“Design isn’t about making things pretty—it’s about making sure you build the right thing before spending money building the wrong one.”
Phil Hedayatnea is the Co-founder of Airfoil, a top-tier crypto design agency based in San Francisco. Since 2019, Airfoil has worked with 400+ teams across tech, with fingerprints on over 80% of the Solana ecosystem, including Solana Labs, Jupiter, and Uniswap. Phil’s background spans cognitive science, startups, product management, and agency building—bringing a first-principles, research-driven approach to design in Web3.
This is the Athena X Roundtable. Strictly educational. Not financial advice.
Design in crypto is often misunderstood as “making things look nice.”
In reality, design—when done properly—can be the cheapest growth channel a founder has.
In this Athena X Roundtable, Phil Hedayatnea breaks down why research-led design prevents wasted engineering, reduces marketing burn, and creates organic adoption, how Airfoil scaled from 10 clients to 400+, and how AI is reshaping creative workflows without replacing human creativity.
Phil’s core belief is simple:
Design helps founders build the right thing before spending money building the wrong thing.
Instead of rushing into engineering or paid marketing, Phil emphasizes:
This upfront work helps founders avoid expensive mistakes later.
Airfoil doesn’t operate like a traditional agency.
Phil explains that many agencies are spread too thin, prioritizing speed over understanding. Airfoil does the opposite:
The result is deeper customer insight that feeds directly into copy, branding, product decisions, and positioning.
One mistake shows up again and again:
Founders optimize funnels before validating why users care.
Early-stage teams often obsess over UX tweaks and conversion rates, but Phil points out that:
Users don’t want “a safer wallet.”
They want to feel safe online.
They don’t want “a remittance app.”
They want to support their family.
Phil:
“I couldn’t build a product unless I had 100% conviction it should exist.”
Airfoil started as helping friends, then grew organically as demand exceeded capacity. Over time, the motivation shifted from projects to building a creative environment where people can build long-term careers.
Phil:
After the first 10 clients, referrals started coming in consistently.
Demand exceeded supply, even when the team was only four people.
Phil:
Early days were about finding clients at all costs.
Later, the hardest moments were toxic clients mistreating the team—including one case where an employee resigned due to a client’s behavior.
That experience led Airfoil to screen clients more aggressively and prioritize mutual respect.
Phil:
Ability alone isn’t enough.
Airfoil learned that communication styles differ by culture, and without clear norms, misunderstandings happen.
They now define expectations explicitly:
Critique is framed as respect for the craft, not criticism of the person.
Phil:
“It’s about building the right thing and telling the story properly.”
Good design:
Phil points to Jupiter as an example—where narrative, branding, and community vibe outperformed any paid campaign.
Phil sees AI as a force multiplier, not a threat.
Airfoil uses AI to:
One example involved using AI to analyze social commentary across the internet—revealing that users trusted a protocol primarily because founders were highly responsive on Reddit, directly shaping the brand strategy.
AI helps teams think faster, not think for them.
If you only have one week:
If the top of the funnel is broken, no downstream optimization will save it.
Many crypto products skip landing pages entirely—forcing users straight into apps without context. That’s a mistake.
Looking ahead, Airfoil plans to:
For Phil, growth isn’t just revenue—it’s creating opportunities for creatives to do meaningful work.