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Michael Bobov

Design, one layer deeper.

I design products, then go one layer further and build them, from the first conversation to shipped code. Product designer in Seattle; I co-founded Versum Health, and designed and built EZ Recipe and PDF Penguin.

See the work

Selected work.

Four projects, each opened in layers: the problem people had, the insight inside it, and the outcome at the core.

  1. Co-founder · Product lead

    Versum Health

    Uninsured patients put off dental care, and dental students can’t find the patients they need to graduate.

    • Web
    • Healthcare marketplace
    Live site: Versum Health (opens in a new tab)

    Layer 2 · The insight · 2025

    “I had to pay people off the street a lot of money just to get them a free cleaning.”
    A practicing dental hygienist, on getting through school

    Layer 3 · The coreLive MVPPatients search and book; students manage schedules and messages.

  2. Founder · Design and build

    EZ Recipe

    Recipe apps assume you’ll go shopping. Home cooks start from what’s already in the fridge.

    • Web app
    • Consumer AI
    Live site: EZ Recipe (opens in a new tab)

    Layer 2 · The insight · 2025

    Cooking communities kept asking how to use what they already had.

    Layer 3 · The coreLiveAt ezrecipe.app, reworked after real use so the recipe shows before its picture.

  3. Founder · Design and build

    PDF Penguin

    Getting a table out of a PDF meant selecting areas by hand or writing parser rules first.

    • Web app
    • AI developer tool

    Layer 2 · The insight · 2025

    I was the first user: every tool I tried asked for setup before it gave me anything.

    Layer 3 · The coreMVP in 2 weeksDrop in a PDF, say what you need in plain words, get clean JSON.

  4. Product designer · Unofficial concept

    Spotify Loop

    To replay one part of a song, people scrub by hand or leave Spotify altogether.

    • Mobile
    • Feature design

    Layer 2 · The insight · 2025

    Musicians had already built their own workarounds.

    Layer 3 · The coreLoop in 2 tapsA hi-fi concept inside Spotify’s own design language, with saved loops.

Code is the smallest doll.

How I work, outside in: past the mockup, until it ships.

Listen
Talk with the people who have the problem, on every side of it, before any sketch.
Frame
Name the real problem, then agree on what better means.
Design
Flows, states and prototypes, put in front of real people.
Build
Then I ship it myself: React and AI APIs, down to the last detail.
Open me: more about Michael at about.michaelbobov.com

The innermost layer

Hi, I’m Michael. There’s one more layer.

The work is the outside. Open the doll to meet the person who made it.

Let’s open something.