idyllo

idyllo

Curated home improvement marketplace
built for homeowners to ease their
vendor vetting and management process.

Idyllo is a curated home improvement marketplace built for homeowners to ease their vendor vetting and management process.

Role

Product Design, Web App Design, UX Design, User Flows

Timeline

3 months

Nov 2022 - Jan 2023

Team

Direct collaboration with CEO & Lead Engineer

Tools

Figma, FigJam, Bubble.io, Trello, Slack

  • The Problem

  • Sourcing home improvement solutions is time consuming and expensive.

  • Trusted Home Service Professionals are difficult to source

  • Home Service Professionals find it difficult to find recurring customers.

  • Platforms like Angi and Thumbtack are more favorable on the vendor/contractor side than the customer side.

  • The current experience is broken, expensive, requires a huge time investment with no guarantee of satisfactory results.

Home improvement solutions

  • Design Challenge

How can we re-invent the home improvement marketplace to create a win-win ecosystem for homeowners and service professionals?

  • The Solution

Idyllo is a next generation home improvement marketplace that makes it easy to get work done with local professionals you trust. Some key features include vendor curation, vendor management, messaging and payment systems, home team creation and sharing.

Customers today are tired of being served whoever is willing to pay the most for leads on existing marketplaces, and dialing down lists just to check availability. Those businesses made sense in that past, but consumers and technology have changed.


We find the top vendors in the areas we work and bring them onto our marketplace; we use user-generated data about people’s homes, goals and network to make referrals they can trust; and we make booking the first step really easy through the app.


Idyllo makes money when work gets done, and scale by region, just like Uber and Airbnb.

Idyllo is a next generation home improvement marketplace that makes it easy to get work done with local professionals you trust. Some key features include vendor curation, vendor management, messaging and payment systems, home team creation and sharing.

Customers today are tired of being served whoever is willing to pay the most for leads on existing marketplaces, and dialing down lists just to check availability. Those businesses made sense in that past, but consumers and technology have changed.


We find the top vendors in the areas we work and bring them onto our marketplace; we use user-generated data about people’s homes, goals and network to make referrals they can trust; and we make booking the first step really easy through the app.


Idyllo makes money when work gets done, and scale by region, just like Uber and Airbnb.

  • Our Approach

  • Phase 1: Understanding the Landscape

What are the critical pain points in the current home improvement industry, and how do they affect both homeowners and service professionals?

What are the critical pain points in the current home improvement industry, and how do they affect both homeowners and service professionals?

  • User & Market Research

Homeowners in the US are looking to fix and upgrade their homes through a trusted source or vendor. Some homeowners, even though they have the necessary skills for the job, are looking to delegate certain home jobs given the energy and dedicated timeline required to first start and then steer the project to completion. Overall, they aim to find someone reliable and affordable to take up the job.


Since the search for the right vendor itself is an intensive process, it cannot be done using simple online search engines or found through a social platform.

The home improvement industry has been increasing annually in most parts of the world. In the United States, the market value is forecast to exceed 600 billion dollars by 2025, which is more than double the value reached in 2008. Similarly, annual growth for this industry can be observed in Mexico, France, Germany, and many other countries.

Source: Statista


  • The Current State of Home Improvement

To get started with a new customer, incumbents like HomeAdvisor/Angi provide a series of questions to guide homeowners who are less certain of what they need through the process of searching for and hiring a professional.


While customers who know exactly what they need and simply want to browse vetted professionals can do so, this option isn’t as easy to find as it could be, and the intensity and immediacy of contact from professionals—even before requesting a quote—may be off-putting for some customers.


The Fixed-Price Service option further streamline the process and may be attractive for customers who aren’t interested in seeking and comparing quotes and contractors, and just want the job completed as quickly as possible.


Source: Meghan Wentland, Bobvila

  • Preparing for Techstars Demo Day

As a part of the team who is incubated at Techstars Alabama Energy Tech Accelerator, Demo Day is the most important day for any startup. It was held in the Red Mountain Theatre in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, United States.

The best part? We also decided to launch the first version of the Idyllo web app to an audience of 450 people, investors, founders, and tech people.

This consisted of an onboarding workflow wherein a new user could share their home improvement goals followed by a booking workflow where they could book slots for their home improvement job to get done.

To find a unique value proposition for Inperson, I analyzed competitors. We looked at business listing apps for contact and support service. Similarly, for consultancy service there are number of apps which solely focus on medical industry. There are few other apps for industry specific consultancy but hardly any of them are prominent in market.


What Inperson offer is all services under one app and it’s completely free for users. Below is my observation on comparison with different market segments.

  • Techstars Alabama Energy Tech Accelerator - Batch of 2022

Demo Day at Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator

Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Announces the Class of 2022

  • Phase 02: Conceptualizing the Solution

How can we create a platform that addresses the identified pain points while promoting trust and efficiency?

How can we create a platform that addresses the identified pain points while promoting trust and efficiency?

  • User Journey

The customer journey across all stakeholders was designed, we called it the marketplace architecture. Additionally, the data structure and data points to be collected at every stage was decided in collaboration with the customer success and vendor success teams.

'Progressive disclosure' in the form of a step-by-step process lied at the heart of the onboarding as well as booking journey. This effectively reduces the overwhelm which is otherwise associated with the traditional methods in a user's home improvement journey.

While mapping user delight across all stages, we took into account what the user might feel when they encounter each step in the process.

  • Phase 03: Building the MVP

What core features and functionalities are essential to create a minimum viable product that effectively solves the key challenges in the home improvement marketplace?

What core features and functionalities are essential to create a minimum viable product that effectively solves the key challenges in the home improvement marketplace?

  • MVP Design

After the initial traction gained by the beta launch at Demo Day, a more robust customer-side app was designed to cater to customer queries and potential bookings that they would make.

In the customer dashboard, one could track the progress of their project, from submitting their query to getting the job done by a designated vendor to paying them.

This is also where they could track multiple ongoing or future projects, save progress pictures, take personal or shareable notes, reach out to customer support, and make the payment smoothly all while their project heads towards completion on-site.

  • Payments User Experience

Once the homeowner is in touch with the right vendor, he/she would need to track the progress of the job on-site and manage scheduling with the vendor for them to arrive at the site regularly to complete the job. An intermediate stage between searching the vendor and finalizing them, would be to gather estimates for the job from multiple vendors.

  • Style Guide

Starting with a basic brand identity for the MVP, we eventually developed a full fledged design system for the web app that could be used and maintained on Figma itself.

Starting with a basic brand identity for the MVP, we eventually developed a full fledged design system for the web app that could be used and maintained on Figma itself.

  • Phase 04: Testing and Iteration

How can we implement a robust testing and feedback loop to ensure continuous improvement and user satisfaction in our platform?

How can we implement a robust testing and feedback loop to ensure continuous improvement and user satisfaction in our platform?

  • User Testing

What Inperson offer is all services under one app and it’s completely free for users. Below is my observation on comparison with different market segments.

User can record voice notes for themselves or send it to the Idyllo team. Alternatively, they can also send it to the vendor team to better describe their requirements. It gives them an on-the-go option to share their requirements.

Vendor CRM Cards are a core feature of the Idyllo experience. Here, the user gets a status update of not just the vendor's vetting process but also get an option to confirm or reject the vendor referrals presented to them by the Vendor Success team on their dashboard.

  • Phase 05: On-ground Testing

Delivering the service and incorporating real feedback into the app

Delivering the service and incorporating real feedback into the app

  • User Testing

What Inperson offer is all services under one app and it’s completely free for users. Below is my observation on comparison with different market segments.

Nate used Idyllo's app, found vendor recommendations, and got his home repainted right in time before Christmas. The experience for him was so smooth that he upgraded a few more things in his house right after. Him and his wife were also instrumental in providing constructive feedback regarding the first version of the web app.

Chris came to Idyllo looking to replace his gutters after putting it off for months. Idyllo recommended three great Birmingham businesses, and ultimately got him a quote that was a fraction of the price he was expecting. The job was done within a week.

The best part of this whole job? No scheduling. The companies came by within a day to provide a quote based on the exterior; Chris picked the one he wanted to go with; and they were able to get it done while he was at work. In Chris’s words “I just came home and there were A+ gutters on my home”.

Case Study at a Glance

  • Reflection

Understanding user psychology and their pain points associated with past experiences of home improvement is extremely crucial to empathize with the user and design for a smoother and more equitable application for both customers and vendors.


Working in a fast-paced startup environment is challenging as well as rewarding, as you get to ship features and test it with real customers quickly, facilitating an efficacious feedback loop.

Understanding user psychology and their pain points associated with past experiences of home improvement is extremely crucial to empathize with the user and design for a smoother and more equitable application for both customers and vendors.


Working in a fast-paced startup environment is challenging as well as rewarding, as you get to ship features and test it with real customers quickly, facilitating an efficacious feedback loop.