About | Lee Eisenbarth

How did you start?

I started in 2008 making MySpace layouts for people who paid me in compliments. I called myself a consultant anyway, which took real nerve.

Then what?

Four acquisitions in a decade, at companies I helped build. I came in as the founding designer, ended up running design and product, and loved nearly every year of it. Two of the four had private equity behind them.

ClearScholarDirector of Design · 2016 to 2018Bought by Civitas Learning in June 2018, the first company out of High Alpha’s studio to be acquired opens ibj.com.
Civitas LearningProduct manager, head of product design · 2018 to 2020Took a majority growth investment from Francisco Partners.
MomentPathChief Experience Officer · 2020 to 2022Bought by ChildcareCRM in October 2022. The two became LineLeader opens prnewswire.com.
LineLeaderVice President of Product · 2022 to 2023Took a majority growth investment from Marlin Equity Partners.

And after that?

A year at Innovatemap opens innovatemap.com as Vice President of Design, rebuilding the design team. Then MaxQ, in November 2024, as a co-founder of a design and engineering firm. Best decision I’ve made at a desk.

Brands or products?

People treat those as two jobs. Eighteen years in, I still can’t find the seam. I wrote it down.

Anyone can make forty screens now. I get paid to know which ones not to build.

How do you work now?

The tools got fast. Nobody shipped me better taste.

The agents are fast and a little too sure of themselves. My job is asking the right question, then knowing wrong when I see it.

Meaning what?

I learned this job the slow way, starting with those MySpace layouts. Sketch it, build it, ship it, get yelled at, fix it. Eighteen years of that, and the yelling taught me the most.

And the AI agents?

I work with them all day. Best assistants I’ve ever had, after Hannah, of course.

So can I hire you?

Please do. Through MaxQ opens gomaxq.com.

On the record

I’ll talk about this all day.

Focus LabFocus On BrandThree episodes · 2025

Where?

Three episodes with Bill Kenney at Focus Lab, about building brand and product together. I’d go back for a fourth.

Which episodes?

The Risks of Ignoring Brand in Your Product opens www.focuslab.agency
The marketing feels thoughtful and the product doesn’t. Bill and I talk about that gap, and what it costs you in trust.
How to Build Brand and Product in Tandem opens www.focuslab.agency
Start with the first five minutes. Watch someone go from the homepage to using the product, and notice where the story stops making sense.
The Future of Brand and User Experience opens www.focuslab.agency
A useful error message counts as brand. So does a small celebration when something works. We talk about where a brand shows up without making an entrance.

Off the record

The rest of it.

I’m in Indianapolis with my wife Amanda, who teaches third grade, our son Henry, who’s not quite two, and a dog named Tesla The Good Girl opens instagram.com, who has earned every word of that name. Proud uncle to two nieces and a nephew.

A couple on the stone steps of a courthouse, both smiling, the woman holding a Certificate of Marriage in a manila envelope. Instant-film print.

Anything else?

I run, half marathon and all. I garden badly. I read less than I used to, since Henry, and the list is here anyway. Every Tuesday I draw Henry a turtle he never asked for. Thirty-four so far, and twenty-six of them are a coloring book, Color the Shell opens turtletuesday.club, out now. I love it more than is reasonable. And I write a few small angel checks on the side.

Got pictures?

Who’s this?Henry, before he could walk. The one facing the yard is Tesla The Good Girl.
And now?He walks now. We follow.
Who’s everyone?Amanda, Henry, two nieces and a nephew.