Overview
Bynder's homepage was generating 1,103 support tickets a year and driving churn across 4,000+ global brands. I led the end-to-end redesign, from research through launch and made a strategic pivot mid-project that cut delivery time from one year to 45 days.
Instead of building a new system from scratch, I identified an existing module that could be repurposed, turning a homepage fix into a full content delivery platform that grew ARR from $5.5M to $10.2M.
Solution
Strategic pivot over sunk cost
Ditched an approved v1 rather than ship something slower and weaker. Used existing technology to deliver more, faster, cutting delivery time from one year to 45 days.
One flexible card component
A single card with configurable title, subtitle, thumbnail, video background, and resize, replacing 12 rigid legacy widget types. Flexibility lives inside the component, not across a fragmented library.
Live canvas with pre-publishing view
Admins build and see the homepage exactly as users will see it, eliminating the blind configuration that caused most of the 1,103 annual support tickets.
Outcomes
45 daysShipped instead of one year
1,103 → ~300Support tickets in 6 months
$5.5M → $10.2MARR after repositioning as CXUC
4%Churn reduction
167Customers upsold to advanced package
2,000+Customers migrated within 90 days
397New homepages built in month one, zero training
500+Customers across user tests, surveys, observations
The Problem
Bynder's homepage was being used as a bulletin board. Admins would link to filtered asset banks or share company news through a set of 12 fixed card widgets, built through a settings page only admins could access, with no live preview, no layout control, and no flexibility. The experience of building a homepage was so broken that it required dedicated training and onboarding support just to operate it.
1,103 support tickets in a single year. Research across 16 customer interviews, behavioural data in Heap and Mixpanel, and synthesis in Dovetail surfaced 107 distinct pain points that collapsed into three core problems: the homepage lacked flexibility in content and layout, onboarding new teams was slow and complex, and the interface was so unintuitive that admins needed hand-holding to do basic tasks.
Underneath all three problems was the same root cause: admins were trying to do content delivery, localised pages for different markets, team-specific hubs, external partner pages, company news with a tool that was never designed for it.
Key Product Decisions
1Benchmarking site builders, not DAMsThe first instinct was to look at what other DAMs were doing. I looked beyond the category at Webflow, Framer, and leading site builders to understand what a well-designed page building experience actually feels like. The goal was to bring that standard of flexibility and structural guidance into an enterprise DAM context, where admins are not designers but still need to produce good-looking pages.
2V1 was approved. I scrapped it anyway.The first version was a blank canvas with an invisible grid, snap behaviour, and flexible card sizes. Approved. But after trying to rebuild real customer homepages with it, two fatal problems emerged: it was an unfamiliar UI pattern requiring significant user education, and it would take at least a year to build and test properly. The pivot came from a collaborative moment with a lead engineer and the SVP of Product. Binder already had a Brand Guidelines module with a page builder at its core. Rather than build something new, we proposed repurposing it, adding new widget types, layout variations, sections, and templates. What would have taken a year shipped in 45 days.
3One card component instead of 12 widget typesThe legacy system had 12 separate widget types. The new system has one card component, configurable with title, subtitle, thumbnail, video background, and resizable to different layout sizes. The flexibility lives inside the component, not across a fragmented library. This reduced cognitive load for admins and reduced maintenance surface for engineering.
4Templates from real customer dataSections and templates were not designed from scratch. I audited existing customer homepages and extracted the most commonly used patterns and layouts. Templates shipped as real starting points derived from real usage, which is why 397 new homepages were built in the first month without any training.
What Almost Killed It
The approved v1 was the biggest risk. There is organisational pressure to ship what was signed off. Scrapping a fully approved design mid-project and proposing a different technical foundation required making the case not just on design quality but on business speed and ROI.
The argument that won it: we could deliver more value, to more users, in a fraction of the time, using technology the company had already invested in. That reframe, from design decision to business decision is what got the pivot approved.
What I Learned
"Stakeholder relationships are part of the design work"The pivot only happened because there was enough trust built with the SVP of Product and the lead engineer to have an honest conversation about a better path. That trust is not given but it is built through the earlier phases of the project.
"Think like a founder: use what you have"The best solution was not the most original one. It was the one that leveraged existing investment, reduced risk, and delivered value faster. Knowing when to reuse rather than rebuild is a senior design skill.
"Growth is not linear, and neither is scope"This project started as a homepage fix. It ended as a repositioned product module, CXUC with its own ARR target, upsell path, and roadmap. Following the problem wherever it leads, rather than protecting the original brief, is what created that outcome.
