes from using it to skip understanding entirely.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Signed up for @intercom They asked 6 questions about my goals, team size, and channels. Said "customizing your setup." Then dropped me into a generic support checklist that ignored every answer.

If you're going to ask, use the answers. Otherwise you're just adding steps.

First 5 Minutes ep. 3

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

@tommoor @linear Thanks! And the fact that you're saying 'great ideas' instead of 'we already thought of that' tells me everything I need to know about Linear's design culture honestly

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Went through @linear 's onboarding.

The welcome wizard asks you to pick a color theme. Meanwhile, the question that actually matters - "what stage is your company" - is buried in a docs page inside the first issue.

They have genuinely great setup guides. They just put them where nobody will find them.

🏃‍♂️🕐 First 5 Minutes ep.2

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

AI;DR. The new TL;DR. If your post reads like a ChatGPT default output, people scroll past before finishing the first line. They've developed antibodies.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Signed up for @NotionHQ as a brand new user. Their landing page promises a 24/7 army of AI agents — "the night shift." 🤖

Got asked to install the desktop app three times before I did a single thing in the product. The onboarding is split across two surfaces that don't talk to each other.

And the night shift? Apparently called in sick. One chat agent showed up.

Starting a new series called First 5 Minutes where I teardown onboarding for popular SaaS tools. Notion is ep. 1. Full video below 👇

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

Had a six-figure US salary from Eastern Europe. Basically an economic glitch in the matrix. Company got acquired, glitch got patched.

Now building my own thing because apparently the logical response to losing a cushy salary is making no salary for a while.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

There's a new kind of imposter syndrome. You do good work with AI, and you can't tell if the work is yours or the AI's.

In the good old days, imposter syndrome was "do I deserve to be here." You'd do good work and still feel like a fraud. This new version is different. It's "did I actually make this, or did I just prompt it into existence."

I don't think that feeling goes away.

[Nikolay Lechev @iamlechev]

https://t.co/1ONQjx9QON