Co-founding a new marketplace for creative spaces at Techstars

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.

The challenge of finding creative spaces

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.

Researching and understanding our customers

We knew photography was going to be one of the core problems to solve with AVVAY so I engaged many photographers early on to better understand their needs when searching for spaces to conduct photoshoots. These early conversations revealed the difficulties creatives faced in finding and booking photo studios. While attending Techstars Boulder, I also carried out remote in-person interviews with studio owners, which helped identify challenges around listing and managing their spaces on our platform.

As the platform grew quickly by onboarding new customers and markets we had to iterate and evolve the experience. I built several prototypes with HTML and CSS to quickly bring AVVAY's marketplace ideas to life. This approach allowed me to revoew designs and test functionality in real time with the team. This helped the team to visualize core features and gather feedback internally. We also used A/B testing heavily to refine key aspects of the experience, like as search results pages and space listing screens.

We spent a fair amount of time improving the backend for space owners, refining the experience to make it as simple as possible for them to create, update, and manage their listings.

One of the biggest challenges with any two-sided marketplace was balancing the needs of both hosts and guests. Each user had distinct needs and problems to solve. Guests wanted a seamless way to find, book, and schedule spaces, while hosts required robust tools to manage their listings and control bookings as well as balancing AVVAY bookings with their existing business.

AVVAY redefined space rentals for creatives

We 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. Our 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.