The challenge:
There was no central, trusted way to discover and support Black-owned businesses—especially those outside of high-profile brands. The opportunity was to build a platform that felt community-driven, mobile-first, and genuinely designed with Black entrepreneurs in mind—not as an afterthought.
Hypothesis
Creating an innovative app connecting black businesses to each other and providing resources would foster a relationship with the celebrity client and those seeking access to his business knowledge. Using ML to surface curated Black-owned brands, we could turn discovery into connection. Aligning with the voice of the businesses would encourage usage and validate new and relevant features.
Constraints
This app needed to be designed and deployed within 3 months to make the clients launch schedule. By working hand in hand with dev, I led an agile approach that went from sketch, to client, to hi-fi, to dev and deployment. The pace was quick and exciting.
Squad: Elevate Your Hustle
Wire: Flow involved suggestion engines, categorization, messaging, reviews and complex add business flows
Outcome & Impact (from testing)
App launched from scratch with 5-star user ratings and strong early traction
AI-powered interest matching helped boost business follows by an estimated 2× in testing groups
Hundreds of Black-owned businesses listed at launch, with real user reviews and engagement
My Role
Lead Design: Interaction, UX Flow, Feature delivery,
Visual Identity/Desin Sysem
Built design system using created and licensed illustrations, stylized icons and some creatd, tokens and interactions
Groups flow allowed for joining, creating rooms and resource uploads and downloads
Future Features
Inside of the app was an intake form where users could suggest new features that were relevant to their business growth and scalability. Groups and live meets (scheduling and recording) were added to the roadmap and feature tested.
Final flow: Guest flow allowed users to engage without full commitment: Home -> Onboarding -> Home, profile -> future groups flow
