Bunz

Bunz is a barter platform that has expanded beyond barter to a platform for your city including jobs, homes, help and more!

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In 2015 we launched Shufl, a local buy/sell/trade iOS and Web app which allowed users to buy, sell or trade for goods and services in a hyper-localized manner. The project was somewhat of a failure until adopting the Bunz brand and community in Toronto, ON. Bunz launched officially on the iOS App Store and on Bunz.com in January 2016, Google Play Store in February 2016.

Bunz V3.0 home feed ui and ux - adopting a grid system for the home screen to show more content to the users based on their likes, ISO (in search of) and more.

To make finding content easier on the platform I found a way to introduce a map-view feature into the product without changing the 3.0 home feed ux. Consistency across the various Bunz feeds is key to maintaining a great user experience.

Navigating the product is done via gestures. User tests within the target Bunz demographics tested really well to this ux. Further testing and development needs to be done on this before being pushed to production.

The post view remains largely unchanged from Bunz 2.x but there are improvements made to both the item details, owner of the product and the general layout to focus more on the item rather than the individual or comments.

Bunz buy/sell, this is a prototype, nothing more of a possible buy/sell integration. There are definitely more unique ways of creating a localized e-commerce platform outside of this prototype.

Feed filters are more visible in the 3.0 product than in any previous versions. The distance slider comes in handy to the power users and the sorting mechanism is there to entice users into finding what they like apart from the algorithm-driven home feed.

Product, ideation & early success (2013-2014)

Bunz launched in January 2016 after being reshuffled (pun intended) from Shufl to focus on the growing community and after observing what Bunz members were doing on a Facebook group from where it started out of a need: For Emily (the founder of Bunz on Facebook) traded a record for pasta sauce.

V1.x Requirements:

Needed to be invite only to start off with — this was to keep the sense of community, not allow “randos” from accessing the app, and to keep it local
Reuse as much of the Shufl app as possible, while solving the problems we encountered with the:
Offer flow
Confusing to use inbox
Fix the bugginess of the app by building our own backend and not relying on the now-shut-down Parse ecosystem
Reinforce the brand in the product as much as possible by keeping it “jank” — local term for shitty but good
Goal: convert 100% of the users from the Facebook group (~6000 members when we started building the app) to the app (~500 members)

Home screen was changed from the deck of cards from Shufl into a feed of posts similar to Facebook (familiar to the users we were targeting). This was done to showcase 3 post types: Text (social) posts, ISO (in search of, which the brand has become famous for) and Item posts (actual goods to be traded).At this time we removed all mention or usage of “cash” on the platform as the core rule of Bunz was “No cash in the zone”. Note: the green colour here was changed to orange shortly after this mockup was created

This was largely unchanged from the Shufl app, just the colour changed to orange after user feedback was collected from ~20 users. At this time we also removed the “Compose Offer” flow — this was replaced by directly going to chat with the user, the… — This was largely unchanged from the Shufl app, just the colour changed to orange after user feedback was collected from ~20 users. At this time we also removed the “Compose Offer” flow — this was replaced by directly going to chat with the user, the reason: a lot of users were trading items for Beer, Wine or Weed, which they did not want to post on the app as it took too long to do so, it was far easier to just message the user.

Bunz 1.2 search screen.Since now we had a larger number of users and items, a dedicated search screen was needed to better allow users to find content. In the end we opted for a categorical approach based on user feedback. The #categories are based … — Bunz 1.2 search screen.Since now we had a larger number of users and items, a dedicated search screen was needed to better allow users to find content. In the end we opted for a categorical approach based on user feedback. The #categories are based on the top 24 tags used on posts, categorized alphabetically.

There were now 3 post types on the platform: Text (social) posts, ISOs and Item posts, to accommodate them I proposed that whenever the user hit the create post button they would be presented with 3 options, one for each post type. Afterwards the fl… — There were now 3 post types on the platform: Text (social) posts, ISOs and Item posts, to accommodate them I proposed that whenever the user hit the create post button they would be presented with 3 options, one for each post type. Afterwards the flow could change to accommodate the post type the user selected.

After getting a lot of negative feedback on the Shufl inbox which has the Pending/Accepted/Rejected inbox, we simplified this area in Bunz to just have Chats and Notifications. Reviews were handed within the chat itself, removed the meet up manageme… — After getting a lot of negative feedback on the Shufl inbox which has the Pending/Accepted/Rejected inbox, we simplified this area in Bunz to just have Chats and Notifications. Reviews were handed within the chat itself, removed the meet up management for the time being as only 1-2 users found that feature useful. Instead of creating and maintaining bloat on the app we chose to remove it as a team. While this made things easier in the short run for the users, people who were trading items-for-items found this inbox to be less helpful. The tradeoff between accessibility for *most* people vs. *hardcore* users is something we still have today on Bunz V2.

Profiles got revamped to include a larger profile photo — we found through our stats that ~75% of users who viewed another user’s profile pressed the avatar to see the larger picture anyways, so it made sense to just show a full-sized avatar right off the bat. This also allowed for a more “trustworthy” profile as if the profile picture was super blurry, pixelated or just a random image then the user wasn’t seen as someone to be trusted within the community based on user tests. We initially had 2 view options on the profile: Grid view and List view, but found that 99% of our active users only used the grid view and thus ended up removing this for V2.

Bunz V1 (2015-2016)

Getting to this state for V1 of Bunz took around 5 months — we started building and collecting feedback between October 2015 - December 2015. On January 12, 2016 we launched the first iteration of Bunz, which was primarily re-skinned Shufl. Building search, better create flow, reviews and profiles got us to ~6,000 users by June 2016.

At this time we took a step back and looked at getting Bunz up and running in new cities via product improvements such as: being able to choose your city on your profile, adding in the explore cities option on the search screen and whenever a user created a post, using the Google Places API we assigned the post to the correct city via the place_id property from the Google Places API.

Between July 2016 - December 2016 the team went into making improvements to the product. During this time we also experimented with a chat bot which could recommend you content based on a very basic algorithm; I also tinkered with Bunz Experiences which was a way for the already creative Bunz community to supplement their incomes by hosting classes based on their skill sets, ie: painting classes, skateboarding, cooking, etc.

Our goal also changed from getting 10,000 members in Toronto, to aiming for 100,000 users worldwide based on a number of Bunz-branded Facebook groups popping up (~300 in total at the moment spanning 200+ cities)

In late June 2016 we launched Bunz 1.6 on to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store with the following:

Distance slider — be able to view posts within your specified radius
Explore cities on the search page
Location-mandatory posts
Profile design change
Better stat collection via Amplitude
Email signup on the app, previous to this Bunz was primarily Facebook connect only

Distance slider + explore cities.We created a major marketing campaign for the distance slider. At this point the team also grew from 5 to 10 — we were now on Android since February 2016, had a small marketing/growth team, and a dev team with: 1 bac… — Distance slider + explore cities.We created a major marketing campaign for the distance slider. At this point the team also grew from 5 to 10 — we were now on Android since February 2016, had a small marketing/growth team, and a dev team with: 1 backend developer, 1 iOS, 1 Android, 1 QA and I did the web app and also all of the design work across iOS, Android and Web and helped marketing when time permitted for any asset requests.

During user testing we found a lot of users would get to the create post screen with the 3 post types and they would have to think twice about what post type to pick for their post even if it was obvious; We made the create post funnel our funnel to… — During user testing we found a lot of users would get to the create post screen with the 3 post types and they would have to think twice about what post type to pick for their post even if it was obvious; We made the create post funnel our funnel to optimize for as a business goal as once a user created a post and got an offer on it they were retained on the platform for a minimum of 30 days if not for life.Our WAU grew to ~15% and MAU grew to ~8% during the summer of 2016.

After the create post ux change.We tracked the new post flow on our Android app. Here are the stats from 2 weeks before the change (left) and 2 weeks after the change (right). There was 3% increase in the number of posts created and the number of us… — After the create post ux change.We tracked the new post flow on our Android app. Here are the stats from 2 weeks before the change (left) and 2 weeks after the change (right). There was 3% increase in the number of posts created and the number of users who *did not* abandon the create post flow for this change to be a success.Number of posts created in a 2 week period: 8,247 before the change, 8,476 after the change.

Search also retained users — if the user found a specific item they were looking for then that user was 100% likely to come back at Day 7 and about 64% likely to come back to Bunz between Day 7 and Day 30. The downside with optimizing for search is … — Search also retained users — if the user found a specific item they were looking for then that user was 100% likely to come back at Day 7 and about 64% likely to come back to Bunz between Day 7 and Day 30. The downside with optimizing for search is that without content (especially in new cities) the app becomes nearly useless.The create post funnel was the best way to retain users and also grow the Bunz platform in new cities.

Goals & Some Wins:

Get 100,00 users ✅ - accomplished December 2016
Grow outside of Toronto if at all possible ✅ - explore cities and location-based services were useful enough that the app is now being used in 10 major Canadian cities with each community in a city being between 1,000 members to 20,000 — the higher end numbers being in Montreal, Calgary, Hamilton and Halifax
Facebook groups are still growing, but growing in niches that are not trading, ie: Bunz Home Zone, Bunz Dating Zone, Bunz Job Zone — each have between 10,000 - 65,000 members
There are around 300 Bunz-branded Facebook groups totalling more than 300,000 users (there is overlap between groups so we estimate around 150,000 unique users)
Listen to customer feedback and keep iterating on the platform to keep existing users happy and also to accommodate new users 🤔
At some point in time around October/November 2016 our CEO felt that trading alone could not be monetized without a heavy use of ads — so after convincing the team to try another approach we ended up deciding on the “City Network” concept

Challenges:

Users trading a lot of weed, alcohol on the platform, we ended up building our own internal analytics and monitoring platform called Orion which would
Automatically flag posts with a list of banned words such as Weed, 420
Let us manually remove posts and ban users
View basic analytics on the platform (Signups, Trades Completed, Posts Created, and more)
There were some articles around sex trades floating around local media which got us a lot of growth but hurt retention in the long run
Core community felt alienated after a lot of unfamiliar users started joining
New users felt alienated because of the “troll” brand
Influx of older demographics between 35-55 started growing on the platform, which coincidentally brought in buying/selling because the older demographics thought this was the new “hip” Kijiji (local classifieds)

Bunz V2.0: The City Network

Mission: The City Network gives you access to Items, Homes, Jobs and Help in your city.

Why City Network?:

With The City Network users have access to their local community offering:
Items to Trade (mapped from the largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Trading Zone)
Jobs to Do (mapped from the second largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Employment Zone)
Homes for Rent (mapped from the third largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Home Zone)
Help when Needed (mapped from the fourth largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Helping Zone)
The focus is on what we call internally “Core Utilities” — everything you need in a city to live
This also allows at least 2 other avenues to monetize via Employers/Realtors, listing fees (in theory) and B-to-B analytics via Orion
The team foolishly felt this would be a good way to expand into new cities where trading might not be the best selling point

Left: Bunz Facebook Groups, there’s a lot of them. Right: The master list of Bunz Facebook Groups (that we know of) — updated every 4 months. The Bunz marketing team is admins in a majority of these groups as they've acted as growth levers.

V2.x Initial Requirements:

With The City Network users have access to their local community offering:
Items to Trade (mapped from the largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Trading Zone)
Jobs to Do (mapped from the second largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Employment Zone)
Homes for Rent (mapped from the third largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Home Zone)
Help when Needed (mapped from the fourth largest Bunz branded Facebook group: Bunz Helping Zone)
The focus is on what we call internally “Core Utilities” — everything you need in a city to live
This also allows at least 2 other avenues to monetize via Employers/Realtors, listing fees (in theory) and B-to-B analytics via Orion
Launch before end of January 2017 to keep investors happy and interested

On the home page of the app I decided to use tabs to show the 4 separate sections. Initially we ran out of time to create the tabs we have now (next page) but we did what we could: Had a basic static onboarding flow that explained the concept to all… — On the home page of the app I decided to use tabs to show the 4 separate sections. Initially we ran out of time to create the tabs we have now (next page) but we did what we could: Had a basic static onboarding flow that explained the concept to all users (new and existing). The user on signup needed to choose their city to continue. Home page had tabs, when you switched to a new “zone” and tried to create a post the posting flow will vary on the specialized zones (Home Zone, Trading Zone — the largest Bunz groups on Facebook). Rebranded Bunz from the “trolls” to a more “friendly”, emoji-focused brand — it tested well in focus groups.

In March 2017 I opted to simplify the Home screen to show larger tabs right on the top and since our core business funnel was to get users to create post it was decided internally to show large tooltips on top of the create post button. There was al… — In March 2017 I opted to simplify the Home screen to show larger tabs right on the top and since our core business funnel was to get users to create post it was decided internally to show large tooltips on top of the create post button. There was also pressure from investor(s) to focus on “social” posts since those were the stories that the media was picking up. To accommodate this we collectively decided to put the “talk” feed first — suffice it to say the social play didn’t work, the amount of backlash from the community we received was insane. It also affected retention for the first 3 months in production. New features coming down the pipeline were show to all users via the tips section which linked to our blog for some of the zones: http://blog.bunz.com/ — this was surprisingly well received by the Bunz community.

The post view now needed to accommodate at least 4 types of posts — one for trades, one for homes, one for jobs and one for generic “discussion” posts which are on the Talk and Helping zone.

While the create post ux is similar to Bunz V1, based on user-feedback and group discussion we decided to specialize the trades and homes posting flow.

Similar to the trade create flow but with added parameters. The user needs to specify what type of home post it is — Room for rent, Apartment or Full Home. Through research we found most Bunz members are offering/looking for sublets averaging around… — Similar to the trade create flow but with added parameters. The user needs to specify what type of home post it is — Room for rent, Apartment or Full Home. Through research we found most Bunz members are offering/looking for sublets averaging around $800/month in rent. There are high end properties as well which appeal to the “young professional” but mostly the target is cheaper rentals.

Since the focus became more on the “social” side of things, the following feed was introduced alongside being able to follow users on the platform. Following users isn’t used as heavily as we suspected, only around 2% of our active user base uses it… — Since the focus became more on the “social” side of things, the following feed was introduced alongside being able to follow users on the platform. Following users isn’t used as heavily as we suspected, only around 2% of our active user base uses it on a monthly basis.

We added the ability to add ISOs to your profile — this data is super important as we can use this data for ads, partnerships and also showing more relevant content to users based on their searches, items added to their profile and likes.

The stats are very telling — there are nearly 100x more trade posts per day in Toronto alone than there are Home Zone posts, Job Zone, Talk or Helping posts in Toronto for the same period. Using these stats, I can see that the direction of the … — The stats are very telling — there are nearly 100x more trade posts per day in Toronto alone than there are Home Zone posts, Job Zone, Talk or Helping posts in Toronto for the same period. Using these stats, I can see that the direction of the product should just be focused on going back to the basics: a barter platform.

On decision making

A lot of the product decisions were made by the team based on myself and a few members of our team providing enough context and user feedback. The current “social” play did not work for us — there is a huge drop in retention, sure the number of posts created are up by a small margin but those posts are mostly users complaining. At the end of the day users just want a simple way to trade because they are in a lifestyle where they cannot afford to live in a city or buy new shiny things, at least not the demographics that makes up Bunz now and the demographics we are targeting: Mostly female working in the service or administrative industry, making $40,000 - $50,000 CAD / year and paying around $1,000+ rent/month while going out a lot during the week to enjoy life while still paying off their $40,000 student loans.

For the most part I design the products based on inputs, make choices I think are best for the product based on feedback and acting more like a traffic controller for the 30, 90 and 6 month roadmaps before getting down into the design end of things.

The current roadmap accommodates the following:

Redesigning the home feed to show more content — the focus is now on “Finding” content rather than Searching or Social content
More gesture based navigation around the app — the bottom bar works for a lot of companies, for Bunz I feel we can move away from it (pending further user testing)
Current state: Improve signup flow -- we have taken steps to simplify the signup flow into smaller steps rather than showing all the content needed to create an account -- we've seen an increase of 30% completion in the signup flow (~65% before the change, ~95% after).
Future state: Remove the signup flow until the user understands the value of the product — we see that 20% of potential new users drop off during the signup flow (a/b testing in the short term)
Focus back on trade: calendar integration to accommodate meet ups and trades
Handle non-trade zones better within the app ie: show content from all zones on the home page, let the user switch zones later

This is where the iteration to V3.0 comes in.