@Block Renovation
Scaling a Beta Experiment into a Core Growth Engine
AI-Powered Renovation Planning
Snapshot
Role
Lead Product Designer, owned end to end strategy and experience for Studio and led its evolution from beta experiment to integrated platform product.
Objective
Shorten the renovation purchase cycle by converting high intent but hesitant homeowners into qualified, renovation ready clients through early cost clarity and visualization.
Key Constraints
High ticket, emotionally complex decisions; integration within a live platform; duplicate account risk; alignment between AI outputs and real contractor pricing; limited data in an experimental stage.
Outcomes
Validated Studio as a revenue generating acquisition channel, converted planning users into active projects, unified onboarding and dashboard systems, and embedded the product into Block's core growth strategy.
Renovation Clarity Pillars → Defined the core product strategy around four homeowner needs: vision clarity, design intent, cost transparency, and re-engagement throughout the planning journey.
Context
Block Renovation helps homeowners renovate through vetted contractor matching. The challenge was not demand but delay. Renovations are high ticket and emotionally overwhelming decisions, and high intent homeowners were stalling before ever speaking to a contractor. Studio launched as a beta to test a clear hypothesis: if we reduce ambiguity early, we can accelerate commitment.
Ownership Shift
I joined to support the beta product, but midway through development leadership transitioned and I assumed full ownership. What began as an experiment now required decisive direction. Studio needed to either validate as a meaningful business lever or sunset. I took responsibility for defining its path forward.
Strategic Evolution
Studio used AI to generate renovation cost estimates and visual renders from a homeowner's uploaded photo. The real shift was not technical but strategic. We reframed Studio from a planning tool into a confidence engine designed to capture earlier intent, increase decision readiness, and feed qualified homeowners into the contractor matching pipeline. Once it began generating real renovation projects, the question changed from "Does this work?" to "How does this become foundational?"
Integration
We made the decision to merge Studio into Block's core platform. This required rearchitecting onboarding across products, unifying dashboards for exploratory planners and active clients, resolving duplicate user and account logic, and aligning marketing acquisition with product flows. Studio transitioned from a standalone beta feature into embedded growth infrastructure.
Impact
Studio generated revenue from renovation projects originating in the planning experience and established a scalable top of funnel acquisition path. It reduced friction between inspiration and contractor engagement and became a permanent part of Block's platform strategy.
Studio Beta → Early beta interface that helped homeowners translate renovation wants into visual direction, project scope, and an estimated budget before speaking with a contractor.
Beta Onboarding Flow → Mapped a separate Studio acquisition path from landing page to onboarding quiz to tool entry, testing whether early planning could convert hesitant homeowners into qualified leads.
Platform Integration Flow → Re-architected onboarding across Studio and Block's core product, separating shared details from Studio-specific and contractor-matching inputs before routing users into the right dashboard experience.
Design Tab → Created a guided vision board where homeowners could refine materials, compare design options, and update AI-generated renders to make their renovation intent more concrete.
Budget Tab → Connected design choices to cost transparency, showing how selected materials affected the estimate and prompting homeowners to refresh pricing as their scope changed.
Unified Dashboard → Merged Studio planning and Block's core renovation journey into a single dashboard, helping homeowners resume planning, understand next steps, and move toward contractor matching.