transforming a startup

The biggest UK technology IPO in the last eight years

On 3 April 2014, Just Eat floated on the London Stock Exchange, with a historical IPO, TechCrunch declared it the biggest UK Technology IPO of the time.  

By 2016, their market share was threaten by newcomers (Deliveroo and UberEats). As part of their new strategy
Just Eat invested in a global rebrand, with the goal of making food discovery exiting, as Ben Carter, Marketing Director explained it “It’s an evolution in our approach to meeting our customers’ changing expectations and to adding more value to the relationship we have with our restaurant partners.” 

This is the story of the impact I brought to one of the most successful startups in Europe, Just Eat, and how I helped to transform it through Design Leadership.

I joined Just Eat in 2017 as an individual contributors, 
Principal UX Designer, right around the time the branding agency Venture Three was hired to develop the new assets including logo and  branding guidelines.

Everyone at Just Eat was excited about this global rebrand, moving away from a two colour to a eleven colour pallet was appealing and refreshing. 

The agency’s Above the Line (ATL) proposals looked fantastic and well thought out, however I soon discovered there were no plans for the consumer and partner digital product rebrand. 

Despite being assigned to another project, I was committed to shaping the future of the company by influencing the right stakeholders to give me the opportunity to lead a successful digital rebrand 

APR

Consumer Product Rebrand

Back in April the first scheduled marketing activity was only five months away. I advised to the Just Eat’s CMO to request from Venture Three initial concepts on how the rebrand was going to be applied on the consumer product.   

The concepts provided to the Just Eat team looked good at first, but once I started to look on how they would scale in a global market it was obvious that they lacked important considerations around accessibility, localisation and performance.

MAY

Setting the rebrand for success

After numerous conversations with the CMO and CTPO, I was given the opportunity to lead the Product Design front of the rebrand.

This included consumer and partner products as well as operations and product research.

Within one month I formed and led a team of 10+ cross-functional team including UI and UX designers, developers, a copy writer and program manager. The team was name the Digital Design Studio.

JUN

Focusing on de-risking design decisions

Despite the very short timeframe we were working with, it was essential to the rebrand’s success to de-risk design decisions. With the option to use more colours, the team saw an opportunity to balance the UI by changing the colour of the start ratings from yellow to red. In order to inform our decision we ran a series of A/B tests to understand the risk this change would bring to the conversion rate after the rebrand.

JUL

Beyond the wow factor

As we started to work the details of the rebrand, it was important that we were not just creating a new UI but a ecosystem that will out live the first marketing campaign.  Here are some example of considerations for translating the brand in the product over multiple platforms:

  • To future proof this icon to work in non Latin based languages, we successfully tested an icon not dependent on text to designate vegetarian options
  • We mapped the core colours of the brand to user’s perception/psychological reaction to certain colours when performing a process
  • Made sure the product’s visual met accessibility guidelines (to accommodate older/lesser-abled users)

AUG

Design freeze

Time was up! As the engineering team was getting ready to get the code to production and with the pressure of millions of pounds in marketing activity, my team was focused on testing the product rebrand, in case any high priority usability bugs were identified. 

    SEP

    The impact of the rebrand

    ,On September 13, 2016 Just Eat launch the global rebrand. The impact made to the consumer digital product was exceptional:  

    • In UK Web orders increased by over 8%, iOS 11% and Android 7% vs 4 weeks before rebrand
    • Featured on App Store and Google Play in the UK and all other international markets

     

      After the successful delivery of the global rebrand, the future of my recently formed team was uncertain.

      However, the return on investment from my team was so clear, that I was promoted to Head of UX & Design with the responsibility of establishing Product Design as a core discipline at Just Eat.

      Becoming an award-winning organisation

      The rebrand was only the beginning. After the creation of the Digital Brand Studio, I established the UX Research team and reorganised the UX discipline as a centralised partnership within cross-functional teams. This was with the ultimate goal of designing a highly performing Product Design team.

      I then accelerated collaboration between all the teams and as a result the quality of my organisation’s deliverables reached high standards. 

      At the end of 2017 our impact in the business was recognised externally by the UX community with the prestigious UX UK award for “Best Effect on Business Goals”. 

      Award Winning Case Study

       I hope you enjoyed my story of how I helped transformed
      Just Eat while establishing myself as a Design Leader.