Context
Let’s Do This had been a successful marketplace for endurance events for several years. People use the platform to discover and book races, but once the booking was done, their relationship with the product ended.
Through continuous discovery, we found a clear unmet need: users didn’t just want to find events, they wanted inspiration, motivation, and connection. They cared about what their friends and peers were signing up for.
This insight became the foundation for building a social marketplace, where people could follow one another, see activity, and be inspired to do more.
Megan S - User Research Participant
My role
As Principal Product Designer, I was responsible for:
Defining the vision and design of the social marketplace.
Leading continuous discovery to validate opportunities.
Designing the entire app consumer experience from scratch.
Creating a new design system to scale across the app marketplace and social features.
Partnering with Product and Engineering to deliver a working MVP and iterate.
Approach
1. Continuous Discovery
I conducted regular interviews with both existing and new users, as well as the organisers themselves. Patterns emerged: both user types wanted to see what their peers were doing so they wouldn't miss out, and organisers wanted better tools to grow their communities and ultimately sell more tickets.
2. Zero → One Design
I shaped the product from the ground up, moving from sketches to prototypes to production. I focused on balancing social connection with transactional clarity, so the product still delivered on the business model of event bookings.
3. Design System
I built a new design system to unify the marketplace with new social features. This ensured visual consistency, faster iteration, and scalability as new features rolled out.
Solution
We launched the first version of the social marketplace, including:
Follow & Social Graph → users could follow friends and see their activity.
Activity Feed → showing event sign-ups and inspiration from people you know.
Profiles → highlighting upcoming and past events, creating identity in the app.
Community → helping users connect and be inspired by like-minded people.
Seamless Booking Flow → social activity always connected directly to event discovery and registration.
Impact
The MVP proved that social features could transform engagement:
Achieved consistent acquisition of 5,000 new app users per week.
Virality by 10% of bookings driven by social activity.
Although early, we saw 0.5 follows per active user.
Retention soared to 40K monthly active users.
This showed us that building community directly increased bookings and loyalty.
Learnings
There were a lot of learnings but here are just a few:
Community ≠ just features: The real value came from designing for motivation and belonging, not just adding “social.”
Continuous discovery was critical: It kept us focused on real user needs, not assumptions.
Investing early in a design system paid off massively in speed and consistency as the product grew.