Ahmed Wahba: Designing Success in Startups and B2B Products

Jon Santillan

Jon Santillan

Jan 17, 2025

Expert Storyproduct design
Ahmed Wahba: Designing Success in Startups and B2B Products

In this interview, we talk to Ahmed Wahba, a Product Designer with over 6 years of experience in UX and UI design. Ahmed has worked in 20 countries with startups, governments, and corporations, helping to create AI-powered teams and products. With a strong track record of reaching over 200 million users, he shares his insights on building successful products and teams, and how his approach to leadership has been shaped by his passion, vision, and agile mindset.

What key factors have shaped your approach to building startups, and how do they contribute to your overall success?

1. Passion: Passion is a crucial factor when it comes to growth. I've joined many startups since I was 17 years old, and now I'm almost 25. The difference I've seen in a startup led by a passionate leader, where the team shares the same passion for their work— no matter you are a designer, marketeer, or even an intern—is a significant advantage. This shared enthusiasm is a key driver of success.

2. Vision: Having a clear vision as a founder is essential for success. While solving a problem is important, being able to answer all the "whys" you encounter along your journey makes you a compelling storyteller. Whether you're pitching to an investor, convincing a kick-ass engineer to join your startup, or giving a product demo to customers, they all want to hear your "why." Reflecting on my own journey, having clear answers to my "whys" helped me achieve things I never imagined, such as founding a 2-members design agency. My clients loved working with me because they believed in me and my story, I was able to grow the agency to 30-members, working everywhere around the globe and generating six-figure annual revenues.

3. Be Agile and I don't mean create boards and plan stand-ups, I mean these stuff are awesome! don't get me wrong but I mean develop an agile mindset when it comes to building and testing as you don't have to deliver a perfect A-class product with a shiny award winner website before first testing out if your potential customers are interested first.

What are the essential elements of designing a user experience for B2B products, and how do you ensure that the design meets the specific needs of business users?

That's a great question. Throughout my career, I've spent a significant amount of time working in agencies, which exposed me to both B2B and B2C products. I have to say, designing for the B2B sector is much more challenging than B2C. However, if you manage to design for B2B, you can design for anything.

In my experience, the best approach is to start with the customers and their problems. Tailor your product to meet the needs of a 1 customer who you know would buy the product. Understand their needs and test your ideas and prototypes with them. Once you have this foundation, you can expand to other customers. Additionally, it's crucial to know who you are designing for before starting the design process. This understanding will save you a lot of time in setting up your design strategy and principles, helping to avoid rework.

Jon Santillan

Jon Santillan

Expert