Context
Looplist was social-first shopping: a machine-learning recommendation engine inside a visual mobile app where you find, collect, share and buy things, and see what’s nearby. The CEO and COO had the idea and the model. There was no design function, no interface, and nothing an investor or an engineer could build against yet.
I reported to the CEO and managed three senior contract designers, 2016 to 2018, on native mobile and web.
Contribution
Contractors, not hires. Three senior designers on retainer, because runway was finite and the work was front-loaded. When the concept phase ended the team shrank on purpose.
Product-wise, feed over search. Recommendation quality was the company’s whole bet, so the first screen had to show the model working. Search was one tap away but never the front door. The cost was cold start for new users, and onboarding had to carry that.
I pitched the design vision and product strategy to seed and angel investors myself, built the deck and presented it live. That’s the part of this role that wasn’t design.
Outcome
Shipped to public launch on native mobile and web, with a design function built from nothing to get it there. The first of my ten-plus first-designer gigs.
