Hi, I’m Tony Naccarato, and welcome to Built by Designers.
I’ve been a product designer for over 20 years, and I can honestly say I’ve never been more excited about where our profession is headed. Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of changes. We’ve moved from Photoshop to Sketch, Sketch to Figma, from static mockups to interactive prototypes. Every shift changed how we work, but at the core, we were still designing screens. AI feels different. For the first time, designers aren’t just creating mockups.
We’re creating products. Today, one person can research an idea, sketch a solution, write code, build a prototype, and put it in front of users in days instead of months. That’s incredible. But it’s also a little overwhelming. Like a lot of designers, I started by experimenting. ask ChatGPT a few questions, I’d generate some wireframes, maybe write a little code.
But somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like an experiment. AI became part of how I worked every single day. Not because it replaced design, but because it removed so much of the friction between an idea and a prototype. Instead of asking, can I build this? I started asking, why not build it? That mindset has completely changed how I approach product design. As I started building more, I realized something was missing.
There are thousands of YouTube videos reviewing AI tools. There are podcasts interviewing startup founders. There are tutorials teaching you how to write better prompts. But I couldn’t find many conversations with designers who were actually building things. Not polished startups, not unicorn companies, just designers with an idea using AI to see if they could bring it to life. That’s the conversation I wanted to hear. So I decided to create it. That’s what Built by Designers is all about.
Every episode, I’ll sit down with a designer who’s built something with the help of AI. Sometimes it will be a side project, sometimes it’ll be an MVP, sometimes it’ll just be a prototype they hack together over a weekend. Because this isn’t about polished case studies, it’s about curiosity, learning, it’s about experimenting. It’s about seeing what’s possible when designers have access to tools.
That simply didn’t exist a few years ago. One thing you’ll notice that these interviews aren’t really about AI. They’re about process. I want to know where the idea came from. Did it start in Figma? Did it start in Cursor? Did it start with a conversation with Claude? How did they know when to stop designing and start building? What worked? What completely fell apart? If you watched over their shoulder why they built it, what would surprise you?
Those are the questions I’m interested in.
Because I think that’s where the real learning happens. I also want this show to celebrate something we don’t do enough in our industry: building before it’s perfect. Some of the projects you’ll see on this podcast won’t become companies. Some won’t even make it past version one. And that’s okay. The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is momentum, learning, and putting something into the world that didn’t exist yesterday. I think that’s we’re celebrating.
So, if you’re a designer who’s been experimenting with AI, if you’re building something you’re proud of, or even something you’re not quite sure is good enough yet, I’d love to talk with you. Because I have a feeling there are a lot of designers out there quietly building amazing things. I want to help tell those stories.
Thanks for being here. I hope every episode gives you a new idea, introduces you to a new workflow, or gives you the confidence to finally build that thing you’ve been thinking about.
I’m Tony Nacarato. Welcome to Built by Designers. Let’s get building.