Gabriel Valdivia

I help founders avoid attractive wrong turns and move quickly from idea to product.

I bring two decades of experience designing and building products for the world’s top tech companies to help early-stage teams get off the ground. I’ve worked across product, brand, and emerging technology, helping teams turn ambitious ideas into products people love.

As a fractional design partner, I help shape the core experience, build prototypes, and bring the product and brand into focus. From early explorations through launch, I help teams decide what matters most, test their assumptions, and bring a clear point of view to the details of what they ship.

I’m drawn to products where the benefit is easy to explain to a neighbor and the creative territory feels fresh. I’m interested in business models where revenue and the product’s stated benefit pull in the same direction. I especially care about creative applications of education, wellbeing, community, and inventing healthier relationships with technology.

I do my best work with founders who are collaborative, honest, decisive, and have strong taste. I prefer direct access to decision-makers, enough authority and time to materially shape the product, and a working rhythm that treats design as a core part of building, not an afterthought. I’m looking for partnerships where we can think together, move quickly, and hold a high bar without burning each other out.