Revolancer

UX Case Study

Startup

Shipped

Project Overview

Revolancer is a UK-based tech startup that served as a hub for freelancers to collaborate, showcase their work, and find clients, acquired in 2024 by the United Group. Throughout 2023, I conducted user interviews and analyzed feedback to define problems and solutions to help develop a new user-friendly platform and build marketing campaigns.

My Role

Design Intern —

Product Marketing Manager

Methods

Digital Ethnography, User Interviews, Usability Testing

Tools

Figma, Zoom

Collaborators

Ewa Gorka

Karl Swanepoel

Skye Brady

30

interviews

Understand their daily workflows, challenges, and motivations from firsthand experience

200+

comments

Uncover authentic, unfiltered perspectives and recurring pain points shared by freelancers across different industries

Key Challenges for Freelancers

🚀 Difficulty getting traction

Freelancers struggle to gain visibility and attract clients, especially when just starting out.

🏆 Competitive market

The freelance landscape is crowded, making it difficult to stand out and consistently secure projects

👥 Hard to build social proof

Gaining credibility and client trust is tough without consistent reviews, testimonials, or portfolio visibility

🛠️ Tough to grow niche offer

It’s challenging to define a niche that differentiates freelancers while still appealing to enough clients

⚖️ Work-life imbalance

Many freelancers juggle multiple projects and administrative tasks, leading to burnout

📉 Financial uncertainty

Income can fluctuate dramatically, making planning and long-term growth difficult

"I'm looking for a straightforward process (not too many steps in the process), the freelancers are verified and deliver consistent quality, the price point, easy messaging system, customer filters, also something to ensure that businesses don't try to take advantage of the freelancers"

— Participant

⭐Key Takeaway

Participants favor a shared space that facilitates connection, discovery, and collaboration on joint projects

Prototyping

💡 While ideation was led by the founding designer, my research insights shaped their concepts. I then focused on prototyping and refining core interactions

Solution

A platform that allows digital creatives to grow their skillset by creating work for other freelancers — real work for real people

Freelancers are able to get feedback, gain connections, and reviews to build social proof for their portfolios and help them in their job search. There is also a job board to find contract work.

⚠️Discovering gaps in user understanding

Through usability testing, I discovered a need for clearer onboarding guidance. Users struggled to differentiate projects, jobs, and the bartering system, often mistaking the platform for another Fiverr. As a low-tech (but effective) solution, I created step-by-step product documentation videos to clarify how value exchange works sent out by email to users and displayed on our social media pages, reducing messages and tickets to the support team.

Platform walkthrough

2023

"Revolancer is a great way to combine the benefits of LinkedIn with a portfolio"

— User

As Product Marketing Manager, I bridged strategy, design, and tech, helping grow the platform to 100,000+ users in 4 months, leading to the company’s acquisition in February 2024

Reflection

Know what I don't know

Working at a startup taught me to find out what I don't know and seek out the answers because execution matters, especially with limited time and resources.

Consult your users

Speaking directly with users not only informed key design decisions, but also helped foster a sense of community and shared ownership in the solution.

© 2025 by Heather Ecobichon. Powered by caffeine. Logo by Graeme Tooley.

© 2025 by Heather Ecobichon. Powered by caffeine. Logo by Graeme Tooley.

© 2025 by Heather Ecobichon. Powered by caffeine. Logo by Graeme Tooley.

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