Ember Business
From Bottlenecks to SaaS: Designing a Scalable Venue Platform for Ember
SaaS Application
2024 (4 Months)
Ember
Lead Product Designer
Setting the Challenge
Turning a hidden content bottleneck into a SaaS platform unlocked scalability and efficiency.
When I joined Ember (formerly Bindy Street), the business was evolving from an editorial guide app into a broader social marketplace. My first task was to fix inefficiencies in the internal CMS used to manage venues.
But workshops with the content team revealed a deeper problem: every new guide required venues to be recreated manually. This wasn’t just inconvenient — it caused:
Wasted time for creators
Duplicate entries in search and maps
Inconsistent data across the app
No single source of truth
What began as a CMS improvement quickly evolved into designing Ember Venues — a scalable B2B SaaS platform serving internal teams and external partners.
Discovering the Opportunity
Internal pain points revealed a bigger opportunity — a full venue management system serving creators, businesses, and users.
Our initial goal was simple: streamline internal workflows. But as we mapped needs, a bigger picture emerged.
Internal teams needed a single venue record, consistent data, and faster guide creation.
Businesses wanted to claim profiles, manage events, and run promotions.
End users relied on collections and bookmarks — which had to stay intact to protect trust.
Interviews and partner sessions reframed the problem: we weren’t just fixing duplication — we were building a venue management system at the core of Ember’s ecosystem.
Mapping the Ecosystem
Designing flows for every role clarified the relationships between data and features, forming the foundation of the underlying system architecture.
We mapped flows across all stakeholders to surface dependencies early:
Creators: Search, add, and customise venues for guides
Businesses: Claim profiles, manage events and promotions
Admins: Ensure data quality and approve requests
End users: Browse, search, and save venues seamlessly
This holistic approach ensured the platform would serve all roles without breaking existing user trust.
Wireframing & Scoping the Platform
Early technical alignment ensured the platform structure was scalable while keeping scope realistic.
We moved into low-fidelity wireframes, testing ideas with internal teams and partners. Two critical decisions shaped the product:
Platform structure: Venues would become a standalone platform, not just a CMS feature — enabling flexibility and scalability.
Scope prioritisation: We cut drag-and-drop editing to focus on the highest-value features: venue, event, and promotion management.
Delivery Phase 1: Admin Portal
Building an admin foundation for clean data improved both internal efficiency and user experience.
Features delivered:
Venue creation and editing
Event and promotion management
Super admin account flows
Outcome: Workflow speed improved, duplicate venues were eliminated, and data quality improved across the platform.
Integrations & Strategic Pause
Integrating venues into both CMS and app improved discovery — but tackling Unity’s limitations was a necessary prerequisite for long-term scale.
Phase 1 also included critical integrations:
CMS: Venue search, locked vs. editable fields, integration with guides
App: Venue-based search/discovery, structured listings, venue detail pages
But progress paused here. The business decided to rebuild the consumer app in React Native (replacing Unity) before continuing with Venues. This strategic reset ensured faster development cycles and a stable foundation — both for Venues and for Ember as a whole.
Delivery Phase 2: Business Portal
Revisiting wireframes with partners ensured Phase 2 was grounded in real needs before moving into detailed design.
Once the rebuild was complete, we resumed with the Business Portal. Before diving into detailed designs, we revisited the wireframes from Phase 1 and ran sessions with partners to validate assumptions and gather new input.
This feedback confirmed priorities and expanded scope: businesses wanted clearer ownership flows, stronger analytics, and promotions at both venue and event levels. With that clarity, we moved into high-fidelity designs and full flows.
Features delivered:
Claim and create venue flows
Subscription models, analytics, and advertising tools
Updated business profiles with event & promotion management
Super admin tools for handling claims and requests
QA & Testing
QA revealed missing guidance — adding persistent messaging improved clarity and reduced partner friction.
I led QA alongside the content team and facilitated partner sessions. One gap stood out: after submitting claims, businesses felt uncertain about what happened next.
We fixed this with persistent tooltips and sticky confirmation messages, guiding users clearly through each step.
Outcomes
Two SaaS products improved efficiency internally and laid the foundation for monetisation externally.
Guide creation became significantly faster
Duplicate venue entries were eliminated
Delivered two SaaS products: Admin Portal (live for 12 months) and Business Portal (ready for market)
Initial partners successfully onboarded before project closure
Lessons I Carried Forward
Prioritisation shapes outcomes — pausing Venues for the React Native rebuild slowed monetisation but ultimately gave us a stable foundation.
Content visibility matters — while venue data migrated, rich guide content stayed siloed, missing an opportunity to enrich discovery.
Expectation-setting is key — partner confidence grew once we fixed unclear claim flows with persistent guidance.
