Squiiid

A first of its kind in 2012, Squiiid was a social commerce platform that allowed brands to sell any product, through any photo.

Ask

Build a simplified, unified means of connecting bloggers, photographers, and brands.

Approach

As founder and CEO, I owned interaction design, negotiated partnerships with the sales arm of major LA streetwear brands, bloggers and photographers, managed a team of front-end and back-end engineers, and personally designed all UX and UI for the web platform.

 
squiiid_photographers.JPG
squiiid_wireframe.JPG
squiiid_napkin.JPG
squiiid_photographer_2.JPG
 

NEED FINDING

I sat down with bloggers, photographers, store managers and brand owners across LA and SF. Informal conversations led to deep dives into the current state of fashion ecommerce, retail POS, blog revenue, social media workflows, and issues surrounding the provision of creative credit for designers and photographers.

  • Bloggers wanted a simpler means of collecting referral revenue from any product they showcase.

  • Photographers wanted to share their work without losing creative attribution.

  • Brands wanted to sell on social platforms without losing sync with their inventory management systems. 

 
squiiid_dash_designs.jpg
squiiid_ux_birdseye.png
squiiid_sitemap.png
 

Design

Wireframes and high-fidelity mockups were created and tested with the same folks we interviewed earlier. The hardest part was pairing down the feature set to reach an MVP that met the needs of our three core users. I eventually decided to double down on creative attribution, allowing creatives of all types to share their work across the web without fear of losing credit. Monetization would come later, with plans for embedding credit card payments in-photo for premium accounts.

The platform was optimized for use on laptops and desktops, as these arose as the publishing hardware of choice for bloggers and photographers. 

squiiid_home.jpg
squiiid_dashboard.jpg
squiiid_uploader.jpg
squiiid_dashboard_full.jpg
squiiid_feed.jpg
squiiid_feed_info.jpg

Launch

With the technical development of the project underway, I transitioned to crafting the offline experience for our launch. With the intention of targeting small to medium sized brands, especially those in the streetwear category, we teamed up with Suspend Magazine to introduce Squiiid at their issue release party.

squiiid_suspend_mag.jpg
squiiid_launch_bw.jpg
squiiid_launch_rosewood.jpg
squiiid_launch_friends.jpg
squiiid_launch_friends_family.JPG

Sunset

Squiiid was a labor of love. Never before have I met such a wide range of people, many of whom I still call my friends.

I could never choose whether I wanted to spend more time with fashion designers or engineers - so I worked with both. I still want to build the next layer of commerce - and Squiiid was just the start. 

 
 
 

Credits

Cofounder, CEO, Product Lead: Jonathan Igner

Cofounder, Operations: Austin Winchell

Software development: Zack Tanner, Chris Delguercio, Alex Paxton

SERVICES

Research, Product Design, Visual Design, Business Development, Video Production