Skater Elephant

Skater Elephant is a digital product studio based in Argentina, born from the 2024 merger of HelloBrand and AyniLabs. The company works with startups, scaleups, and established enterprises to design and build digital products, with a particular focus on MVPs, AI integration, and growth acceleration. Led by co-CEOs Franco Berardo and Fabio Farchetto, the team brings together strategists, engineers, and designers who handle the full product lifecycle—from discovery through launch and scaling.

The studio positions itself as operating at the intersection of strategy, design, and engineering. Rather than offering cookie-cutter packages, Skater Elephant scopes each engagement around the client's specific goals and constraints. Their work spans healthcare (Veristra, an FDA-registered vascular access platform for dialysis clinics), education (Banjo, a web-based dialogue platform for academic settings), legal tech (Bliss Divorce, which integrated AI into a divorce platform), and franchise management (Francis, an MVP in development). The team conducts user research, runs product discovery workshops, and builds products designed to scale.

Services and capabilities

Skater Elephant organizes its offerings into seven service lines, though most engagements blend them. Product & Technology covers product engineering, UX/UI design, product strategy, service design, and agile delivery. Scale & Growth addresses growth strategy, product optimization, customer retention, and market expansion—helping organizations build operating models and go-to-market plans. Discovery & Strategy applies user research, competitive analysis, and opportunity mapping to align vision with user impact. MVP from Scratch assembles teams to validate and launch products quickly, covering discovery through shipping.

The studio has developed notable depth in AI and automation. Under "Accelerating growth through AI," they offer generative AI, machine learning strategy, AI prototyping, workflow automation, and AI integration for industry-specific use cases. A separate service line, "Smart Automation," focuses on identifying what to automate, designing solutions, and launching them end-to-end so automation drives measurable business impact. They also provide Brand & Communication services—brand strategy, identity, positioning, storytelling, and digital campaigns.

Skater Elephant's process is iterative by design. Rather than capping revisions at a fixed number, they work in feedback cycles (prototype → review → refine), keeping scope and timelines transparent. Most work is done remotely across time zones, supported by structured check-ins and collaborative tools.

Notable work

Veristra (Health Data Works, 2024, ongoing) demonstrates end-to-end product delivery in a regulated domain. Skater Elephant ran discovery sessions with U.S. dialysis clinics, conducted UX research with technicians, and built a HIPAA-compliant, FDA-registered platform for vascular access registration and monitoring. The product achieved 85% satisfaction in technician surveys, a 70% improvement in visual identification of access points, and a 50% reduction in clinical documentation time. The team included a PO, developers, QA, computer vision specialists, CTO, and Scrum Master—showing how they staff complex projects.

Banjo (Banjo, 2025, ongoing) is a web-based dialogue platform for academic settings, designed to foster structured, civil conversations in university classrooms. Skater Elephant designed and shipped an MVP in three months, integrating AI-assisted moderation to detect harmful content and AI support for generating discussion prompts. The platform supports role-based access for professors and students, with features for claims, replies, voting, notifications, and dialogue summaries. Within the three-month window, the team validated key participation flows and gathered usability insights to guide future iterations.

Bliss Divorce (2023) is a legal tech platform that integrated AI, though the source provides limited detail beyond the project name and category.

How they work

Skater Elephant uses flexible engagement models. Fixed-scope engagements suit clearly defined MVPs or redesigns; time & materials or retainer models apply when flexibility is essential. The studio emphasizes transparency: before starting, clients know what's included, milestones, and where trade-offs exist. While the primary focus is end-to-end product development, they also take shorter engagements (design audits, UX research, strategy workshops) if they add value or serve as entry points to longer collaborations. Remote work is standard; the team has successfully partnered across time zones using structured communication and collaborative tools.

Team and credentials

The leadership team includes co-CEOs Franco Berardo and Fabio Farchetto, along with Toni Curtino (Chief Creative Officer), Ignacio Alessio (Chief Innovation Officer), Matías Carranza (CTO), and Dan Hirsch (Chief Product Officer). The company describes itself as "a group of strategists, engineers, and creative thinkers." Team size is not explicitly stated in the source material. No formal certifications (ISO, SOC 2, GDPR compliance badges) are mentioned, though their work on HIPAA-compliant and FDA-registered products suggests regulatory fluency. The studio is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and operates remotely with clients worldwide.