'Unlocking User Control: How This Product Manager Simplified a Complex 3-Sided Marketplace'

OK. Just give me a second. Um, sure,

Sure, OK, so, um, When we're talking about the most complex user experience model, um, When you say model, do you, I mean,

Yep, OK, great. Yeah, so, um, uh. A couple of years ago, about 5 years ago, uh, I worked for a startup within the vacation rental management space. Um, so what we were doing, the problem we are focused on is to automate all of the aspects of vacation rental management for people who were renting out their homes for short-term rental. So, um, Our product automated the, the marketing of it, posting it on VRVO, Airbnb, and other marketing platforms. We, um, input all the reservations into a centralized system, handled all the guest management. We also, it was a three-sided marketplace was what we were working with, so, um, we had independent contractors on the ground that would go in and do things like the cleanings in order to flip the reservations. And then, uh, we had, you know, the owners, so the guests, the independent contractors that we called Pillow pros, and the owners were three sides of the marketplace. So the owners were our ultimate customer, um, in that, you know, we were managing their, their asset, their vacation rental for them. And so, um, one of the aspects that we discovered when we did research into the owners and what they wanted from our product was they wanted, uh, full visibility. And control About what happened with their property, cause in a lot of instances, this is a huge investment for them. But they didn't want to have to do anything. So the goal is to automate. So do all the things,

me, yeah, yeah, exactly. You can see, you can see how it makes sense. Like they, they wanted automation, so they didn't have to do anything, but if anything did break down, they wanted to be, they want full visibility so they could watch to make sure everything was working as expected, and then if something did break down, they wanted the ability to impact and control. So, um. So, the complexity came in, uh, simplifying the owner's experience, because, uh, we were not only taking in data from multiple different, uh, listing platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, um, but then when we're all consolidating all of that data in one place, um, and displaying it to the owner in a simple user interface that, um, It was easy for them to understand. So, the, the most complex aspect of that, um, you know, we had different, uh, aspects of the, the interface, where they were able to see, for example, a calendar where they are able to block off days and see all the reservations. They were able to see all the communications that went out with guests, uh, and in any sort of support inquiries or operational issues, how they were handled, when they were resolved in, um, you know, in the timeline. And then we also had a huge financial piece of the dashboard where uh the owner was able to see, you know, every reservation, the amount that was billed, and, um, the fees that were taken, uh, and, you know, like, it's settled into a finalized, like, monthly report, um, that was essentially the P&L for their property that month. So, Um, the complexity came into it because, uh, you know, whenever you're doing something financial, I would say the gold standard is Excel, and most of the time people, um, when you ask them, You know, what they want it to look like or how they want it to work, they say, like, just make it work at like Excel. Um, so we had sort of a good framework to work from, but we had to pull in all of the different, um, Pieces from the different platforms. Into one interface, however, the platforms, there was no like, uh, consistency. In how, how each of them build. So they each handled sort of different fees and processing differently, in addition to, uh, you know, the startup that I work for, Pillow, the way that we processed and, and dealt with different fees. So, um, what we did in order to normalize the interaction is we had to choose, uh, you know, a couple of things in order to make the interface simpler. Um, for the customer, so that they could kind of understand the data from looking at it at first glance, and then as a, a sort of follow-on after we launched that new interface, we gave the, the user the ability to click into as much detail as possible so they could go layers deep if they did have questions in order to understand, uh, the billing process and how their property was performing. Um, and then, you know, further on down the roadmap was, um, we added the ability, they could actually compare and contrast. Um, how their property was doing in comparison to similar properties that were like theirs on the platform, so they could give an under or get an understanding of, um, Uh, you know, in comparison to, to similar properties, how their, yeah, how their property was performing, and then we were, um, further out of the roadmap that we actually didn't get a chance to implement was to make recommendations on how they could improve in order to increase their, uh, profits for that property.

Uh, it was in, it was taking in the data from the, the different platforms, uh, in the different format associated with each of how they managed and build for reservations and normalizing the data schema so that it, um, was the same across every reservation. Uh, and then, you know, and then the user could easily understand it.

Uh, so I was VP of product at Pillow, and um I worked, so I was responsible. No, no,

Uh, I was defining the core requirements of what was ne so, to start off with, uh, I was leading the user research in order to, uh, understand and develop the requirements, um, with our designer, but I, I was doing the interviews and, um, And since centralizing the data, um, essentially looking at all the data and, um, processing it, turning it into requirements, I wrote the, the requirements for the MVP. Uh, I worked with the head of design, who was a member of my team. Um, I was responsible for design, product, and QA, and so I worked with the head of design who was on my team, um. To develop the um the wireframe and the, the visual design for the product, uh, and then delegated different aspects of, um, some of the Some of the Like normalization of the different, um, billing statements from the different platforms, uh, I delegated to members on my team to gather the initial data of what each platform billing statement, um, Comprised of, and then got together with that group, and then we all worked together in order to normalize the schema for the, the final interface. Uh, and then I was managing, um, So, so I was initially managing the, the actual development with engineering, um, and then as we kind of got underway and closer to MVP I was able to hand it off to someone on my team in order to, to move forward, uh, and then, You know, was responsible for coordinating the, the final launch of MVP and then following up in order to ensure that we are meeting all of our metrics and, um, launching like uh dashboards in order to measure and track KPIs over time.

Yeah, um, there was other considered options. Um, we could represent the data differently for each reservation within the interface, um, depending on the, uh, platform it came from, or we could have separated the, um, the different billing statements in it by platform, um. What we determined in our research when we um explored those options with our, with our owners, with our customer, is that that wasn't adding um enough value and it wasn't what they were asking for, um, because, you know, they could log in to each of these different platforms and see a billing statement from each of them on their own, so the tab model wasn't really adding value, um, and then the, um, The, you know, showing the data differently for each platform, um, within one statement, uh, It essentially was so confusing that the owner couldn't really understand the statement as a whole, uh, not to mention the fact that we were also billing on top of the platform. And so, uh, you know, we included our billing within each reservation and line item, and it was a detractor in the value that they saw they were receiving from pillow. Having that there and sort of as a separate component and blocked out because um It, it essentially, um, was highlighting to them how much they were paying for the pillow platform in a way that was very confusing and led to a lot of customer support, uh, requests and questions. And so, um, the normalization was the path we pur pursued because it, um, really added value in the mind of the owner that we were simplifying this for them, um, and then it also increased the perceived value of the product in their mind because it was, um, Uh, Showcasing the fees in a way that was highlighting the the revenue and profit to the owner as opposed to the fees.

Sure. Um, So just to, to clarify, this is actually a revision of an existing product that had uh billing information in it but it was incomplete and not normalized so we already had sort of like an MVP for billing in the product itself which had kind of um been done prior to my joining the company um and that was leading to uh like you know customer support requests um and uh a lack of um. Perceived value in the product. So we, um, very like focused on solving, you know, particular problems with particular metrics with regard to like decreasing customer support requests around billing, um, decreasing churn because billing was the number one reason for churn as well as, um, you know, increasing our NPS, right, like the, the perceived value of the product within the eyes of our owners, um, looking back on it and like in hindsight, um, You know, I mean, I think simplifying complexity is, is A big part of what is valuable in technology, especially where you are, like, an aggregator. Um, and so I, I think it was necessary to do it, um, and I think that, um, normalizing the data. was the best way to do it. Um, so, after that release, we were able to drive down. Uh, customer uh support requests in relation to billing. I don't remember the exact percentage off the top of my head, um, but, you know, also we, we, um, decreased churn and our NPS, I, I think it went up with the, there was a number of things involved in, in that release, but, um, You know, I think it went up 10 points if I recall correctly. So, um, it did have a, a positive net impact on the, on the business overall, um. Um,

So, yeah, I, I think I would have done it again.