This interview is with Gabriel Shaoolian, CEO and Founder, Digital Silk.
Gabriel, as CEO and Founder in marketing and advertising, how do you introduce your expertise in web design, UX research, and digital marketing to someone discovering your work for the first time?
I don’t think of myself as an all-knowing expert. The day I do, I’ll have stopped learning, and unfortunately this business changes too fast for that.
What I tell people is that I’ve seen it all in my years of experience. I started out of my apartment in New York and built my career brick by brick myself. I’ve been on sales calls when I had no idea what I was doing, and I’ve debated the color of a button for hours.
So, when I’m talking about web design or UX, it’s not as if I’m reading from a manual. I’m speaking from experience, based on the things I’ve done badly before getting something right.
What key experiences from building Blue Fountain Media to leading Digital Silk shaped your belief that custom websites should operate as growth engines?
I learned that “pretty” and “effective” aren’t the same thing. Sure, my goal is to create beautiful websites, but that doesn’t always mean they’re good for the user.
I built Blue Fountain Media from the ground up, so I needed to plan and think ahead.
I didn’t have the luxury of getting carried away with design just because I thought it looked great. Clients need something their customers can use, and this still applies to Digital Silk.
Building on that growth-first philosophy, what is the very first diagnostic you run at project kickoff to uncover friction in the revenue path?
A “diagnostic” is a fancy word for what I do. I like numbers—they’re sexy, and they can tell you a lot more about what’s not working than any other spreadsheet out there.
I look at the analytics to see where people jump off. Knowing what your audience needs or wants is the first step to getting it right, and the numbers can tell you exactly which aspects are slacking.
Digital Silk did all that for Portland Public Library. They thought their site was okay; it looked fine on paper. But people were taking the long route to registering or even viewing the programs.
We fixed that one issue through a redesign. Engagement jumped close to 50%.
Staying on that theme, how do you translate brand strategy into concrete UX decisions that measurably improve conversion?
You need to preserve your brand mission, vision, and goals. You can’t preach one thing and then practice another.
There are a whole bunch of businesses that use words like “innovative,” “premium,” or “transparent,” but what do they actually mean?
You can’t tell me you care about the customer experience and then put a seven-step checkout.
Zooming in on e-commerce, particularly Magento, what checkout or product-page change has most reliably lifted AOV or completion rates in your builds?
Oh, for sure — don’t make people create accounts just to complete the order. They’ve already added the items to their cart, so what’s the point?
Some people want the convenience of it; others just can’t be bothered to register. Either way, they shouldn’t feel like it’s an either-or situation.
When you’re advising as a tech consultant, what decision framework do you use to choose between a full redesign and iterative optimization on the existing stack?
It’s like deciding whether you’re performing full-blown open-heart surgery or a cosmetic procedure. Sometimes the design is simply too old, or the content doesn’t provide any value.
However, if the platform is outdated, that’s another story. It can affect your security or future business growth, and no amount of tweaking can fix that.
Before design work begins, what single KPI do you align on with executives to anchor your analytics and optimization plan?
Gross profit per qualified session. It’s not just the traffic you need to look at, or the conversions, or revenue.
Traffic can grow because you attracted the wrong people. Conversions can go up because you discounted the product. Revenue can increase while margins collapse.
Gross profit per qualified session means you connect all of the above into one tangible metric.
On the research side, where has AI genuinely improved your UX workflow at Digital Silk without compromising quality?
It primarily speeds up manual processes. We use AI as a tool, but it can never replace the value that human input brings.
It also helps with research synthesis: you can review hundreds of issues, support tickets, and similar items in a matter of seconds.
It helps us get from point A to point B faster, but never at the cost of quality or relevance.
To close the loop with acquisition, what play do you rely on to align SEO, PPC, and content with on-site UX so budgets convert more efficiently?
You just need to keep acquisition and conversion connected. You spend money on performance marketing and have people optimize for SEO, but then you have a subpar website.
Your website is your salesperson. SEO, PPC, content, and UX should therefore share one intent map rather than operate as separate departments.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Yeah, there’s one more thing. I built this business without outside funding. I had no cushion and no shortcuts, which is something that I bring to every client relationship now.
I’d rather tell a client an uncomfortable truth today and keep their trust for years than tell them what they want to hear and lose them the first time the numbers don’t match the promise. That’s the whole philosophy. Not clever. Just consistent.