Evaluate
Put the experience in front of customers or moderated user testing.
Get your hardest AI product decision right before engineering starts.
I help early-stage founders work out how a complex AI or B2B product should actually behave, then prove it with a functional prototype you can put in front of users, investors, and your engineering team. Fifteen years designing complex software at Microsoft, focused on the judgment a prototype tool can’t give you.
Book a call
Sprints start at $9,000.
The decision usually matters more than the demo
Anyone can generate a screen now. The hard part is deciding what the product should do, how the AI should behave when it’s uncertain or wrong, and what has to feel real before you can trust the answer. That’s the work.
A sprint helps when:
- Your team is debating abstractions with nothing realistic to evaluate.
- A deck or clickable mockup can’t show how the product actually behaves.
- The experience crosses roles, workflows, systems, or data relationships.
- The AI’s behavior, not just its interface, is the thing you’re unsure about.
- You need evidence before committing to a larger engineering effort.
What you get
A functional prototype that runs in a browser and behaves like a real product where it matters, plus a clear recommendation on what to build and why.
It can include realistic interactions, application states, representative data, and working AI behaviors. More tangible than a clickable mockup, and deliberately lighter than production software.
Demonstrate
Let investors and stakeholders experience the idea, not just hear it.
Align
Give product, design, and engineering one shared reference to build from.
Where I add the most value
AI can produce an interface in seconds. It can’t tell you which question matters, how the product should behave, where it needs to earn the user’s trust, or what has to be real for the evaluation to mean anything.
That judgment is the work I do. I think through the product with you and your technical team, decide what actually needs to be true, and make the critical experience functional myself, so the prototype answers a real question instead of just looking finished.
How a sprint works
Frame
Agree on the product question, the primary user, and the scope.
Work through the experience
Define the main journey, how the product and the AI behave, the information, and the important states.
Build
Create and refine the functional, browser-based prototype.
Review and decide
Review the result against the original question and agree on the useful next step.
The sprint
From $9,000 · typically 2 weeks
A focused sprint works through one important part of the product rather than the whole application. It’s built to answer the question that’s currently blocking a decision.
What a sprint includes
- One product question, worked through end to end
- One primary user perspective
- One critical journey
- A functional prototype that runs in a browser
- Working reviews agreed at the start
- A recorded walkthrough
- A short written recommendation: what I’d build, what I’d change, and why
Sprints with additional user roles, journeys, integrations, or design-system needs take more time and are scoped separately.
User research and moderated testing are available as separate work.
About me
I’m Robyn Sambo, a product design leader with a background in architecture and more than 15 years designing complex software at Microsoft.
I’ve worked at the intersection of complex systems, emerging technology, and how people actually behave. I’m equally comfortable shaping product vision with leadership, reasoning through interaction logic with engineers, and building the prototype myself.
Few people sit in all three places at once, and that’s exactly where the hard AI product decisions get made.
Working together after the sprint
Some teams want to keep going once the first decision is made. I partner with a small number of clients on an ongoing basis, usually one or two focused days a week, as the senior design voice on the product.
Ongoing partnership starts at $7,000 per month.
A good fit
Best suited to funded early-stage founders building a complex AI or B2B product, with real technical capability and an upcoming customer, investor, or engineering decision.
Common questions
Is the prototype production-ready?
No. It’s deliberately lighter than production software, and built to answer product questions before a larger engineering effort.
Can you work with our existing team?
Yes. I work directly with founders or alongside your product, design, and engineering team.
Can you help decide what should be prototyped?
Yes. Framing the question and deciding what to include, and what to leave out, is the core of the work.
Can the sprint include user testing?
Yes, as separate work. Research planning, participant recruitment, facilitation, synthesis, and revisions based on testing are scoped on top of the standard sprint.
How is pricing determined?
Sprints start at $9,000. The final fee depends on the number of journeys and user roles, the depth of the interactions, any data or AI integrations, and how close to real the prototype needs to feel. We agree on scope, timing, and fee before any work begins.
Let’s talk about what you’re building.
Tell me where the idea stands and the decision you’re trying to make. I’ll tell you honestly whether a sprint would help.