Description

Robotics doesn’t fail in the field because of hardware alone—it fails when humans can’t understand, trust, or effectively work with the systems they’re given. Shakir Dzheyranov, founder and CEO of HelloRobo, has built his company around that reality.

With a background spanning visual arts, motion design, and product leadership at brands like Nike, Shakir brings a rare design-first lens to robotics and automation. After years in traditional design and marketing, he made a deliberate pivot into product design—drawn by the ability to tie design decisions directly to real user problems, business outcomes, and measurable impact. That shift ultimately led him to robotics, where he saw a massive gap between technical capability and human usability.

HelloRobo now operates as a specialized product design partner for robotics and automation companies, helping them build market-ready interfaces for robot operations, fleet management, and human–machine collaboration. Rather than chasing flashy MVPs or over-designed “vision concepts,” Shakir and his team focus on interfaces that can actually ship, scale, and be adopted by operators in the real world.

In this conversation, Greg and Shakir dive into:

• Shakir’s journey from art direction and brand design to building a robotics-focused product design firm
• Why robotics companies struggle with UX—and why established design patterns often don’t exist yet
• The decision to narrow HelloRobo’s focus exclusively to robotics and automation
• How contributing to Open Robotics helped establish credibility before commercial traction
• What makes UX in robotics fundamentally different from consumer software
• Designing operator interfaces and fleet management systems for complex, safety-critical environments
• Lessons from working with Bedrock Robotics, including designing new interaction patterns from scratch
• Why talking directly to operators beats copying existing UI patterns
• The three traits HelloRobo looks for when hiring designers: product thinking, visual clarity, and the ability to embrace chaos
• How design teams can stay grounded in business metrics instead of aesthetics alone
• The difference between MVPs, overbuilt “vision” products, and what Shakir calls market-ready software
• Why onboarding and education are still missing pieces in most robotics products
• Building culture in a creative, distributed team—and why HelloRobo is opening its first New York office
• Founder lessons on risk, playfulness, and learning to build without over-controlling outcomes
• What excites Shakir most about the future of robotics: mobility, prosthetics, and technologies that extend human capability

For founders building robotic systems, leaders scaling hardware companies, or anyone thinking about how humans actually interact with autonomous machines, this episode is a reminder that great robotics isn’t just engineered—it’s designed.

Learn more about HelloRobo: https://hellorobo.co

Connect with Shakir Dzheyranov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shakir-works

Connect with Greg Toroosian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregtoroosian