Questions founders ask

Superflow is the independent product design practice of Bart Van Hecke, a fractional product design lead for SaaS startups and scaleups building with AI. With more than 20 years in SaaS product experience and design systems, I work as the judgment layer on top of AI-generated design and code, for startups and scaleups.

I'm based in Ghent, Belgium, and work hybrid with SaaS teams across Flanders. I like to spend full days on-site, especially early in a project. Ongoing collaboration works remotely, and I've worked with clients abroad that way.

Superflow is me, working independently. I do every engagement myself. When a project needs other expertise, such as branding or marketing, I bring in trusted specialists from my network and stay accountable for the result.

I work in English and Dutch, and also in French and Spanish.

In one hour, I go through one flow, screen or workflow question from your product. I give concrete UX and workflow advice, and you get three written takeaways afterwards. You also get an honest view of whether I'm the right fit. If I'm not, I'll tell you. If there's a next step, I propose a scope and budget.

If there's a fit, I propose a scope and estimate a budget for it. That can be a focused UX review of your core flows or a full Design-to-Dev Setup. You decide whether to go ahead.

Both. Most product problems don’t come from bad screens. They come from how design, development and AI-generated output connect, or fail to connect. I talk to founders, product leads and developers, and I review your codebase structure alongside your designs. Good design decisions need that full picture.

A foundation your team can build on: a design system that serves as the single source of truth for designers, developers and AI agents. I take one real feature through the new workflow end to end. That proves the approach works on your product, not in theory.

I set agents up to work from your design system: tokens, components and usage rules they can apply consistently. Then I add review gates, so AI-generated design and code are checked against clear quality criteria before they ship. The AI makes you faster. The judgment keeps your product coherent.

Not to start, but AI output only stays consistent when tokens and components are defined. Without them, every generated screen drifts a little further.

Sometimes you should. If there’s enough design work to fill a full-time role, an in-house designer makes sense. But a hire adds a fixed cost, takes months to get right, and only pays off once you know what the role needs to cover. If you’re not sure yet, start with an outside expert: I bring senior judgment, set up the foundations, and help you decide whether a hire is the right next step. Often the answer is yes. Sometimes it isn’t.

Both, by design. As a fractional product design lead, I bring 20+ years of UX and product design experience combined with business and technical fluency. I work at the point where product strategy, design and development meet, because that’s where AI-era products succeed or fall apart.

I’m tool-agnostic: I pick whatever fits your team and keeps the workflow efficient. I do have a preferred stack. Figma holds the design tokens and system. Figma MCP, Claude Code and Codex are my AI agents. Linear or ClickUp handle project management, and GitHub the code. On the frontend I usually work with Vue or React, often with shadcn/ui components, on a Laravel/PHP or Node backend. If your team already uses something else, I adapt to it rather than the other way around.

Yes. I’m not a dedicated brand designer, but I have solid experience in branding and visual identity. I translate your brand into a consistent, scalable UI and design system. If your brand is holding your product back, I’ll tell you and advise on how to evolve it. For larger branding work, I team up with specialists from my network. See some of my branding work on the Work page.

Patterns that already work. I work across several SaaS products at once, from HR platforms to AI-powered document processing. I see which design system structures scale, which AI workflows hold up in production and which ones break. I apply what I learn on one project to the next, so you get that experience without paying for the trial and error.

Absolutely. Most teams I work with start with a feeling, not a brief: shipping feels slow, the product feels inconsistent or AI output isn’t what they hoped. Figuring out what you actually need is part of my job. That’s exactly what the free sparring session is for.

Yes. A focused scope works well: one flow, one UX problem or one part of your design-to-dev workflow. I set it up so your team can keep working efficiently on its own.

A sparring session takes one hour. A focused scope takes one to a few weeks. A Design-to-Dev Setup takes 6 weeks to 12 months, depending on scope and maturity, including one real feature shipped on the new system. After that, many clients keep working with me as their Embedded Product Design Lead, on a monthly budget.

Probably, and I help you get there. Setting up the tooling is the easy part. The ongoing challenge is deciding what’s good, what scales and what to reject when agents produce more than your team can review. That’s where I stay involved.

An ongoing partnership. I take ownership of product experience quality and the design system, and I work with your founder and tech lead on product decisions. I’m not a design agency on standby. Think of me as your fractional product design lead, embedded in your team.

Yes, I do every engagement myself, and you have one point of contact. When your project needs expertise beyond mine, such as development, AI engineering, branding or research, I bring in a senior specialist from my network. I stay accountable for the result, so you never manage a team of freelancers yourself.

The sparring session is free. After that, we agree on a scope and I estimate a budget for it. I work on an hourly basis and track my hours transparently against that budget: you can see my timesheets at any time, and every month you get a budget status overview. If I expect to need more than agreed, I'll tell you early, and I won't go over budget without your approval. You stay in control of what you spend, without paying for padding built into a fixed price.

Yes. I’m open to flexible payment arrangements, including shares or equity, and already work this way on other projects. It depends on the project and the fit. Contact me for more information.