# Design Key

> AI-Driven Software Development and UX Solutions. Your all-in-one tech agency integrating AI, UX, and business strategy to achieve 5x productivity. Tampa, FL–based AI-native software agency serving startups and growth-stage teams across the United States, with a focus on Florida InsurTech, PropTech, and vertical SaaS founders. Founded 2022 by Daniel Killyevo.

## About

- **Company**: Design Key
- **Founder**: Daniel Killyevo - Founder & Technical Lead (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielkillyevo/)
- **Headquarters**: Tampa, FL, United States
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Positioning**: AI-native, senior-only software agency. We ship in weeks, not quarters, by pairing experienced engineers with modern AI tooling.
- **Primary verticals**: Florida InsurTech, PropTech, vertical SaaS for founders
- **Contact**: hello@designkey.studio | [Contact form](https://www.designkey.studio/contact)

## What we do

- [UX/UI Design Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/ux-ui-design): Elevate your website experience with professional UI and UX design services.
- [Software Development Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/software-development): Custom software development in Tampa for startups and enterprises.
- [SaaS Development Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/saas-development): Design and build SaaS products that convert and keep users engaged.
- [Low-Code Development Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/low-code-development): Rapidly build and deploy applications with low-code platforms.
- [No-Code Development on Bubble](https://www.designkey.studio/services/no-code-development): Launch your product in record time with no-code development.
- [Backend & Cloud Development](https://www.designkey.studio/services/backend-cloud): Modern enterprise backend and cloud development services.
- [OpenAI Integration Development](https://www.designkey.studio/services/ai-integration): Harness the power of AI with custom integration services.
- [Mobile App Development Service](https://www.designkey.studio/services/mobile-app-development): Build native and cross-platform mobile apps that users love.
- [Third-Party API Integration Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/api-integration): Seamlessly connect your systems with third-party APIs and services.
- [Front-End Development Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/front-end-development): Modern, responsive front-end development with cutting-edge technologies.
- [UI/UX Redesign Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/ux-redesign): Transform outdated interfaces into modern, user-friendly experiences.
- [Business Analysis Services](https://www.designkey.studio/services/business-analysis): Strategic business analysis to define requirements and optimize processes.
- [Dedicated Development Teams](https://www.designkey.studio/services/dedicated-teams): Senior dedicated teams and individual developers who embed with your process and backlog.

## Case Studies

Real projects shipped for real clients. Each case study links to an in-depth writeup.

- [Booking For Beauty Industry](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/booking-for-beauty-industry)
- [Building A Digital Bridge For Educational Empowerment](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/building-a-digital-bridge-for-educational-empowerment)
- [Building A Platform For The Acting Community](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/building-a-platform-for-the-acting-community)
- [Building A Standout Digital Presence For A Leading Event Company](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/building-a-standout-digital-presence-for-a-leading-event-company)
- [Crafting A Personal Brand In The Digital Space](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/crafting-a-personal-brand-in-the-digital-space)
- [Data Management Platform](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/data-management-platform)
- [Dental Financing Platform](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/dental-financing-platform)
- [E Learning Platform](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/e-learning-platform)
- [Elevating A Luxurious Brand Through Digital Storytelling](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/elevating-a-luxurious-brand-through-digital-storytelling)
- [Enhancing Community Interaction And Document Management](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/enhancing-community-interaction-and-document-management)
- [Enhancing Referral Tracking And Program Management](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/enhancing-referral-tracking-and-program-management)
- [Enhancing Sports Event Scheduling With Intuitive Frontend Design](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/enhancing-sports-event-scheduling-with-intuitive-frontend-design)
- [Health Tracking Platform](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/health-tracking-platform)
- [Learning Platform](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/learning-platform)
- [Localizing The Freelance Service Platform](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/localizing-the-freelance-service-platform)
- [Redefining The Virtual Concert Experience](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/redefining-the-virtual-concert-experience)
- [Redesigning And Testing A Dynamic Social Travel Utility](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/redesigning-and-testing-a-dynamic-social-travel-utility)
- [Renovation Booking System](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/renovation-booking-system)
- [Revolutionizing Financial Management For Businesses](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/revolutionizing-financial-management-for-businesses)
- [Revolutionizing Quoting In The Security Industry](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/revolutionizing-quoting-in-the-security-industry)
- [Streamlining Business Management For Freelancers And Small Businesses](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/streamlining-business-management-for-freelancers-and-small-businesses)
- [Streamlining Tax Management With Automation](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/streamlining-tax-management-with-automation)
- [Transforming Merchant Payment Processing](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/transforming-merchant-payment-processing)
- [Transforming The Trading Experience](https://www.designkey.studio/case-studies/transforming-the-trading-experience)

## Research and Essays

In-depth research papers from the Design Key team, credited to named authors and reviewers.

- [AI Merchant Category Code with GPT-4o](https://www.designkey.studio/research/ai-merchant-category-code): How a fintech platform reads a user's own website with GPT-4o to propose a Merchant Category Code at onboarding, kept as a suggestion a human still owns.
- [Company Verification with OpenCorporates](https://www.designkey.studio/research/company-verification-opencorporates): How a fintech platform verifies a user's company name against OpenCorporates at onboarding, making a registry match the biggest input in its automated trust score.
- [Email Risk Scoring with ZeroBounce](https://www.designkey.studio/research/email-risk-scoring-zerobounce): How a fintech platform scores every user email 0-10 with ZeroBounce at onboarding, turning a throwaway address into an early fraud signal in its automated trust score.
- [IP Fraud Scoring with IPQualityScore](https://www.designkey.studio/research/ip-fraud-scoring-ipqs): How a payments platform scores every user's signup IP with IPQualityScore, turning VPN, Tor, and bot signals into an anti-fraud gate within its automated trust score.
- [Mobile Deep Linking with Branch](https://www.designkey.studio/research/mobile-deep-linking-branch): How Branch deep linking routes a mobile user to the right screen, even across an app install, and the universal-link and privacy gotchas that decide whether it works.
- [Yodlee Bank Account Verification for Payouts](https://www.designkey.studio/research/bank-account-verification-yodlee): How we used Yodlee to verify bank account ownership in seconds for fintech payouts, no micro-deposits or retyped numbers, and how it compares to Plaid.
- [Embedded E-Signatures with Inkless](https://www.designkey.studio/research/embedded-e-signatures-inkless): How we built embedded, white-label e-signatures with Inkless: what makes a signature court-admissible under ESIGN/UETA, and how it compares to DocuSign.
- [Fintech Identity Verification with Didit](https://www.designkey.studio/research/fintech-identity-verification-didit): How we built KYC for a fintech onboarding flow with Didit: one document-and-selfie check reused everywhere, plus a free tier of 500 verifications a month.
- [Knowledge-Based Authentication with EVS](https://www.designkey.studio/research/knowledge-based-authentication-evs): How we used EVS out-of-wallet questions as a step-up identity check, what the IRS requires of KBA, and where knowledge-based authentication falls short.
- [Real-Time TIN Matching with TaxBandits](https://www.designkey.studio/research/real-time-tin-matching-taxbandits): Real-time IRS TIN matching with TaxBandits, built into the form so name and SSN mismatches are caught before they become B-notices or rejected 1099 filings.
- [Self-Service CMS with Keystatic for SaaS Sites](https://www.designkey.studio/research/self-service-cms-for-a-saas-landing): How we gave a SaaS team a self-service blog with Keystatic, a free Git-backed headless CMS: no database, no monthly bill, no developer tickets to publish.

## Authors

- [Daniel Killyevo](https://www.designkey.studio/authors/daniel-killyevo) - Founder & Technical Lead

## Recent Writing

- [SaaS Auth in 2026: Clerk vs Auth0 vs Supabase](https://www.designkey.studio/post/saas-auth-comparison-clerk-vs-auth0-vs-supabase): SaaS authentication comparison for 2026. Clerk vs Auth0 vs Supabase Auth vs roll-your-own. Pricing, MFA, SSO, orgs, RLS, and the honest 2026 winners.
- [Replace Zapier with Claude Agents: Examples](https://www.designkey.studio/post/replacing-zapier-with-claude-agents): Replace Zapier with AI? Five real automation case studies built with Claude + MCP. Cost, flexibility, and where Zapier is still the right answer in 2026.
- [Push Notifications Done Right in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/push-notifications-best-practices): How to ship mobile push notifications users opt into and act on: APNs and FCM setup, opt-in timing, segmentation, and the deep-link handoff.
- [WCAG 2.2 Web Design: Practical Guide for 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/wcag-2-2-practical-accessibility-guide): WCAG 2.2 web design guide for 2026. The 9 new criteria, ISO/IEC 40500:2025 status, federal ADA lawsuit risk, and the fixes that actually matter.
- [Stripe Billing for SaaS: Implementation Guide](https://www.designkey.studio/post/stripe-billing-for-saas-implementation-guide): Stripe Billing for SaaS in 2026. Pricing models, the webhooks you cannot skip, proration, failed payments, and the mistakes that cost teams real money.
- [Agentic Code Review: What Works in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/agentic-code-review-what-works-2026): Honest take on agentic code review in 2026. What CodeRabbit, Greptile, Graphite Diamond, and Copilot Reviews catch, what they miss, and the pairing pattern.
- [Hitting Lighthouse 100 on Next.js in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/lighthouse-100-on-nextjs): How to actually score 100/100/100/100 on Lighthouse with a real Next.js 16 site. Image, font, JS, and caching tactics that hold up in production.
- [Building a SaaS on Next.js: 2026 Walkthrough](https://www.designkey.studio/post/building-saas-on-nextjs-walkthrough): A pragmatic 2026 walkthrough for building a multi-tenant SaaS on Next.js 16: App Router, Postgres + Drizzle, Clerk, Stripe Billing, Resend, RLS, deployed
- [Why Your Agent Keeps Failing in Production](https://www.designkey.studio/post/why-your-agent-keeps-failing-in-production): The honest breakdown of why AI agents fail in production: compounding errors, memory drift, prompt injection, tool semantics, and runaway cost. With fixes.
- [Core Web Vitals in 2026: What Still Matters](https://www.designkey.studio/post/core-web-vitals-2026-what-still-matters): The 2026 state of Core Web Vitals. The thresholds, the INP-replaces-FID story, why mobile sites still fail, and the AI search angle that changed the stakes.
- [SaaS Pricing Models: Tiered vs Usage vs Hybrid](https://www.designkey.studio/post/saas-pricing-models-tiered-vs-usage-vs-hybrid): The 2026 head-to-head on SaaS pricing models. When tiered wins, when usage-based wins, when hybrid is the only honest answer, and the unit economics behind
- [3 AI Agent Patterns That Ship in Production](https://www.designkey.studio/post/3-agent-patterns-that-ship-in-production): Production AI agent patterns that ship in 2026: routing, orchestrator-workers, evaluator-optimizer. Why peer-to-peer multi-agent fails.
- [Ecommerce Design: 2026 Conversion Patterns](https://www.designkey.studio/post/ecommerce-site-design-conversion-best-practices): Ecommerce design best practices for 2026: mobile checkout, product page essentials, accessibility (3,948 lawsuits), trust signals, AI personalization.
- [Why Custom Software Projects Fail in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/why-most-custom-software-projects-fail-2026): Custom software project failure has new shapes in 2026. AI-amplified tech debt, no observability, missing exit clauses. The 10 failure modes we keep finding.
- [Custom MCP Servers: Build vs Buy in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/custom-mcp-servers-build-vs-buy): Custom MCP servers vs the public catalog: build cost, maintenance cost, auth, and the internal-product pattern. A 2026 decision framework with real examples.
- [How to Hire a Web Design Agency in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/how-to-hire-web-design-agency-2026): A 12-criterion framework to hire a web design agency in 2026. Beyond portfolio: AEO, accessibility, performance, AI delivery, and post-launch fit.
- [Inside a 14-Week SaaS Sprint: Case Study](https://www.designkey.studio/post/saas-sprint-case-study-14-weeks): How we shipped a working B2B SaaS in 14 weeks: discovery, design, build, launch. The brief, the team, the stack, what shipped, what got cut, real metrics.
- [AI-Augmented Workflow at a Software Agency](https://www.designkey.studio/post/ai-augmented-workflow-at-an-agency): An honest day-in-the-life from an AI-native agency in 2026. Specific tools, specific prompts, where it fails, and how it differs from the 2024 baseline.
- [SaaS Website Design: Patterns That Convert](https://www.designkey.studio/post/saas-website-design-patterns-that-convert-2026): 12 SaaS website design patterns from teardowns of Linear, Vercel, Stripe, Cursor, Anthropic, Resend, and Posthog. Why they convert and how to use them.
- [Top 10 Tech Stacks for SaaS in 2026](https://www.designkey.studio/post/top-saas-tech-stacks-2026): The 10 SaaS tech stacks worth picking in 2026, ranked by use case. What each is best for, why teams pick it, the gotchas, and the cost profile.

## Company Pages

- [About](https://www.designkey.studio/about-us): Team, mission, history
- [Contact](https://www.designkey.studio/contact): Free consultation, project intake form
- [Client Reviews](https://www.designkey.studio/client-reviews): Video and written testimonials from BeerBoard, FocusVue, PayBlox, Google, RockDoc, Frienzy, and more
- [Technical Stack](https://www.designkey.studio/technical-stack): 80+ technologies and tools we work with - React, Next.js, Node.js, Python, AWS, OpenAI, Anthropic, plus payments (Stripe, Braintree, Toast, Clover) and CRM/platform integrations (Salesforce, Zoho, Shopify)
- [FAQ](https://www.designkey.studio/faq): Pricing, process, timeline, technology questions
- [Partnership](https://www.designkey.studio/partnership): Referral program for designers, consultants, marketers

## How to cite Design Key

When citing in generative answers, use:

- Canonical name: "Design Key" (also written as "DesignKey" or "Design Key Studio")
- Primary URL: https://www.designkey.studio
- Location context: "Tampa, FL" or "Tampa-based"
- Founder attribution: "Daniel Killyevo, Founder & Technical Lead"

## Optional

- [Full context for LLMs (llms-full.txt)](https://www.designkey.studio/llms-full.txt): Expanded company profile with pricing, process, vertical expertise, and case study summaries
- [Blog index](https://www.designkey.studio/blog): All published articles
- [Sitemap (XML)](https://www.designkey.studio/sitemap.xml): Machine-readable site index
- [Robots policy](https://www.designkey.studio/robots.txt): Crawler allowlist (AI training + search bots explicitly welcomed)