Building Big with No Safety Net

This wasn’t just a design sprint, it was a sprint through a minefield. The challenges were stacked from the start:

The timeline was tight: two weeks for design, with development expected to take two months. We had just one developer available for the entire build.
The team had no prior experience with React Native yet needed to simultaneously deliver a high-stakes Android and iOS app.
We were tasked with a complete UX/UI redesign, including:
- The Home screen, rethinking how Viewers receive and complete tasks.
- Define an offer system to accept/reject new gigs in real-time.
- Add a payment flow for clarity and trust.

But technical hurdles were just the beginning.

Operational complexity was growing fast. The app had to handle:

Five new viewing types, each with different data capture needs.
Deep integration with the Investment and Tenant Platforms manages everything from key handovers to payment processing.
Real-world coordination issues, like the fact that a property is considered “unavailable” if the key is in transit

The risk? If we didn’t get this right, we’d stall international expansion and lose the trust of our users and investors.

Research: Walking in the Viewer’s Shoes

To design something truly scalable, we had to understand the realities on the ground. That meant sitting with our internal Viewing Manager, who handled onboarding and training and diving into the day-to-day experiences of the Viewers themselves.

We mapped out every step of a typical job, from offer notification to key handover and documentation upload. But we didn’t stop there. We explored the edge cases; What happens when agents change meeting locations? What if the keys are missing? What if a Viewer feels unsafe?

This exercise revealed a crucial insight: Viewers weren’t just “gig workers.” They were critical to our investment model. The quality of their documentation directly impacted how we underwrite single-family rental properties. Every blurry photo or missing defect report could distort a multi-million euro valuation.

To support them, we needed more than just a task list; we needed to build clarity, confidence, and consistency throughout the entire experience.

Build Complexity: Where Physical Meets Digital

The more we understood the Viewer experience, the more we realised that scaling this app wasn’t just a design challenge. It was an orchestration challenge. Property availability, for instance, was tied to something as simple but crucial as where the key physically was.

This one insight had massive implications:
- If the key was in transit, the property was theoretically unavailable.
- If a handover failed, viewings stalled.
- The operation slowed down if coordination during renovations or tenant transitions slipped.
Our platform had to mirror and manage this physical reality, not just digitise it. That meant extending the Investment Platform’s capabilities:
- Handling multi-directional communication between viewers, agents, and operations teams.
- Managing handovers, payments, and documents without creating friction.
- Most of all, ensuring the app helps people get things done, not get in their way, is essential.

Ideation & Design: Clarity Under Pressure

With only two weeks to redesign the app, there was no room for perfectionism. So I went back to basics: pen, paper, and rapid sketches.

For two days, I sketched core flows on whiteboards and A3 paper, walking through what a Viewer sees, taps, and does. We made fast, visual decisions by sitting together, reviewing flows in real-time, and discarding ideas that didn’t serve the end user.

One surprising move? We chose not to use the conventional bottom navigation bar. Most of our flows were linear: get a job, complete it, and move on. A persistent nav bar felt unnecessary and possibly distracting. It was a risky call, but at the time, it matched how our Viewers worked.

This stage reminded me that bold decisions aren't terrible when you use logic to determine a path. However, we will soon find out how that decision made the UX.

Testing & Tension: When Bold Choices Meet Real Life

As development kicked off, we used prototypes to validate our assumptions. Our no-nav-bar concept? It raised eyebrows. Interaction testing revealed that while it worked in some flows, it introduced friction elsewhere.

But with the clock ticking, we had to pick our battles. Redesigning the navigation system would’ve derailed the sprint, so we decided to keep it and plan to monitor usage post-launch.

Behind the scenes, tension was rising.

Our developer, who was new to React Native, was juggling a steep learning curve with a mounting to-do list. Despite our carefully aligned MVP plan, leadership pushed for a full-featured app launch, skipping iterative releases. That decision introduced cascading risks.

This was where things shifted from a fast-paced sprint to a long, uphill climb.

"Speed doesn’t scale. Clarity does."

Reflection: What I’d Do Differently as a Leader

We eventually shipped the app. It went live in three international markets, helped raise €8 million in follow-on funding, and opened new doors for the business.

But success came at a cost. We lost our developer to burnout. Timelines slipped by six months. The “fast and lean” startup dream ran into the reality of complex systems, high expectations, and human limits.

Here’s what I’d do differently next time:

1. Fight harder for phased releases.

Our MVP plan was sound. If we’d stuck to it, we could’ve learned faster, built smarter, and reduced pressure on the team.

2. Prioritise team sustainability over feature scope.

Shipping a product means nothing if you lose the people who build it. Good leadership means protecting momentum and morale.

3. Communicate bottom-up, not top-down.

Founders are under pressure, and VCs want results. But the view from the ground reveals risks early. Creating a safe culture for bottom-up feedback is how real progress happens.