Vendosmart
| Role | Founding Member ( Product & Engineering ) |
|---|---|
| Product | Proqsmart |
| Company | Vendosmart |
| Work Duration | Oct 2021 to Nov 2022 |
| Product Life Cycle Stage | Introduction |
| Major Stakeholders | Developers, Freelancers, Sales, Clients, C-Level Executives |
As a Founding Member at Vendosmart, I played a pivotal role in both Product and Engineering, helping to build the platform from the ground up. Our mission was to revolutionize custom manufacturing, making it far easier for businesses to transform their innovative ideas and CAD designs into tangible, physical products.
The Challenge We Tackled
We aimed to solve significant pain points in the traditional manufacturing landscape. Businesses were losing considerable time and effort searching for and managing vendors, often struggling with a lack of analytics, visibility into the process, and overall trust. On the vendor side, efficiently generating quotations and managing orders was a constant hurdle.
Our Approach
To truly understand and address these issues, I spent a lot of time talking directly with both buyers and vendors. This hands-on approach ensured our strategies and product development were deeply rooted in solving their real-world problems. I was heavily involved in the overall product strategy, ensuring Vendosmart was positioned effectively to drive adoption and meet market needs.
The Vendosmart Solution
We envisioned and built Vendosmart as a comprehensive platform to bridge the gap between design and production:
- For Buyers: We streamlined the entire process, from helping them easily search and discover the right vendors to floating RFQs, receiving multiple quotations efficiently, tracking their orders, and gaining valuable insights through analytics.
- For Vendors: We made it simpler for them to build quotations, access a wider pool of orders, and manage their operations with greater ease.
Building Vendosmart (My Multifaceted Role)
Building Vendosmart "from the ground up" was a dynamic experience. My contributions spanned across:
- Product Leadership & Strategy: Defining the product roadmap, documenting requirements (PRDs, BRDs), and driving the agile development process.
- Engineering & Development: I was hands-on with coding, contributing to building the frontend and parts of the backend infrastructure.
- User Experience & Engagement: I actively helped enhance the UX and UI of the entire system, focusing on making the platform intuitive and user-friendly, which in turn helped to increase platform engagement.
- Stakeholder Management: I collaborated closely with and managed stakeholders across the board, including other developers, testers, and the sales team, ensuring alignment and smooth execution.
Key Outcomes
Through focused effort and a user-centric approach, we achieved significant improvements:
- Successfully revamped the user interface, leading to a much-enhanced user experience and higher satisfaction.
- Dramatically streamlined the vendor onboarding process by implementing mobile-friendly views and strategic integrations.
- Significantly improved the efficiency of the Request for Quotation (RFQ) process, making it easier for both buyers to request and vendors to generate quotations.
Core Contributions
As a founding member with a dual focus on Product and Engineering, I was deeply embedded in every stage of Vendosmart's creation. From strategic planning and direct user interaction to hands-on coding and improving the overall user experience, my goal was always to build a platform that genuinely solved critical industry problems and empowered its users.
It was a privilege to be part of Vendosmart's foundational journey, helping to simplify the complexities of custom manufacturing.