Hero
Bringing human retail expertise into ecommerce
Client :
Hero
Role :
Experience Design Director
Year :
2016-2022
Overview
Traditional retail was losing ground to ecommerce. Merchants needed their stores to work harder. Hero let in-store teams serve online customers directly through live video shopping. We built the category from zero and scaled it to acquisition by Klarna for ~$160M.
What I did
Joined as founding designer, defining product vision and interaction model for conversational commerce before anyone knew it would work
Built and led the design team from 0 to 5 across 4 product domains: customer experience, merchant tools, operations, and brand
Designed for trust on both sides: customers shopping through video and chat for the first time, retailers selling through a completely new channel
Scaled the platform to support thousands of retail staff across distributed stores with tooling, moderation, and onboarding systems
Helped build the case that positioned Hero for acquisition during the pandemic, when it became survival infrastructure for retail brands
Impact
Led design from founding concept through $160M acquisition by Klarna in 2021
Built the design team and function from solo founding role to 5 designers across 4 domains
Established conversational commerce as a scalable retail category, with customers converting at significantly higher rates than traditional ecommerce
Wrap-up
When the pandemic hit, Hero went from a fast-growth tech to survival infrastructure for brands overnight. The lesson: stay focused on what customers need, and ready to adapt to market forces and changing terrain.