From Experience Designer to Co-Founder of NodeFlair

Claudia Seow
4 min readDec 23, 2020

I remember leaving work early, rushing to take the train to get to One-north for my interview at NodeFlair. The office space was surprisingly spacious, and there was a soft chatter in the background. Ethan appears from a meeting room, still on a call, holding his phone on one hand, and getting me a cup of water in another. He mouths the words “5 mins”, and so I waited. We had a really long chat in the echoey meeting room, and left dry erase marker scribbles on the window, just like in the movies. Little did I know, that’s quite commonplace for NodeFlair.

I remember coming back to this office a second time, this time for huddle (monthly recap of the previous month), and at some point before it started, Ethan says, “let’s take a walk”. We walk around the other neighbouring units, on level 7 of Block 71, at an incredibly slow speed.

“We do this quite often, you’ll get used to it.”

2 weeks later, I came to the office the third time, but this time as a full time employee — an Experience Designer! That’s a role I didn’t even know existed until a couple of weeks before the offer. This was also the first ever design role at NodeFlair. I honestly didn’t know what my full responsibilities were at that time, but thankfully Ethan and Adrian (Co-Founders of NodeFlair whom I’ll refer to as ‘the guys’ from now on) gave me all the flexibility and room to chart my own path.

My first few months there, I was quite lost. There was so much to do, I didn’t know where to even begin. It took a while, but I eventually got into the groove of problem discovery and problem solving. In the midst of figuring out my place in the company and in the product team, I realised that there were processes missing — the communication between design and engineering (we didn’t have a product manager in the company). The guys came to that realisation as well and proposed that I take up the role of product management, test it out for a couple of months, and hopefully by the end of the quarter get a promotion. That was of course AMAZING news to me, I thought I would give product management a go in a few years time, but it’s here now, 2 years earlier than expected, and I immediately jumped on board.

Then came March. COVID-19 has done some damage to the world, and would only continue in it’s reign of terror for the months to come. The guys had to make some very difficult decisions of letting go of some business functions, part of which included the product team — the team I was in. It was a tough conversation. But in that same conversation, they told me that they still wanted me on the team, as a late stage Co-Founder. Took me a couple of days, but I eventually landed on “YES, I want to do this.” The Co-Founding team then became “Team ACE” for Adrian, Claudia, and Ethan. I know, it’s a little cringe-y, and you’ll never catch Adrian saying it, but I think deep down he secretly likes it.

This was our first picture together as “ACE” on the rooftop of Blk 71. We’ve just ended a really long day which is why we all looked pretty tired 😂

Every week it seems like there’s a new challenge, new fires to put out, and occasionally some problems get resolved. We talked non-stop about culture, hiring, the team, what we’re spending our time on, what we’re doing right or wrong, how we can be better. I don’t think I’ve grown quite as much in my 4 years in university than in a span of 4 months at NodeFlair.

Of course it’s not all sunshine and roses, growth is painful. There were a lot of difficult, vulnerable conversations, a lot of self-reflection, and a whole lot of ego-checks. The more I learnt, the more I realised how much I didn’t know, and that truly is a humbling feeling.

NodeFlair has grown so much in 2020, we changed our business model in the middle of a pandemic, gained profitability, and recently hired a Country General Manager (we took 6 months to find the right person, and I am so so happy that we managed to find King 🎉)! I am immensely proud of our team, pulling through difficult times, and showing up for each other in the smallest of ways.

That brings me to the present. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it. I’m leaving NodeFlair. Okay that sounded way more dramatic than it really is. 8 months as Co-Founder of NodeFlair has been extremely exciting, I learnt so much about leadership, management, building a team. I doubt I would have been able to get this sort of opportunity anywhere else so early in my career. But the time has come for me to depart from this dream. I realised that I wanted to focus on product management, to gain a depth in knowledge, and after studying all the various possibilities at NodeFlair, it just didn’t make sense for me to stay. The timing simply wasn’t right.

I’m immensely grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of this team, to have hopefully left a mark in NodeFlair’s history. A little piece of my heart will forever live at NodeFlair, I’ll always be supporting and cheering them on, and I can’t wait to see what 2021 has in store for them!

If you are a new joiner to NodeFlair, welcome! These are a bunch of people who are are invested in your growth. There will be painfully difficult conversations, conversations that will question your assumptions, and maybe even break you out of your chrysalis. All the best in your journey, I’m sure it’s going to be a wild ride!

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Claudia Seow

Experience designer at NodeFlair, a startup based in Singapore. Occasionally retired cardist. Always in search for good stories.