Event booking for a food-tech startup
- Company
- Amici
- Role
- Founding designer
- Team
- Two non-technical founders and one developer
- Timeline
- Jan to Mar 2025
- Outcome
- A beta with high-end customers like Porsche
TL;DR
Amici had an events business but no product. As founding designer, I defined the MVP, got the founders on board, and designed it.
One booking first
The founders wanted a full operational tool for event firms. I made the product strategy case for a much smaller scope and got stakeholder alignment: one booking from a simple site, quicker to build and to learn from. I kept a login for later business customers, and set up the data model for AI.
Designed for the wait
Guests go from landing page to offer in a user flow I built with our developer. A person does the matching, so every guest waits for their offer. That made the waiting screen just as important as the form.
Tools for the team
Someone handles every booking behind the scenes, so the team needed internal tools too. Every request and its status sit in one place. In close cross-functional collaboration with the developer, I decided where to cut corners, and where not to.
Built to learn
It's a beta, so success means validated learning: knowing what to build next. Do people want recurring bookings? Do they expect us to handle transport? Which customers lean in hardest? A small design system keeps things consistent while we find out.
In short
- Key decision
- I left AI out of the first release, but set up the data model so it can come in once there is traffic.
- Changed course
- The founders wanted a full operational tool for event firms. I pushed for one booking from a simple site first.
- Outcome
- A beta with high-end customers like Porsche.
- Takeaway
- In a beta, success means knowing what to build next. Scope for learning, not for completeness.
