Designing a social shopping app for an early stage startup
Pretzel was an early-stage startup designed to enhance the shopping journey. This mobile app made it easy for users to gather, organize, and share their favorite purchases with friends and family. Our team crafted a visually captivating experience that encouraged users to remember, repurchase, and share the meaningful, practical items in their lives—creating truly magical moments along the way. Some key features included collections, return reminders, and save to Pretzel.
Pretzel
Pivoting from finance to social shopping
Pretzel launched as a visual receipt aggregator for personal finance tracking. Through investor feedback and user testing, we identified a critical gap: the product lacked a compelling value proposition in a crowded market.
We led the strategic pivot to social shopping, repositioning Pretzel around a clearer problem and untapped market opportunity. This shift gave the product a stronger foundation for growth and investor appeal.
Collections: Pinterest for shopping
We designed Collections as the core organizing system, letting users group purchases into shareable boards they could reference and revisit. Whether tracking skincare routines, tech gear, or gift ideas, Collections made it effortless to curate and remember the products that matter.
Cross-site product comparison, simplified
The "Save to Pretzel" feature let users pull products from any website into personal collections, via share sheet, link, or photo upload. This made it easy to compare options across stores before buying, like a wedding registry for everyday decisions.
Return reminders: never miss a deadline
We introduced automated return alerts that notified users when products were approaching their return windows. This simple, customer-first feature became a key differentiator, turning Pretzel into a practical tool users needed, not just wanted.
Outcome
Our research identified a strategic misalignment in Pretzel's original positioning and surfaced social shopping as a stronger market opportunity. We guided the founding team through a full product pivot, from concept validation to execution, establishing a clear product vision that attracted investor interest and positioned the company for better growth.
