FingerPin · Two-sided marketplace · Product design exercise

Helping Pros Proactively Find and Win More Jobs

FingerPin earns when home-service Pros buy leads. But new Pros have no reputation, so the marketplace can't match them with enough work to justify what they're paying, and they leave before they ever become profitable.

I designed Opportunities: a way for Pros to go find jobs themselves, priced so the platform only earns when a homeowner actually engages.

FingerPin · Two-sided marketplace · Product design exercise

Helping Pros Proactively Find and Win More Jobs

I designed Opportunities: a way for Pros to go find jobs themselves, priced so the platform only earns when a homeowner actually engages.

FingerPin · Two-sided marketplace · Product design exercise

Helping Pros Proactively Find and Win More Jobs

Challenge

FingerPin's model is lead generation: Pros commit to a number of matched customer leads per month and pay for them. The model works beautifully for an established Pro with reviews and a track record. It fails, predictably, for everyone on day one.

The brief described this as two separate complaints — new Pros don't get enough matches, and new Pros set their budgets too low. They're not separate. They're the same loop, feeding itself:

New Pro joins,sets a low budget

→

Too few matches to stay busy

→

Few completed jobs, no reviews

→

Ranked lower by the matcher

→

Pro churns
before profit

FingerPin never collects the revenue it acquired the Pro for

Problem

New Pros can't get matched, so they can't build reputation, so they can't get matched. FingerPin loses the spend before it starts.

Problem

New Pros can't get matched, so they can't build reputation, so they can't get matched. FingerPin loses the spend before it starts.

Insight

Pros aren't waiting to be picked — they're triaging. All five interviews described the same filter, in the same order: how far, what kind of work, how fresh. Nobody asked for more leads. They asked for fewer, better ones, sooner.

Insight

Design goal

Maximize the number of jobs that Pros close via Opportunities by helping them find relevant jobs quickly and start conversations with confidence.

Design goal

Maximize the number of jobs that Pros close via Opportunities by helping them find relevant jobs quickly and start conversations with confidence.

The hard part

FingerPin bills the Pro when the homeowner responds — including when the response is "no." That conflict drove most of my decisions, and one of them cost the business revenue on purpose.

The hard part

FingerPin bills the Pro when the homeowner responds — including when the response is "no." That conflict drove most of my decisions, and one of them cost the business revenue on purpose.

Understand the Pros

Key insights from user interviews shaped the experience.

Carmen
Painter (New)

“I just wait around.”

• Checks distance first.

• Avoids vague or small jobs.

• Needs clear details and photos to feel confident.

Victor
Electrician

“The jobs don’t always make sense for me.”

• Filters by distance and job type.

• Relies on clear descriptions.

• Prefers fresh, recently posted jobs.

Aisha
Contractor

“Homeowners don’t always get back to me.”

• Only ~25–30% of leads respond.

• Looks for serious homeowners (details, timeline, photos).

• Responding late means losing jobs.

Key Takeaways

✓ Relevance first: distance, job type

✓ Clarity builds confidence

✓ Fresh jobs win attention

✓ Make it easy to act fast

Exploring the experience

A simplified, trustworthy, and conversion-focused marketplace experience for shoppers and business owners.

For Shoppers

Easier discovery, better search, and a more relevant experience rooted in values.

For Business Owners

A clear onboarding experience, transparent plans, and tools to help businesses grow and get discovered.

Outcomes

Impact since the redesign and ongoing improvements.

↑0X

Increase in business signups

↑0X

Increase in business signups

↑0%

Increase in engaged sessions

↑0%

Increase in engaged sessions

↑0%

Increase in search usage

↑0%

Increase in search usage

Stronger trust and satisfaction

from users and business owners

Marketplace transactions (Buy on One Bison) are in development and planned to launch after the first vendor cohort and buyer protection program are in place.

Looking Ahead

With a strong foundation in place, we're building the next wave of features.

Reviews

Building trust with verified reviews and ratings.

AI Search

Natural language search to discover faster.

Personalised Feed

A tailored experience based on interests and activity.

Local Discovery

Find value-aligned businesses in your area.

Services Directory

Dedicated experience for service-based businesses.

Seller Tools

Insights and tools to help businesses succeed.

My Role

I owned the end-to-end design process for key shopper and seller experiences.

• Led UX/UI design from research to high-fidelity across web and mobile.

• Designed information architecture, user flows, and responsive interfaces.

• Built and maintained a scalable design system.

• Collaborated closely with product, engineering, data, and legal.

THE TRANSACTION LIFECYCLE

The marketplace isn't one screen — it's a chain, and trust has to survive every link. I designed each step to answer the question a first-time buyer is actually asking at that moment.

CART

Who am I buying from?

Seller named above the line items, with a plain statement that the order ships directly from them.

CHECKOUT

Is this safe, and what's the real total?

Guest checkout with an account-found prompt, itemized costs, Stripe and buyer protection under the button.

CONFIRM

Did it work, and what now?

Order number, ship-from seller, and a route into order history so the purchase creates an account relationship.

POST-PURCHASE

Where is it, and who helps if it's wrong?

Delivery stepper, tracking, confirm-delivery, and an explicit “Report a problem” path — the backbone of buyer protection.

DESIGNING FOR WHAT COMES NEXT

AI features are probabilistic, and probabilistic systems need different UX than deterministic ones — confidence signals, graceful failure, and human override. On a platform whose differentiator is human verification, that principle isn't optional. Three opportunities I scoped for the roadmap:

AI-assisted product listing

The heaviest part of seller onboarding is entering products. A seller pastes their store URL; the system drafts titles, descriptions, categories, and value tags as editable pre-filled fields.

Trust rule: AI reduces typing, never makes claims on the seller's behalf. Nothing goes live unreviewed.

Values-aware discovery

“Something for my dad who hunts, from a veteran-owned business” is intent, not a query string. Results return with stated reasons — Veteran-owned · American-made · matches “hunting gear.”

Trust rule: explainability is the product promise. Filters stay visible and always override.

Post-purchase assist

A first-response layer for order questions, scoped to status only, with confidence visible in the design and human escalation one tap away.

Trust rule: anything involving money, refunds, or a dispute hands off to a person.

What I'd do differently

I designed the funnel before I could measure it

No analytics existed on the signup flow when I started. I mapped failures qualitatively with the founder and QA, but I should have pushed for basic event tracking in week one — it would have made every prioritization argument evidence-based instead of persuasive.

I under-designed the multi-seller cart

My first checkout assumed one seller per order because that's the common case today. It won't be for long, and retrofitting split shipping, payouts, and order status is harder than designing for it up front. I designed for the present when I should have designed for the model.

I'd talk to sellers earlier

The onboarding flow is grounded in the founder's conversations and competitive patterns, not my own interviews. Five conversations with already-listed businesses would have told me which fields they actually stumble on — and I suspect fulfillment and shipping, the two I spent longest structuring, are where I'd have been wrong.

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