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Founding Product Builder · Product · Design · AI · 15 Years

Ankit*Zen.

The Zero2One Guy.

I ship v1 and train your existing team to keep shipping.

Founding Product Builder Venture Thinking Creative Direction AI-Native Building IIT Delhi '11
See the work

About

When the idea
is still fragile.

Early teams often have direction but no one who can think, design, and ship in one loop — clarity before process, taste alongside logic. That's the 0→1 phase I work in.

I didn't start in code — I started in user psychology and product shape. A decade of UI/UX and 0→1 work with founders (Designour, Zet, Tinkerly, Countingwell) before AI-assisted development let me own the full loop. Design foundation → builder →

15 years across product management, product design, AI systems, and entrepreneurship. IIT Delhi trained. Studio founder. Startup collaborator. AI-native builder.

When I join, I lead your product or internal-tools track and go deep — shipping v1, then growing the vertical with your team learning alongside me. Same model behind Cursor AI School; packaged for teams that want me embedded first.

I also write on society, self, and beyond — essays and builder notes on the Building blog.

Craft story → · Timeline → · LinkedIn →

Four modes I operate in

01

Venture Thinking

From fuzzy idea to investable concept. Naming, positioning, story, brand — the work that happens before a pitch deck exists.

02

Creative Direction

Visual systems, product UX, design language. Making the product feel like it was inevitable — not assembled.

03

AI-Native Building

Shipping AI systems with modern tools — agents, automations, self-hosted infrastructure. Building what didn't exist last year.

04

Team Enablement

Training 1–2 insiders on Cursor and AI-native workflows while building alongside them — a team that grows with the vertical, not a single point of failure.

Things I've
actually built.

SaaS, education, content, and ops — shipped across product, design, and code. What's live is real; what's greyed out is waiting its turn.

AI · Discovery · Python
Opportunity OS
Find environments where you're a genuine fit — not just open roles. Ranked discovery, fit narratives, and ready-made email + LinkedIn drafts to apply. First instance built around my profile as the live demo.
Personal demo · Source on GitHub · Walkthrough on request
SaaS · Hiring · Supabase
WorkForce SaaS
Hire job-ready candidates, not just resume-ready. Automated quizzes, training, and assessments for small teams — built for a real company's HR department and deployed privately; demo below; custom private deploy available.
Private deploy live · Demo open · Custom builds on request
Education · Product · Content
Cursor AI School
Full school site — workshop funnels, longer tracks, apply flow, student showcase, and school blog. Product, brand, and curriculum in one live offering.
Live at school.differentthandefault.com
Education ops · Live sessions
Workshop System
Dual funnels (2-day + 7-day), owner teaching decks, live room feedback, session pulse, and referral tracking — the ops layer behind running workshops for real.
Teaching + feedback live
Content · SEO · Distribution
Writing & Content Engine
Static blog (culture + building), showcase pipelines for X and LinkedIn, First Principles series — content shipped like product, not a side note.
Blog + pipelines live
IoT · Mobile · Backend
Awakey Smart Lock Ecosystem
Fully branded iOS + Android app on TTLock SDK — Indian data residency, zero PII shared externally, behavioral anomaly detection on access patterns. 500+ locks deployed.
Past project · Yet to be reviewed · AZ
Mobile product · Expo · Supabase
InsightLoop
An idea-first short video feed where each post centers one clear insight, not endless entertainment. Browse, mark what you learned, and publish attributed ideas through a guided mobile flow.
Early MVP · Source on GitHub · Walkthrough on request

More projects on the way. Order and priorities on the public todo.

Early Collaborations

Before they were
something.

Early brand and product foundations from the Designour years — part of the design → builder arc.

Zet
Brand · Name · Identity · circa 2019
Conceptualized the name (from One Code to Zet), designed the logo, color theme, tagline, and website. Deep conceptualization sessions with the founder to sharpen the startup story — before their first funding round.
$18M Raised After foundation was set
Tinkerly
Rename · Brand · Identity · via Designour
Rebranded Srjna as Tinkerly — yellow-black identity, website concept, and naming story with co-founder Sharad Bansal. Workshops and surveys until the name stuck.
Srjna → Tinkerly Exit · Warmup Ventures
Countingwell
Design · App · Website · via Designour
Studio delivered the app and website for Countingwell — an edtech platform making maths intuitive for children. Executed through Designour.
$1.05M Raised After product foundation

What I'm
currently in.

What's true today — not the backlog, not the roadmap.

Contact

Between vision and v1
and want your team to keep shipping?

If you want someone to lead the build long-term and grow team capacity alongside you — one email is enough.

ankitzen@icloud.com

or

This portfolio lives inside

Different Than Default

This page is my work — shipped projects, venture stories, contact. The main site is the wider home: experiments, writing, and things still taking shape. Not a pitch deck. A place to poke around.

What's there

Go to Different Than Default →

Want a portfolio like this? I'm giving away 5 freeemail me and I'll follow up with next steps.