ConGenius UX Design
June 2022 - Now | 3 Years | Full - Time
At ConGenius, a SaaS company developing construction estimating software, I’ve played a key role in shaping the product from the ground up. The platform is designed to support small- to mid-sized contractors by streamlining estimating workflows, enabling repeatability, and integrating essential business functions into a single tool. Working in a fast-paced environment, I’ve contributed across multiple areas: product design, marketing, and brand development.
As their first and only designer, my role evolved from UX to include systems thinking, a lot of UI design, marketing, and branding; adapting to support product and business needs across stages.
1) COLLABORATING ON PRODUCT DESIGN WITH LEADERSHIP
I started working at the ideation stages of the product with very little defined from a scope and roadmap standpoint. I worked with the CEO and Engineering Lead to scope down the product and create mockups to help ideation as well as development. This led to several rounds of iterations and improvements.
Created mockups showcasing several workflows, interdependencies, reusable components with variants, etc
Researched competitive product offerings, their workflows, and challenges to inform scoping and ideation.
Closely collaborated with development to align on component libraries for ease of build and feasibility.
2) LEAD ON CREATING AND MANAGING THE MARKETING WEBSITE
I was asked to lead building a new marketing site on Framer after ConGenius went through 2 websites which required developer involvement to make major changes slowing things down.
Built a marketing website with best information architecture practices, created custom reusable components for long term efficiency.
Improved upon the website adding micro interactions, created custom graphics, video mockups for website.
3) SUPPORTING AND LEADING MARKETING INITIATIVES
To support ConGenius’s growth efforts, I stepped into a hybrid marketing/design role, exploring digital marketing tools and helping shape brand identity.
Set up and managed Meta ad campaigns, strategized creative approaches, and designed 41 ad creatives, resulting in ~2,700 conversions.
Led a refresh of the brand’s visual identity including defining a more cohesive color system, typography, and design assets.
Designed infographics and marketing collateral used across various digital touch points.
Supported brand awareness campaigns by producing podcast assets, including video clips, thumbnails, and promotional materials.
Read more in detail below!
An evolving role at a fast paced start-up
Designing the Core Product
At the beginning stages, there were quite a few unknowns ranging from the feature set to the more specifics around workflows and core functionality.
I worked initially towards researching competitive software offerings, understand our leadership’s goals and then wireframe and eventually prototype the core product features.
I worked closely with the CEO who’s prior experience in construction is the core rationale behind ConGenius as a product and I worked with engineering team to balance feasibility and desired functionality. During this process, we went through several rounds of ideation, major conceptual shifts while we narrowed down scope.
I worked with a combination of some predefined design libraries and a lot of custom design work to help bring the vision to life in mockups for an MVP.
In hind sight, due to a lack of strong design system in place, we suffered from some inconsistencies and inefficiencies when it came to design hand off and development, duplicated work efforts,
Some examples of initial ideations and mockups from MVP days.What collaboration looks like at ConGenius
Standup Meetings
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One On Ones
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Design Collaborations
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Cross Department Meetings
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Design Reviews
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Talks at Ping Pong table
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Team Lunches
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Slack Texts and Huddles
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Standup Meetings • One On Ones • Design Collaborations • Cross Department Meetings • Design Reviews • Talks at Ping Pong table • Team Lunches • Slack Texts and Huddles •
Improving Product and Marketing
After improving on the stability of the MVP, we had rapidly shifted towards working on a more polished platform as a 1.0 product which brought major upgrades to the user experience as we simplified a lot of workflows, improved the estimating experience from being extremely structured to being freeform based on user’s desire of flexibility. Addition of a global catalog as well as prebuilt assemblies was part of this initiative. During this time I worked closely with development as we navigated the complexities like how data synchronizing works across tenants in different contexts. We added various quality of life improvements as well as feasible feature additions based on user requests. These improvements streamlined a multi-hour estimating process by introducing component-based workflows that reduced manual data entry and improved consistency.
My role during this phase was working alongside the CEO to mock up the changing workflows, updated visual design styling and come up with mobile friendly designs. Alongside these responsibilities, I was also tasked to create a new website for ConGenius using my UX Design skills to effectively convey our product to potential users. The goal was to create a website which is able to grow as the product grows. I built the website on Framer with the help from rest of the team for content and for feedback on certain aspects.
Some visuals showcasing the improvements and the new marketing site.Some visuals from the never ending iterations and improvements
Push for Advertising and Growth
With my prior experience as a graphic designer, ConGenius has been leveraging my skills to improve our overall visual presentation whether it be from a branding and colors standpoint or designing graphics for social platforms to share our growth and highlight new feature launches.
This led to me being asked to dive into digital marketing to some extent. I ended up loving the field and took lead in setting coming up with several winning ad creatives through testing and iterations resulting in ~2,700 conversions at averaging lower cost per signup than anticipated. I incorporated adding conversion tracking across channels for signup working with google tag manager as well as tracking key events on Google Analytics.
I also created infographics, social media content, assisted podcast production and editing and overall provided polish to the ConGenius brand experience.
Graphics showing a variety of creative work I did for growth
Graphics showing some infographics I made for customer support Ad creatives that entertains and hook audiences convert.
Learning Moments
When I joined ConGenius, I was initially hesitant to embrace unfamiliar ways of working, but I quickly realized that being adaptable is essential to growing as a designer. I learned firsthand how difficult it is to take an idea from concept to product, especially within the constraints of a startup. Over time, I saw the kinds of scrappy, resourceful decisions early-stage teams need to make to keep moving forward. This experience has taught me to be a self-starter, stay curious, and embrace new skills in order to keep evolving professionally.
What’s next?
Gradual improvements with modular components
ConGenius now wants to now gradually but carefully plan out the future iterations to balance feasibility, user needs, timelines and also work on creating modular components as they go to help speed design and dev time. I will continue to support this goal through collaboration with leadership and engineering and pushing for initial stages of a design system being established.
Steady growth
As part of day to day, I have been playing a key role in keeping the ConGenius brand outlook be professional through continued research and creation of on brand ad creatives, keeping up with design trends and advocating for design improvements to product and marketing.
