Listing Llama

My team was tasked with building a tech startup from the ground up. They gave us the concept: a realtor to homeowner match-and-chat application. We defined and executed the branding, marketing, product creation, and rollout strategy.

My Role

I was responsible for the user experience and design of the product, choosing the MVP feature set, deciding how the app handled pricing, and communicating technical requirements to the development team. I was also in charge of the marketing website's user experience.

The Challenge

Selecting an agent can be haphazard. Usually the agent is a friend-of-a-friend, or the first one that homeowners stumble across. Rarely are homeowners doing the proper research on who will best represent them. Sometimes luck is on their side, but often times the match is not ideal and it ends up being costly. It would better serve both the agent and the homeowner if there was a simple way to find the best candidate for the job.

The Solution

We created an app where homeowners and agents can find their perfect matches. They start by posting profiles — the homeowner makes a property profile, and the agent makes a personal profile. Once the homeowner makes their property profile, realtors can search for and make an offer to list the home. The realtor has a profile highlighting his or her strengths, specialties, and rates — so the homeowner can make an informed choice and get the best deal.

So What Is It?

Listing Llama is fully responsive progressive web application (PWA) built with Vue.js. The app has a simple sign-up flow accessed via the marketing website, and then directs to one of two portals, either the homeowner portal or the agent portal. The two portals communicate via a chat interface, in which the users can agree on a deal and meet in the real world to sell the home.

Delivering a Lean Product

With this being a startup, I worked with the project manager to reinforce the idea of an MVP launch. We would choose to add incremental improvements after the product was successfully validated in the market. I was in charge of identifying which features to keep and which to cut. I worked with the development team to get a sense of estimated time and level of effort for each task, and kept business goals in mind as I shaped the feature set.

Brainstorming

We started out with a team brainstorm session, where we sticky-noted the wall with the main features of the seller’s side of the app. After that, we followed with identifying the agent’s side of the app.

Content Mapping

After the brainstorm, I flushed out the details by creating content maps. Here I was able to identify the relationships between all of the information, and create two distinct sides of the app.

The purple boxes represent information that is housed on the opposite portal.

How It Works

The process begins on the homeowner side of the app. After signing up, the homeowner is led to a dashboard where they are prompted to add a property. This creates a property profile and adds this property to the database.

Now the homeowner waits for an agent to post a listing offer.

The Agent Side of the App

An agent must first create a profile about themselves when they sign up.

Making a Listing Offer

Once the agent profile is set up, the agent can browse available properties and make a listing offer on one that interests them.

Accepting an Offer

The homeowner can now review their listing offers and accept one. From here, they have the ability to message back and forth to talk details and schedule a meetup in person.

Style Guide

The branding and graphic design was done by a colleague, but I still needed to create a digital style guide to demonstrate how these design elements would be incorporated into the app. The development team utilized this style guide during the front-end build.

Bringing it All Together

Next, I created high-fidelity mockups in order to give the development team clear direction. Since we would not have a dedicated front-end developer on the project, the styling had to be well-documented so that any person could jump on and style the app appropriately.

The Final Product

Signup

Seller Side of the App

Agent Side of the App