Inside UpNest: The Sole Designer Across a Startup's Entire Product
How I owned the design across the full product and elevated it until acquisition.
Background
UpNest had been around since 2013, a two-sided marketplace connecting home sellers with competing real estate agents. By the time I joined in 2020, the product had history. What it didn't have was a designer. I stepped into that gap and spent two years touching every part of it.
The Front Door
Getting homeowners through the door was everything.
I redesigned the full marketing site with conversion as the north star, testing layouts, sharpening messaging, and making mobile the priority for an audience that was majority phone. Working closely with the marketing team, I aligned the design with their SEM strategy to improve the quality of both organic and paid traffic. Seller conversion rates grew 18.75% month-over-month.
The Seller Side
This was the moment UpNest's value proposition either landed or didn't.
I owned the full consumer journey end to end, using A/B testing as the primary compass, backed by session recordings to understand how users actually moved through the experience.
Request Questionnaire
The request questionnaire was the most important flow on the platform, and the contact step was its hardest moment. Getting a homeowner to share their phone number meant they were serious. We iterated relentlessly on this step, testing everything from copy to layout to sequencing, with the goal of reducing drop-off without lowering lead quality for agents.
Proposal List
The proposal list had one job: get homeowners to click into an agent's proposal. We stripped each card back to the essentials, enough to build trust, not enough to overwhelm, and let A/B testing guide every iteration.
Proposal Page
The proposal page had to make a stranger feel trustworthy. Every element, from the savings calculator to the introductory video to client endorsements, was designed to give sellers the confidence to pick up the phone.
The Agent Side
In a competitive marketplace, speed was everything.
An agent who responded first, proposed first, and stayed on top of their pipeline won more clients. Every tool I designed for agents was built around that reality.
Dashboard
The dashboard was the operational heart of the agent experience, surfacing the most urgent actions first, with live countdown timers to keep response times as low as possible.
Proposal Setup
The original proposal flow required agents to manually prepare a response for every new lead, creating delays that cost conversions. The Proposal Template redesigned that from the ground up, letting agents configure once and respond instantly to any new request.
Performance Page
Agents who understood their performance won more clients. The performance page surfaced the metrics that mattered, benchmarked against platform averages, so agents always knew where they stood and what to improve.
Mobile App
Real estate agents aren't at their desks. The app redesign brought the full agent experience to the field, with push notifications ensuring no lead went unnoticed, and a to-do list keeping priorities clear on the go. 81% of agents opted into push notifications within the first six months. The app holds a 4.6 rating in the App Store with over 3,700 reviews.
Reflection
Looking back, UpNest was one of the most formative periods of my career. The pace was fast, the team was small, and everyone was accessible, from the engineer sitting next to me to the CEO. That kind of environment gives you something hard to find elsewhere: real ownership over the craft.
Two years. Every surface. Fingerprints everywhere. In 2022, UpNest was acquired by Realtor.com, a validation of the product, the team, and the work that went into it. What came next is the other half of this story.
