Oliver 'Oli' Cheng

Profile

About Oliver 'Oli' Cheng

I build AI products across product strategy, UX, and implementation.

I work at the product and engineering boundary. I typically take a feature from problem framing to production, then support post-launch iteration with real usage data.

I am the founder of Bonzen, an AI coach and micro-meditation product. Previously I worked across product and engineering roles at Unyte, SmartHalo, Esper, and IBM.

My bias is straightforward: smaller scope, clearer decisions, faster learning loops.

  • Based in San Francisco
  • Works async + live collaboration
  • Builds for web + mobile contexts
  • Comfortable in 0->1 ambiguity
Portrait of Oli Cheng
Profile photo

Current

What I Am Working On

This section replaces the old /now page. Updated February 2026.

Building

  • Bonzen product loop: check-in -> guided reset -> reflection -> next action.
  • Assistant UX patterns with constrained output and clear failure handling.
  • Cloudflare deployment workflows for fast, low-friction shipping.

Learning

  • Evaluation setups for user-facing assistants beyond benchmark demos.
  • How onboarding quality drives second-use activation in AI products.
  • Tradeoffs between speed, trust, and guardrails in small teams.

Open To

  • Product teams shipping user-facing AI experiences
  • Ambiguous or unscoped initiatives where product direction still needs definition
  • Product management leadership: framing, prioritization, roadmap tradeoffs, and scope definition
  • End-to-end execution support after scope is defined, from build to launch and iteration

Experience

Selected Background

Detailed timeline across product, design, and engineering roles.

  • 2024 - Present

    Independent

    Building & Consulting

    Building Bonzen, ShipDojo, LLMPrism, and experimental product apps while advising startups on practical AI adoption. Most work is hands-on: prototyping, shipping, and running feedback loops with real users.

    • AI products
    • iOS
    • Web apps
    • LLMs
    • 0->1 execution

  • 2020 - 2024

    Unyte

    Product Manager

    Owned new product development end to end: concept definition, rapid prototyping, user research, and release planning. Worked daily across engineering, design, sales, and leadership to move roadmap decisions into shipped outcomes.

    • SaaS
    • User research
    • Roadmapping
    • Cross-functional execution

  • 2018 - 2020

    Aterica

    Product Designer

    Led product design for digital health experiences connected to medical hardware. Focused on UX/UI systems, usability studies, and translating clinical constraints into interfaces that felt clear and approachable.

    • Digital health
    • UX/UI
    • Design systems
    • Medical device context

  • 2016 - 2017

    SmartHalo

    Product Designer + Engineer

    Designed and built companion product experiences for a smart cycling device. Ran user experiments, refined mobile interaction flows, and collaborated with hardware and firmware teams on end-to-end product behavior.

    • IoT
    • Mobile apps
    • Hardware-software UX
    • Experimentation

  • Early career

    Esper

    Software Engineer (Co-op)

    Built onboarding flows at a small Silicon Valley startup working on ML-enabled workflow automation for executives. This was an early foundation for startup execution speed and AI-adjacent product thinking.

    • ML workflows
    • SaaS
    • Onboarding
    • Startup pace

How I Work

Operating Principles

Simple standards I use to keep work clear and shippable.

  • Scope clearly

    Define one user job, one measurable outcome, and one delivery window.

  • Ship iteratively

    Prefer small, complete increments over large, unfinished plans.

  • Measure honestly

    Use behavior and usage data to drive decisions, not internal enthusiasm.

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