Ustream is a music platform concept where listeners' subscriptions convert into credits that flow directly to the artists they actually play. I designed the product system and built a clickable MVP solo in Figma — listener experience, live flow, and the core logic behind direct artist support. No AI. My first real product MVP.

Product — Music streaming + live concert platform built around direct artist payouts

Audience — Listeners who want their fandom to actually pay artists; independent artists tired of being commoditized

Role — Solo product designer, researcher, system architect

Status — Clickable MVP designed in Figma · Fall 2024

Stack — Figma · hand-designed · zero AI in the loop

Why it matters — Proves the product instincts behind FLOLO and You the Birthday were already there before AI was in my toolkit

The product thesis — direct-pay streaming as a response to the creator-economy gap

Research: 4 proto-personas, 4 full user-journey maps (artist, executive, investor, fan)

The full system architecture — listener side, artist side, live + community layer

UX flows for the MVP slice: onboarding, home/library, live concert

Every screen designed by hand in Figma — layout, hierarchy, typography, color, interaction

The clickable prototype and the demo walkthrough

Streaming commoditized music. Artists can rack up millions of plays and still not make rent. The economics were rebuilt to favor the platform, and the relationship between the listener and the artist they love became indirect, abstract, and broken.

Ustream rewires the loop. A subscription becomes spendable credit. Every play moves real value from the listener to the artist. The platform takes a small fee instead of the lion's share. Fandom becomes a payment, not a metric.

Subscribe — listener pays a flat monthly subscription

Convert — that subscription becomes credits with real monetary value

Listen — every play transfers a portion of those credits to the artist

Connect — live streams, gifting, and community deepen the artist–fan loop

Cash out — artists see payouts and performance in their own dashboard

The class allowed groups. I went solo because I wanted the full weight of the product on me — research, system, flows, screens — without the option of handing any of it off. That decision forced me to think in product systems, not just screens.

I mapped four people the platform has to serve at once. Each one has a different reason to show up and a different definition of "this works."

Super Fan — wants to support artists directly, follow live moments, collect access

Upcoming Artist — needs payouts, distribution, and a real path to fans

Music Executive — needs scouting, performance signals, and roster tools

Tech Investor — needs scalability, transparent economics, and a model that holds

Listener side — onboarding, library, discovery, live concerts, gifting, community chat

Artist side — distribution, uploads, fan engagement, live broadcasts, payout dashboard, analytics

Live + community layer — concerts as first-class product surfaces, not afterthoughts

Direct-pay engine — credit conversion, per-play transfer, transparent splits

Roster tools — for executives scouting and managing talent

I scoped the clickable build to one clean slice of the listener journey: enter the product, find your music, attend a live moment. Everything else is system architecture on paper.

Onboarding — sign-up, identity capture, genre selection

Home / library — your albums, new releases, live "On Air" surface

Live concert — full-bleed stream, real-time chat, in-stream gifting

Product design is system design. Screens are the last 10%.

Every interface decision answers a journey question — who, when, why now

A real product problem beats a clever interface every time

Going solo by choice trains the muscles a team would otherwise carry for you

Hand-built Figma work is where hierarchy, judgment, and taste get earned

I think in product systems, not just screens — even before AI was in my stack

I can translate a real industry problem into a coherent product thesis

I do my own research — personas, journeys, scope decisions — and ship the slice that matters

I design listener and operator surfaces with the same rigor

The instincts in FLOLO and You the Birthday were already there in 2024

This was the opposite of how I build now. Every screen, flow, and journey map was designed by hand in Figma — no AI in the loop, no generative shortcuts. Fall 2024, first semester of my BFA at City College after transferring from Hostos, in a UX/UI class I was waved into early. I aced it. More importantly, it forced me to feel the full weight of product design before I had AI to lean on.

Design — Figma (hand-built, no AI assist)

Research — Proto-personas · user journey mapping · scenario design

Prototype — Figma clickable prototype + demo walkthrough

Process — Solo by choice · scoped MVP from a larger product vision