Four projects from two companies, each told through the decisions behind it and what they cost.
One design system across three products
Leadership wanted a new look, starting with students and moving to tutors later. Two things made it hard: students, tutors and internal software shared one set of components, and design's Figma file didn't match the code, so changes caused issues and rounds of revisions. We shipped minimal changes first, and I led a rebuild of the system on themes. Design-related tickets raised after UAT dropped by about 80%.
Thirteen scenarios down to two states
The PM asked me to write copy for an edge case the schedule widget didn't cover, which meant adding one more state. When I audited the widget, I found thirteen scenarios a member could be in, some showing three calls to action at once. So instead of adding another state, I questioned whether the widget needed that many at all. Over two releases, thirteen scenarios came down to four states, then two.
The conversion half of Youper's revenue gap
Youper made about $1.95 per download, well below what it cost to serve each user, and half the people who reached the account screen left before finishing it. Over twelve months and thirteen releases, we rebuilt onboarding and the paywalls, testing one belief at a time. Revenue per download rose to about $4.70, a 141% increase, against a target of more than 300%.
The acquisition half of Youper's revenue gap
Youper had almost no five-star ratings. The CPO asked for a store prompt, and I proposed using the same prompt to ask unhappy users what was wrong. Five-star ratings went from two in February to 166 in total by the end of May. The 254 written answers from the first three months became one of the signals behind the team's next project.