Creative Market Turnaround

I joined Creative Market, a former YCombinator startup, during a period of significant transition.

The company had experienced rapid growth, an acquisition by Autodesk, and a subsequent spin-out. As a re-startup, Creative Market faced challenges in evolving its identity and reversing initial decline. The design team had taken the brunt of this dynamic period. Attrition had drawn the team down to only one designer and, naturally, that designer was overwhelmed and constantly “playing defense.” Simultaneously, the company needed to normalize its e-commerce operations to improve financial performance and user experience.

As the new Director of Product Design, my role encompassed revitalizing the design practice.

I focused on nurturing a healthy and efficient design practice that could make a lasting strategic impact and optimize the e-commerce platform. I was responsible for stabilizing and growing the design team, aligning our efforts with business goals, and implementing data-driven improvements to our e-commerce operations.

To address these challenges, I set a plan in motion.

I engaged the design team and our colleagues on multiple fronts for team development:

1. Expanded and restructured the design team, hiring key personnel and establishing regular critique sessions and workshops.
2. Implemented objective-based critique and introduced new design facilitation techniques
3. Transitioned to Figma for enhanced collaboration and operational cost savings.
4. Developed personal growth plans for team members and career leveling framework for the team as a whole
5. Expanded access to key resources such as Baymard Institute to provide objective third party perspectives into design and product conversations
6. Facilitated a workshop to define guiding principles and values for the design team.

I used isolated projects as a development tool for improving our operations. As the team matured its practice, we took on the core e-commerce experience as a whole.

1. Led a comprehensive analysis of our e-commerce funnel, identifying key areas for improvement.
2. Initiated a design system and established a component development workflow with engineering.
3. Conducted deep expository research with multiple segments of Creative Market sellers and customers
4. Gained critical executive sponsorship of new e-commerce funnel improvements and re-designed sight experience
5. Leverage A/B testing to optimize the checkout flow and product pages.
6. Collaborated with engineering to improve site performance and reduce page load times.

I drafted a high-level diagram of the intended future state experience. We adopted a typical e-commerce transaction flow, both in payments and in how we prompted account creation. 

Our Senior Product Designer took the transaction flow head-on, merging the synthesized qualitative analysis with new design direction. The engineering team worked to rebuild key components of the transactional workflow from scratch to be both faster and more secure. 

A before and after example…

While the project extended the entire transactional flow, the product page is a good example of the level of impact the team could make; removing unorthodox aspects of the design, such as a credit card input on the product page and aligning with e-commerce norms.

We saw significant improvements in both the design team’s performance and morale while impacting the company’s critical e-commerce metrics.

The design team established a set of (Service, Clarity, Respect, Inclusion) and values (Act Intentionally, Serve users, Collaborate, Focus on problems, Communicate honestly) that guided our work. Socializing our new perspective and methods with key stakeholders helped engage our colleagues and elevate our standards of quality.

On the e-commerce front, our efforts yielded impressive results:

• Improved conversion through Search, Browse, and Checkout functions of over 40%
• Improved conversion with key population subsets of up to 130%
• Improved relationships with long-time sellers on the platform
• Upward trending average order value 20% in first 90 days of design rollout
• Released new Favoriting and Curating features, elevating engagement

These combined initiatives not only improved our financial performance but also enhanced the overall user experience for both buyers and sellers on our platform. The success of these projects demonstrated the power of aligning design principles with data-driven e-commerce strategies, setting a strong foundation for Creative Market’s continued growth and success.