Welcome to The Design Quest
I find the plot twist, figure out what’s really going on, and design what should happen next. Get it right before you scale it wrong.
Research and product strategy that reveals what matters, what's getting in the way and where the real opportunity lies.
UX and product design that turn those insights into clear journeys, useful features and confident decisions.
Brand and web design that brings joy, storytelling and emotional connection to digital experiences making them feel as good as they work.
Every founder I’ve worked with was fighting one of these. Name them and you can defeat them.
Drag or flick the top card
01 | Uncertainty
“People say they love it. Hardly anyone's actually paying for it.”
The defeat strategy
Connect design decisions to business outcomes so the right path stops being a matter of opinion. Product strategy & stakeholder research that turn indecision into a direction the whole team can defend.
Which beasts are holding your product back?
Take our free quiz to uncover which beasts are holding you back
Supporting startups and businesses to find their why and develop compelling experiences that drive true impact.
Health tech · Product design
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6
User flows mapped, from onboarding to publishing the gallery
5 weeks
To deliver new MVP designs ready for dev
Mapped the moments that earned trust, then took the companion app from a free MVP through to a live paid product.
“A strategist, educator and wonderful storyteller.”
— Louise, CEO
Creative AI · Retention · Product design
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100M+
Monthly active users, an established user base
7 months
Embedded within the product design growth team
Re-decided what the first five minutes needed to teach, simplifying onboarding so activation could lift alongside it.
“Sophie quickly made sense of complexity, tackled our retention challenges, and always kept both user needs and business impact in mind.”
— Samantha Davies, UX Director
Education · Positioning · Web design
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98%
Simplified the booking flow so thoroughly that 98% of people who start it, finish it.
66%
Engagement rate — redesigned around trust-building.
In a market full of near-identical tutoring services, nothing was making the difference legible, so no website was going to fix it alone.
“A partner who genuinely understands your business.”
— Hamza, CEO
You don’t need a finished brief. Bring the knot — we’ll find the thread.
Enter wherever you are. We’ll work out the right route together before anything is scoped.
Compass: The Magic Map
“I need to know what’s really wrong, and what to build”
A focused sprint to turn ambiguity into a clear direction so you know what matters, what to leave alone and what to do next. A clear visual blueprint and mapped end-to-end journeys with some magic moments defined along the way.
This path might include...
5-7 days · From £1,500
In-person jam
Not sure where to begin? One focused day together to diagnose, decide and leave with a clearer plan.
One day · From £500
For solo founders & SME’s
A full brand and website reboot — strategy, storytelling, and style that represents you and your business. No code or Wix.
4-6 weeks · From £6,000
Working with Sophie feels less like hiring a designer and more like gaining a partner who genuinely understands your business.
Hamza
Founder & CEO, StudyRight
“She is a fantastic listener, a strategist, an educator and a wonderful storyteller.”
— Louise, Founder, Reel Life Conversations
“Sophie took the time to really understand the strategic aims of what we're doing, why we're doing it and who it's for.”
— Ben · Marketing Manager, MyWorld
I’m Sophie, a product and design leader with a decade of experience across startups, scale-ups, creative agencies and founder-led teams.
I’ve experienced product decisions from every side: as the designer doing the work, the director guiding clients and teams, and the co-founder responsible for growing the business too. So I care as much about whether an idea makes commercial sense as how it works and feels for the people using it.
Now I work directly with ambitious founders — asking the questions others miss, bringing clarity to complicated decisions and creating experiences people genuinely remember that bring joy.
The Design Quest was partly inspired by a love for Pokémon and the belief that the interests we’re tempted to hide are often what make our thinking more distinctive and connect us as humans.
Read Quest origin story
Sophie Pilley Design
Discovery Call
Prefer email? Reach me directly at hello@sophiepilley.com.
