Blismo's Story

Translating ideal ideas to real world.

Blismo is founded by my close friends Ian Blanchardon and Jack Li. I joined them from 03.2020 in the role of a product designer. I am responsible for initial research, define user flow, end-to-end product experience for both customer & merchant service products, and final visual design execution.

We spend day and night figuring out user needs and how we can fill them up. Supported by the advisor of the Y combinator, we narrow down our ideas from building a loyal program for local businesses to focusing on helping the barbershop eliminate the waiting lines during COVID-19. I believe we will get there soon! Now we are under the final round of user testing and estimated official release of our product on February 20212 and scheduled to apply Y combinator summer of 2022 class. We are ready.

Company

Timeline

Role

Responsiblity

Team

Blismo Inc.

03.2020 - Now

Lean Product Designer

Initial research. User flow. End-to-end experience. Rapid iteration.

CEO. CTO. 2 Product Designer. 10+ Software Engineers.

Concept

Keep barbershop's customers and employees safe during COVID-19

Unlike restaurant that they could deliver food contact-free, barber shop's customer have to insisit on the line to have hair-cut. But, how long will they wait? Have no idea. Now has the answer. Blismo allows customers joining the waitlist remotely through website, or by in-store kiosk device/QR code and wait from anywhere. They will get an automated text when it's their's time to go back.
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Features

Building delightful experience

As a early stage start-up, we will focus on polish the MVP features and keep iteration:
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01. Waitlist

Adapt to multiple devices. Barbershops could display waitlist on big screens or embed it into their website for customers to see. Blismo offers Kiosk devices as well for in-store use.
After joining waitlist via the public link, customer could remove their's name or push it later without log in the system. Automated text will remind customers estimated waiting time.

02. Referral

After service, the customer will get a referral link with their's name and they could share it with their's friends. Both of them will get coupon bonus automately!

Mock Up

Landing Page for Sign In / Schedule a free demo

Since the product has not been officially released, I could only showcase the landing page. Customer-end and merchant-end products are under the final round of testing(Oct.2021)and we will continue to polish them!
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Takeaways

01. Create engaing experience through failure

“Taking fewer ideas forward and understanding the constraints at an earlier stage can lead to genuinely transformational ideas.” - Tim Malbon of Made by Many.

Experiencing failure is one of the important classes especially in a start-up. It filters our ideas externally and makes us reflect again and again. Internally, we all become more humble and trust each other. Instead of feeling depressed, we keep thinking about the macro picture and narrow down the scope to the real user needs. In the first week of internal testing, we gained hundreds of users. Compared to enjoy the result, we care more about how we can improve the user flow and engaged the experience. One and half year's life in Blismo makes me think deeply about what is product design and how I could impact on people in a macro view rather than only focusing on the interface design layer.

02. Grow as a designer, think beyond design

I get used to brainstorming, communication, and cross-functional collobararion with team members. I am organically absorb information about team members disciplines and feel more connected to them. My business knowlege enabled me fully understand the business goals and empathy for marketing team. It results in fewer misunderstandings and less time in meetings, and makes me more impactful in problem solving solutions because I am more capable of facilitating conversations and trusted.