Built the research and design foundation for an influencer-marketing platform from zero data — and found the user everyone else had missed.
WOBB (Ravgin) · India · UX/UI Designer · 2021 · First product role
WOBB was an early-stage influencer-marketing startup with a basic site, no analytics, no design files, and no market data, expanding into India during Covid. In a 6-month window I designed the research and design foundation for its first real MVP (web + app). The turning point was discovering an overlooked user group — the Influencer Managers doing 90% of campaign work manually — and redesigning the product around relieving them.
WHAT I PERSONALLY OWNED
On a small startup team (CEO, product, founding development team), I owned the design foundation:
As the first designer, I also set up the basics that didn't exist — a design library and clearer design–dev workflows.
The Challenge
WOBB had a vision and almost nothing else: a budding product team, a basic bug-ridden website, and 90% of campaign operations executed manually — a heavy cognitive load on the influencer managers (IMs) who held it all together. Expanding into the Indian influencer market in 2020–21 meant scarce market data, vague customer data, and little feedback to validate against. The job wasn't to polish an existing product — it was to build a credible first foundation, fast, in a near-total information vacuum.
THE APPROACH: A FRAMEWORK TO CREATE RIGOUR WHERE THERE WAS NO DATA
With no analytics to lean on, I structured the entire project around the DECIDE framework so decisions followed a defensible process rather than gut feel:
THE UNCONVENTIONAL RESEARCH: TRIANGULATING THREE VOICES
Because I had no usage data, I triangulated insight from three sources and treated their overlap as my evidence base:
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Voice of Business — sessions with the CEO and internal teams to understand needs and the revenue model (WOBB takes a 20% share of campaign payments, so smoother completion = more revenue).
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Voice of Market — competitive analysis to map the landscape in the absence of market data.
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Voice of Customer — sessions with influencer managers and influencers, which surfaced the key realisation: the user pool was broader than "brands + influencers" — the internal IMs were a critical, overlooked user group.
Voice of Business: Understanding Business needs
Voice of Market: Competitive Analysis
THE INSIGHT THAT REFRAMED THE PRODUCT
The real user wasn't only the brand or the influencer — it was the Influencer Manager in the middle.
Embedding with the team surfaced a stakeholder group the product had ignored: internal mediators running campaigns by hand. That reframed the whole MVP.
Why design for the hidden stakeholder first? The fastest way to reduce errors and delays wasn't a flashier brand or influencer experience — it was relieving the Influencer Managers and letting marketers and creators self-serve, with managers providing analytics and guidance instead of doing every step manually. Solving for the overlooked user in the middle unblocked everyone else.
" Who am I building this for?"
Users pool in Influencer marketing platform
Target Users - Looking to collaborate with brands
Target Users - Marketers requirement
PERSONAS
User Persona: looking to collaborate with brands
User Persona: Hiring influencers to promote campaign
Internal mediators
CURRENT MANAGEMENT
Our initial objective became evident during our discussions with the Wobb influencer managers: to enhance the ease and organization in the lives of IMs. This entailed streamlining the platform to such an extent that the marketers and creators could independently accomplish tasks, relying on timely analytics and guidance furnished by IMs, rather than having to undertake the entire process themselves.
Current Influencer management journey - finalizing requirement to payment completion
From insight to MVP
I framed solutions as How-Might-We statements from the research and personas, then prioritised with a WOW/HOW/NOW/POW matrix to define a realistic MVP rather than a wish list. Two decisions shaped the build:
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1. Device-split platform: Research showed collaborators work primarily on mobile while marketers prefer desktop/tablet — so the mobile app handles campaign discovery through milestone submission, and the web platform handles posting, hiring, and payments.​
WOW/HOW/NOW/POW MATRIX
Rearranged solutions from ideation sessions
USER TASK PRIORITIZATION
User Tasks: Collaborators
User Tasks: Marketers
ADLIB DEFINING THE SCOPE FOR MVP
Adlib For Collaborators
Adlib For Marketers
2. IA tied to the business model: WOBB earns a share of each campaign payment, so smooth navigation and a clearer landing page weren't just UX niceties — they were directly tied to lead generation and revenue.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Information Architecture - collaborator & Marketers
Designing the solution
The MVP included a revamped, SEO-aware landing page answering the questions new users actually ask (what is it, who's it for, can we trust it, can we try it fast), the device-split web and app experiences, and AI-assisted matching with a transparent "Match Score" so marketers could see the reasoning behind recommended influencers.
DESIGN GUIDE FOR THE BRAND
Visual Style
Acquiring customers
Creative/professional/community
Style guide library
Solutions
LANDING PAGE:
The landing page caters to both marketers and creators, guiding them to take direct action and experience the platform. It highlights how Wobb addresses the unique needs of both parties, providing a personalized experience. Additionally, the design goal includes optimizing the landing page for SEO.
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Users seek prompt answers to questions like:
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What does Wobb offer?
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Who is it for?
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How is it different (Hook)?
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Can we trust it?
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Can we try it easily and quickly?
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Is there someone we could connect with?
Wobb landing page -Scroll to view full page
DEDICATED PLATFORM FOR DEDICATED USERS (for MVP):
Different stages of campaign management
Design outcomes
Designing for AI to enhance user experience
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Our solution focused on:
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Intelligent Personalization & Efficiency: We automated matching using AI to analyze comprehensive data, generating highly relevant connections and drastically cutting discovery time.
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Transparent Match Rationale: Marketers see a clear "Match Score" with the requirements mentioned during the hiring for informed decisions. Users gain immediate, actionable insights into the AI's reasoning.
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Proactive & Personalized Alerts: Collaborators receive prompt notifications for highly relevant campaigns, complete with match explanations, ensuring no missed opportunities.
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Empowering Performance Metrics: Collaborators view their "Hiring Success Rate" for transparent feedback, while all users benefit from universal platform metrics (e.g., average response time) fostering efficiency and trust.
TESTING MULTIPLE INTERVENTION
I validated the riskiest flows with small-n testing: an A/B test on the post-campaign form grounded in a clear hypothesis (the Law of Closure — fewer elements, clearer comprehension), where 4 of 5 Influencer Managers preferred the simplified Design B; and usability testing on milestone approval, where 3 of 5 completed activation smoothly.
Honest scale: these were directional tests with 5 users, not statistically powered studies.
POSTING CAMPAIGNS
Design A
Design B
MILESTONE APPROVAL
Brands reviewing influencers for respective campaigns
OUTCOME
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Doubled Influencer Database: Witnessed a remarkable 50% growth in our influencer database during 2022 and 2023.
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Enhanced Manager Efficiency: Successfully decreased the workload of Influencer Managers by 40%, streamlining operations.
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Revitalized Platform Interface: Achieved a more streamlined and modern interface, enhancing user engagement.
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Simplified User Onboarding: Implemented an intuitive and comprehensive onboarding process, facilitating a smoother journey for marketers on the platform.
What made this work?
The win was method over data: using DECIDE and the three-voices triangulation meant I could make defensible product decisions in an environment with no analytics, and the IM insight reframed the entire problem around an overlooked user group. As my first end-to-end project, the honest lesson was scope — I tried to solve the whole platform at once. Next time I'd define success metrics and a tighter MVP boundary up front, so impact is measurable from day one rather than reconstructed later — which is exactly the discipline I brought to later work like the SIXT mileage redesign.