01
/ Context
Instagram had become Manychat’s main growth channel, and it brought a new audience.
Not marketers, but creators. They spend their time making content and growing their brand, often alongside a job and a family. Automation isn’t their job.
Mike (@kashmoneymike) is a real estate agent. He left his corporate job to work on his own.
"I help people own real estate without the bank."
Age: 31
Location: US, Arizona
Business model: He has a landing page for his services, which he promotes through his Instagram
"I help people own real estate without the bank."
Age: 31
Location: US, Arizona
Business model: He has a landing page for his services, which he promotes through his Instagram
02
/ My role
I designed the new creator product from early concept to rollout, with product, engineering, and research.
As the only designer, I made day-to-day decisions and trade-offs with product and five engineers. The Head of Design and other designers helped shape the direction in workshops; the Head of Product and CEO approved it.
03
/ Problem
"I got comment-to-DM working after a tutorial… but I have no idea how to build anything else."
Flow Builder was built for marketers. Creators got stuck.
Interviews, Flow Builder feedback, and analytics showed four problems:
- The canvas with nodes and conditions felt too complex.
- A tutorial taught one automation, but not how to build the next one.
- They were afraid of breaking something and hurting their brand in front of potential leads.
- They didn’t know where to start or what to automate.
Flow Builder was built for marketers. Creators got stuck.
Interviews, Flow Builder feedback, and analytics showed four problems:
- The canvas with nodes and conditions felt too complex.
- A tutorial taught one automation, but not how to build the next one.
- They were afraid of breaking something and hurting their brand in front of potential leads.
- They didn’t know where to start or what to automate.
04
/ Approach
So we built Quick Automation, a separate product for creators. Not a replacement for Flow Builder.
We chose guidance over flexibility: for creators, launching something that works mattered more than building anything. We tested it 50/50 against Flow Builder.
05
/ Constraints
How can we ship an MVP in 6 weeks?
We started with one use case: Comment to DM, the most common one for creators, built on the existing design system. Everything else, from new triggers to statistics and performance tips, came later.
06
/ Exploration
We explored three ways to structure the setup so creators could understand it at a glance.
A form with all steps at once. Clear structure that could grow with new features. This became the base.
Editable sentences. Every change needed an extra click. With so few settings, editing should be right there.
One fill-in-the-blanks sentence. Simple and engaging, but it broke as soon as we added more features, and we knew we would.