Ep 33. George Hatzis on Product Design: Journey from Startups to Scale-Ups and Fractional Impact for Early-Stage Teams

Calling Operator with Laura Nicol

I'm connecting with George Hatzis, a fractional product designer for early-stage startup teams. From his early curiosity about design and product at Ignition to redesigning a personal loan application admin at Wisr and building and scaling a multi-brand design system for healthcare products at Eucalyptus, he's no stranger to the twists and turns of startups and scale-ups. In this episode, we cover practical design and MVP design systems—what they are and how to apply them in fast-moving, scrappy environments; taking the independent product design route and his “Mary Poppins-style” approach to fractional work; his journey (so far) building a migration tech product alongside Niamh and Damian at Matilda; leading design teams and making a conscious transition from an individual contributor to a manager; AI as a “companion piece” for designers; the right time for startups to bring in their first product designer; and advice for product designers pitching themselves to early-stage startups. Plus, slowing everything down for life's simple moments, watching 100 movies a year (and reviewing them on Letterboxd), and the magic of acknowledging trade-offs.

Find George Hatzis:

• LinkedIn
• Portfolio
• Letterboxd: film reviews by George Hatzis
• Checklist Design: a side project by George Hatzis

George’s Northstar People and Principles :

• James Nau (VP of Product at Airtasker)
• Olivia King (Independent Creative Director)
  • Olivia King’s portfolio
• [Op-ed] AI as a trend and how designers can work with it (written by Sebastiaan de With)

ANZ Operators—Ones to Watch:

• Kayla Medica (Fractional Product Marketer/CMO)
  • Mehdeeka by Kayla Medica (a weekly Substack newsletter covering various areas of B2B and SaaS marketing aimed at small teams)
• Nick Hough (Director of Product at Jasper)

Other Folks Mentioned in the Episode:

• Guy Pearson (CEO at Ignition)
• Dane Thomas (Co-founder & Chief Product Officer at Ignition)
• Niamh Mooney (Co-founder at Matilda)
• Damian Png (Co-founder at Matilda)

Do you have an operator on speed dial who could be perfect for the show?

Please share your suggestions with me via LinkedIn.

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A note from your host, Laura:

My goal for Calling Operator 2.0 is to open-source stories with startup operators across various functional areas and learn how they excel at building and scaling companies. As a Chief of Staff, I often find myself in (virtual) rooms with people tackling similar challenges. I want this podcast to open a line for operators in Australia and New Zealand to learn from each other—diving into the execution behind big ideas, pivotal career moments, successes, failures, lessons and personal stories.