Sendd
An ecommerce startup
My role
Product Designer across the platform — designing the store owner backend and the customer-facing storefront, from initial concept through to working with developers to ship features.
Project overview
Sendd is a Wellington-based ecommerce startup helping small businesses launch and grow an online store. Sendd is designed to remove the barriers for small businesses getting started with ecommerce while remaining competitive as the business scales.
Approach
The foundation of the project has been understanding the needs of small businesses and designing an experience that makes ecommerce accessible — while remaining flexible enough to support a wide range of business types and product offerings.
Working in a fast-moving asynchronous startup means being adaptable about when and how design plays a role. Depending on capacity, features can be designed before development, or built first and refined later.
Outcomes
As of May 2026 Sendd has grown to 129 stores and has expanded beyond the NZ market.
Key learnings
Working in a startup environment is fairly new to me and it has required a different mindset in terms of understanding my role as a designer. Scope and prioritisation can shift rapidly and being able to pivot and make adjustments have been valuable learnings.
Understanding how AI can play a role as part of a feature’s life cycle has also been illuminating.
Usability testing & synthesis
Usability testing sessions were conducted with participants ranging from first-time users to existing store owners, typically following new releases. Findings were synthesised and played back to the team. Improvements were prioritised and shipped as part of an iterative process.
Store owner experience
Designing an experience that makes it easy for store owners to get set up, customise their storefront, and manage their store day to day.
Customer experience
Designing a customer-facing experience that meets the expectations of modern ecommerce, with the ability to track orders and manage ongoing subscriptions.
