Orchestrating
End-to-End Design

West Tenth connected buyers and sellers, similar to Etsy. When I joined as one of the early hires, the mobile app had been in the market for less than a year. The problem was immediately clear: retention was low, new buyer onboarding didn't exist, and seller onboarding was confusing.

As Director of Product and Design, I owned both the design direction and the product roadmap. My first priority was understanding why the app wasn't working and redesigning the experience to fix it. That meant discovering what buyers and sellers actually needed and identifying where they were getting stuck.

I managed two designers, directed engineering work, and coordinated with marketing and customer support to ensure alignment on problems and solutions.

I started with research. I conducted interviews with both buyers and sellers — one conversation after another. In the first month alone, I did about 40 interviews. I partnered with our customer support team to understand what questions people were asking and what issues they ran into. I also looked at our analytics data from Mixpanel to see where people were dropping off in the flow.

Mapping, Prototyping & Testing

With all that information, I mapped out the user flows — how buyers and sellers actually moved through the app. This helped me and the two designers I was working with see all the places where the experience could be better. We explored different solutions, created wireframes, and built prototypes. We tested these ideas with real users and got feedback. Then we went back and made the designs better based on what we learned.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Throughout this whole process, I stayed hands-on. I worked closely with our engineering team to make sure what I was designing was possible to build. I met regularly with marketing to understand what would help drive growth. I made sure the designers I was leading felt supported and knew why we were making the choices we were making.

Building the Notification System

One thing that really mattered was building the notification system from scratch. We designed it with one goal in mind: keeping users coming back. Instead of overwhelming them with too many messages at once, we prioritized what actually mattered — order updates, payment confirmations, and personalized thank-you notes. These notifications were stored in a dedicated Messages section so users could easily find them. The approach was simple but effective: send them valuable information that helps them understand what's happening on the platform, and they'll stay engaged. This focus on relevant, timely notifications made a real difference in how people used the app.

Transformed the User Experience

We systematically rebuilt the critical parts of the app based on what users actually needed:

• Redesigned onboarding for both buyers and sellers
• Improved search and filtering
• Added a favorites feature
• Created useful notifications
• Launched Quick Shop for faster purchases
• Reimagined homepage discovery so buyers could find products they genuinely wanted

Every change came directly from user research and continuous feedback.

Delivered Significant Business Growth

The results validated the approach:

• Buyer retention jumped 40% within three months
• New buyer sign-ups doubled
• Store views converting to order requests doubled year-over-year
• Overall sales grew 130% year-on-year

These numbers proved that staying connected to user needs moves both the experience and the business forward.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration Drives Results

Great design doesn't happen in isolation — it comes from continuous iteration with your team and users, and from working hand-in-hand with engineers instead of just handing off designs. As both designer and product manager, I learned that clear goals, psychological safety for sharing ideas, and transparent communication were what enabled the team to move quickly and deliver real improvements. At a resource-constrained startup, that kind of teamwork is everything.

The Full Design Process, End to End

None of this was a single straight line. It was four phases — Discovery, Design, Build, and Measure & Results — cycling back into Design as each bi-weekly release surfaced new evidence from Mixpanel and user feedback. That loop, not a one-time launch, is what let the team keep improving the experience for ten straight months.