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Elena Cross

@elenacross.bsky.social
130 followers 171 following 206 posts

Design, Tech, Uncomfortable truths. Product design leader turn founder, yolo’ing my career away. 🫶 Building, but not yet launching prism.london 💪 FinTech | B2B SaaS | Enterprise 👾 Nerd, gamer, ovaries of steel.

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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Design is still the “silica gel” inside many orgs. It’s this weird thing that’s just there, some say it’s dangerous for you, but they also say it keeps things from getting mouldy. Nobody really knows what it’s doing or how it’s doing it.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Designers in 2026
media.tenor.com
a man in a lab coat and bow tie is measuring liquid
ALT: a man in a lab coat and bow tie is measuring liquid
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
ROI is king! 💰🤴 Now say that in French.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
What is the verbal equivalent of the physical idiom for “my hands are itching to”?
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
If you’re in Product Design in B2B spaces and you’re sleeping on subframe.com - I hope your alarm goes off on the loudest setting right now and you get reverse scare hiccups ⏰ ‼️
subframe.com
Subframe – The best way to build UI, fast.
Build stunning UI in minutes with a drag-and-drop visual editor, beautifully crafted components, and production-ready code. Optimized for React & TailwindCSS.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
So it turns out that listening to Stardew Valley autumn season soundtrack on a rainy day is a legit productivity unlock. Who knew.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
The people that surround you in the early days of your startup define the odds of your failure or success. #startups #founders #hiring
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
If a path to someone’s heart is through their stomach, the path to the heart of an organisation is through its CMO 🤌. #justCMOthings #attributionContribution #howsyourCAC
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
I’ve posted this 6 months ago. 🚧 Roadworks update. It’s going hella great. Turns out creating a 10 lane highway of your own making is a lot more fun that doing hard labour for someone else to collect the toll payments.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
That feeling when you present early design progress to the exec stakeholder group and they love it.
media.tenor.com
a man with a beard and sunglasses is driving a car with his arms in the air .
ALT: a man with a beard and sunglasses is driving a car with his arms in the air .
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
- Good design is invisible. - Say no more, fam.
Apple iOS26 notification screen with liquid glass styling.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Apple just unlocked a new meaning for “glass cannon”. #apple #glassmorphism #productdesign #wwdc2025
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Design is where emotion births utility in agony. #design #ProductDesign #ouchie #ButThemShareholderReturns
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Early stage startup founders sitting on their MVP tech stack like
Mountain climbers on flimsy rest gear attached to a cliff, just about
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
The best type of people to know: WYSIWYG people. 👏
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
What I gathered from the street videos of Spanish blackout: What we are prepared to forget for sake of pragmatic efficient utility can carry more positive emotional utility instead.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Time is your most precious commodity.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Something I can’t reconcile. UX’ers posting about problems not solved and offering no path to any solution. I love complaining, but this seems rather counterintuitive.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
I secretly love seeing fellow design leaders from known tech brands drop by profile on LinkedIn from comments and swiftly depart: “ah poo, she’s not ex-Google, how disappointing”
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
To everyone in the world of Product Design and UX: If you think that user needs come first - they don’t. Revenue does.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Has anyone ever saved a ton of money by purchasing software? Not just a bit, but a lot. What software was it? Obviously, asking for a friend. #startups
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Design should not be iterative. It should be adaptive.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Post a current event snapshot and answer “What would Teal’c do?” Teal’c: It would appear this weapon is ineffective!
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
The amount of time you can spend on craft is directly proportional to the amount of bullshit work you can eliminate. #productdesign #designsky #ux
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
On today’s episode of “layouts that suck”.
Victorian house with skinny corridor and skinny staircase. Carpeted, obviously.
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Reposted by Elena Cross
Common Sense @cmmnsensedspnsr.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Reposting as Sagan is so prescient from 30 years ago.
Passage from Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Aight.
media.tenor.com
a man in a yellow suit and white hat is dancing in front of a sun
Alt: a man in a yellow suit and white hat is dancing in front of a sun, from Always Sunny in Philadelphia show
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Running list of things I love about founding a company: ⚪️ I can pick any titles. Absolutely any. Word is my oyster. “Chief Oystering Officer” “Revenue Gandalf” “Principal Code Combobulator” “Lord of Marketing” “Master Cat Herder” (reserved for HR) “Supreme Sage” (for advisory roles)
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
I find it insanely strange how we’ve “designed life”. ✅ 9-5, but take kids to school ✅ get a mortgage, but prove you can take on crippling debt prior ✅ spend remaining time on “life admin” from 35 suppliers with no single source of truth. Shit design, and an even shittier user experience.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
It’s really not funny how the cycles of history repeating itself are getting faster and not in a good way.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Next time a new product update goes awry, I am so going to use “unscheduled disassembly” when explaining why a whale of an account is pissed. #productdesign #shipit #b2bsaas #spacex #bugs
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Sid Meier’s Civilization is a live executive suite sim. Except for the possibility of culture victory.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
A gentle reminder to AI worshippers: There’s a fat, dollar-quantifiable reason why Microsoft Xbox decided to sunset Avatars feature. We just don’t love and hate synthetic humans with the same ferment as we do real ones. #agentwithnoagency #ai
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
The way to add more “masculine energy” to big tech is not by decimating DEI, but by tripling down on it. The “manliest man” in the room is not the one starting “beef”, is the one ending it. #atomicallysmallballs #diversity
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
So it turns out bad design is bad for business. And particularly bad for your executive career. How thoroughly unexpected. #productdesign #ohnoanyway www.fastcompany.com/91259432/son...
fastcompany.com
Sonos CEO steps down following a disastrous app redesign
After Sonos redesigned its app last year, the company saw its revenue tank and announced layoffs. Now its CEO is stepping down.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
It’s categorically the avocado toast. And definitely not trickle-down bullshit. #economicallyChallanged #LayOOofs #NeedForGreed
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Things move so fast now, that it doesn’t matter if the wheels are flying off, everyone is just like “fuck it, inertia will get us there!”
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
So Meta just went and said to their advertisers: “Our platform is Jack Daniel’s, but with like 99% water.” #meta #ai #awhy #myspacediditbetter
A picture of an Instagram profile that’s not human, but AI instead
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
Happy New Year, #bluesky people! May it be majorly less shittier than 2024 was. Here’s to the good people, there’s so few of us 🥂 #happynewyear #sodonewith24 #letsdothis #newyear
media.tenor.com
a woman in a striped shirt is holding a glass of wine in front of a sign that says fleabag
ALT: a woman in a striped shirt is holding a glass of wine in front of a sign that says fleabag
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
Opinion poll: Worst enterprise software you’ve ever used? We’re talking I’d-rather-punch-concrete-walls-bad. #easeofuse #enterprisesoftware #baddesign
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
Live footage of Figma prototyping tools. #productdesign #figma #prototyping #fml
media.tenor.com
a dumpster that says dbb arc is on fire in the water
Alt: a dumpster is on fire in the water
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
@splinetool.bsky.social was always cool. But now it’s officially - super cool 👏🤌🎉 #design #productdesign #webdesign #interactive #supercool
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Reposted by Elena Cross
MP @mindaugaslt.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Everything that happened on "Design Linkedin" in 2024. What did I miss?
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Reposted by Elena Cross
Jason Cohen @asmartbear.com · 29/11/2024
In new products, customers forgive simplicity but not incompleteness. They might even prefer simplicity, but they don’t prefer barely-functioning software. That’s why "MVP" is the wrong idea. Agree?
longform.asmartbear.com
Your customers hate MVPs. Make a SLC instead.
“MVP” implies a selfish process, abusing customers so you can “learn.” Instead, make the first version SLC: Simple, Loveable, and Complete.
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Reposted by Elena Cross
Show Your Soft Side @softside.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Super-sweet senior kitty Tinsel was trying to survive outside, in December, while being blind. 💔 We don’t know exactly what her future will be, but thanks to kind people she’s now safe at the Cat Shack. Help her find the most wonderful home. Adopt: www.facebook.com/1194596703/p... or please share!
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Why is it that 37, 38, 39 become a countdown to 40? What is it about the jubilees that makes us so uncomfortable? Who set this sh*tty cultural expectation? I wana have words.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Today is the first time I followed a politician on a social network. Because it’s the first politician who appreciates the help cats provide to humanity. It’s a tangible public service.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
I’ve been told so many times to stay in my lane, 99.9% of the time - by men. So I’m building my own damn road. I don’t like traffic. 🚀
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Perception is everything.
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Elena Cross @elenacross.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Founding is really f*cking difficult, and you are your own biggest enemy. #founders #startups
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