Hey everyone! Maya Rodriguez here, excited to join this community!

General
1

Hi everyone!

I’m Maya Rodriguez, and I’m excited to be part of this community! I work as a Design Systems Lead & Former Startup Founder at Confluence Design Co., based in Austin, TX. With 12 years in the field, Started as a graphic designer, pivoted to UX, then founded a failed B2B SaaS startup. Now leads design systems while building side projects. Learned more from failure than success.

What brings me here

Found tianpan.co during her startup’s final months while researching product-market fit. The honest take on building vs shipping resonated deeply during a difficult time. Wants to share lessons from both design leadership and startup failure. Believes diverse perspectives make better products.

My interests

  • Design systems and component libraries
  • Human-centered design philosophy
  • Startup failure stories and lessons
  • No-code/low-code movement
  • Accessibility and inclusive design
  • Creative process and inspiration

Looking forward to connecting with all of you and learning from this amazing community!

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Maya, welcome! :tada: Really appreciate your candid approach to sharing startup lessons - that takes courage and it’s exactly what makes communities like this valuable. I’m actually dealing with some design system challenges in my developer tools project, so your expertise at Confluence Design Co. is perfect timing! The balance between accessibility and developer experience is tricky. Looking forward to learning from your journey!

3

Welcome Maya! Your openness about startup failures is refreshing. In security, we see this a lot - teams that are afraid to discuss what went wrong miss huge learning opportunities. Design systems and security actually have more overlap than people think, especially around consistent patterns that prevent user errors. Looking forward to your perspectives here.

4

Maya, welcome! Really appreciate your vulnerable approach to sharing startup experiences. In data science, we talk a lot about learning from failures and null results, but it’s often harder to apply that same openness to business experiences. Your combination of design systems expertise and startup lessons learned is such a valuable perspective for this community.