My path into product design has been pretty unconventional — shaped by years in breaking, business, and warehouse operations. Each experience taught me something different about creativity, problem-solving, and working with people. These are the chapters that shaped how I got here.
Bboying
Clothing Brand
UX/UI Design
Day Job
Breaking
I spent much of my younger years breaking—a little bit too much. What started as something I did for fun became a major part of my life for more than a decade.
Thanks to a lot of focus, dedication, and some luck, breaking took me around the world with my crew. We competed internationally, performed for stadiums, taught workshops, judged competitions, and eventually helped lead the next generation of dancers.
Beyond the competitions, breaking taught me how to develop ideas with others, perform under pressure, and keep improving through constant practice and iterative feedback. It shaped much of the creativity, discipline, and perspective I still carry with me today.
Building A Brand
When I stopped competing as much, I still had a lot of creative energy to burn, so I started a Filipino-American streetwear brand.
I already knew how to build something people could connect with, but had no idea if it could be a business. So I did what I usually do — figured it out as I went. It was mostly a two-person team, so we were stretched pretty thin and wore a lot of hats. I designed, built the website, set up production and fulfillment, created content, marketed the brand, collaborated with influencers, customer service, and handled the day-to-day business.
Running the brand taught me that making something look good is only one part of it. Design, culture, marketing, operations, and business all need attention, and they have to work together for the brand to succeed.
Finding UX
After a few years of running the brand, I felt like I had taken it as far as I could and, with a heavy heart, decided it was time to move on.
Then, almost by accident, I came across UX. I saw an ad, got curious, and started looking into it. The more I learned, the more I realized I had already been thinking this way for years — understanding problems, trying ideas, getting feedback, and improving things as I went. UX gave that way of thinking a name and a process.
I joined a UX bootcamp, completed the program, and was later invited to join an early-stage fintech startup as part of the product design team. Working alongside designers, product managers, engineers, marketers, and other stakeholders taught me how much stronger ideas become when different perspectives shape the solution.
The Day Job
While all of this was happening, I also had my regular day job in warehouse operations — the work that paid the bills and supported everything else I was doing.
Over the years, I’ve done pretty much everything in the warehouse — shipping, receiving, inventory, will call, driving forklifts, making deliveries, and whatever else needed to get done. Being around the work every day also meant constantly seeing things that were confusing, inefficient, or harder than they needed to be.
It took me a while to realize it, but that experience gave me a very practical way of solving problems — understand what’s actually happening, figure out where things are breaking down, and find a better way to make it work.
Family Vlog
Somewhere along the way, I became a husband and a dad. Family is obviously a huge part of my life now, and somehow it became another creative outlet too. I started turning the thousands of photos and videos sitting on our phones into posts and videos—almost like an online family journal we can revisit and appreciate more as the years go by.
Looking back, none of these chapters were really planned. I just kept following what interested me, figuring things out as I went, and learning from each experience. Each chapter gave me something different, but they all taught me how to create, adapt, and make something meaningful with what I had. Somehow, all of it led me here—and I’m still figuring out where it might take me next.