Designing and building a new marketplace for creative spaces

In 2016 I co-founded, along with 3 other founders, AVVAY.com. AVVAY is an online marketplace for creative professionals to find and book creative spaces. I led product design, research and frontend development as well as helped the company raise a seed round of funding shortly after we graduated with the Techstars Builder 2018 class.

In 2018, AVVAY was born out of a challenge identified by Jon Howard, a touring musician and friend. While on the road, Jon struggled to find local spaces to record music, realizing that other creatives, like photographers, faced similar issues. The market lacked a reliable way for artists to locate and book creative spaces on an hourly basis. In both large cities and small towns, discovering available venues was frustratingly complex, with no easy booking system in place. This gap presented a unique opportunity for us to build a solution that could bridge the connection between creators and the spaces they needed.

During AVVAY's development, we engaged with photographers to better understand their needs when searching for spaces to conduct photoshoots. These early conversations revealed the difficulties creatives faced in finding and booking spaces. Later, while attending Techstars Boulder, I carried out remote in-person interviews with space owners, which helped identify challenges around listing and managing spaces. Understanding both sides of the marketplace allowed us to shape AVVAY.com to meet the needs of both guests and hosts effectively.

As both a designer and front-end developer, I used rapid prototyping with HTML and CSS to quickly bring AVVAY's marketplace ideas to life. This approach allowed me to iterate on designs and test functionality in real time, helping to visualize core features and gather feedback early in the process. We also conducted A/B testing to refine key aspects of the platform, such as search results and space listing screens, making sure we built an optimized experience for both guests and hosts.

In this redesigned approach we focused on introduced key new features that would allow the customer to scan and immediately understand what the status of a report was as well as understanding what was found and the importance of it.

Also, I spent a lot of time designing a user-friendly backend for space owners, making it simple for them to create, update, and manage their listings with minimal effort. Beyond the technical aspects, I played a pivotal role as I worked with our creative director to shape AVVAY's branding and content strategies, to make sure the platform was not only functional but also resonated with its target market.

One of the biggest challenges in building AVVAY was designing a marketplace that served both guests and hosts effectively. Each side had distinct needs: guests needed a seamless way to find, book, and schedule spaces, while hosts required robust tools to manage their listings and control bookings. Striking the right balance required continuous iteration and experimentation. We also had to ensure that AVVAY generated sustainable revenue, which meant aligning incentives for both users and hosts through carefully designed pricing models and transaction fees.

AVVAY.com pioneered a platform that filled a significant gap by helping creatives find and book unique spaces. Before AVVAY, there was no streamlined way for artists, photographers, and filmmakers to access spaces tailored to their needs. The platform introduced a simplified booking process, eliminating many frustrations previously faced by creatives. For space owners, AVVAY opened up new revenue streams, allowing them to monetize their spaces, while fostering a creative community that hadn't existed before.

Building a two-sided marketplace like AVVAY taught me just how challenging it is to balance the needs of two distinct user groups—guests and hosts. This process required constant feedback loops and iterations based on user behavior to ensure both sides felt valued. Additionally, we discovered a larger market need for location scouting, which led to a pivot toward a service-oriented platform. Being accepted into the 2018 Techstars Boulder program was also a pivotal moment. It provided access to mentorship and valuable lessons in fundraising, scaling, and building a startup, which have greatly influenced my future entrepreneurial projects.