← All work

Sibs.

Turning a trade-only app for everything into a sneaker marketplace with 10,000 users and $10M in inventory.

My role: Product designer, grew into Head of Product
Team I led: Engineers, a PM, customer service and our social media lead
Platform: iOS marketplace app, store integrations and wholesale
Results: 10,000 users and $10M in listed inventory, with partner stores across the US

10Kusers

$10Min listed inventory

USApartner sneaker stores nationwide

Where it started

An app for trading anything, with no money involved.

Sibs launched as a trade-only marketplace for everyone and every category. I joined as the product designer.

Our users quickly showed us who Sibs was really for. They kept putting sneakers on the app. Rather than fight that, we followed it, and the product, the features and the business changed around the sneaker community.

Users shaped the product

Sibs had three groups to serve: buyers, individual sellers and, later, stores. Most of what Sibs became came straight from what those users asked for. My job was to turn their requests into a product strategy and design the features that answered them.

Bring money in

Stripe

Users wanted to buy and sell, not only trade. We added cash, and later cash plus trade bundles, on Stripe.

Speak sneaker

Coin flip

Sneaker culture settles price gaps by flipping for it, so we built a coin flip right into the offer chat.

Trade with trust

Guaranteed upon arrival

Counter offers, guaranteed upon arrival and CheckCheck authentication made high-value trades feel safe.

Cash and tradeOne offer can mix an item trade with cash, with a minimum amount to keep offers serious.
Flip for itWhen buyer and seller are close, either side can ask to settle the gap with a coin flip.
Authenticate in-appA guided camera captures the shots CheckCheck needs, and listings earn a Pass badge.

Strategy: stores, not just people

Inventory was the product.

A marketplace is only as good as what's on it, and individual sellers alone couldn't fill the shelves. I pushed for Sibs to bring real sneaker stores on board, and we partnered with stores all over the US as verified stores with badges, storefronts and live shows.

To feed those stores, we brought on wholesalers who supplied inventory into the stores through Sibs. Stores could claim wholesale items at reseller prices and list them straight away.

Verified Stores tab listing sneaker stores in Miami, Los Angeles and Vallejo — Verified stores from across the US, each with a badge and storefront.

Claimed wholesale items with quantities and reseller prices — Wholesale: stores claim inventory in bulk at reseller prices.

A store hosting a live selling show with 869 viewers — Live shows let stores sell to an audience in real time.

From 0 to $10M in inventory

The unlock was making it effortless for a store to bring its entire catalog onto Sibs. Through integrations such as Shopify, a store could upload its whole inventory instead of listing pair by pair.

Integrations, wholesale supply and partner stores together took Sibs from zero to $10M in listed inventory, alongside a community of 10,000 users.

A design system built for a marketplace

I built the Sibs design system in Figma so the app could grow without the UI drifting. It holds around 100 components and about 1,000 variants, in light and dark themes.

Much of it is marketplace-specific, not generic UI: listing cards, offer and counteroffer chat bubbles, order-status trackers for buyers, sellers and verified stores, CheckCheck authentication badges, and partner buttons for Stripe, Shopify and CheckCheck.

The type scale is named by job, not size. "Action/Heavy" is reserved for primary buttons and key conversion moments like a listing price. Components are set up with properties such as size, state and theme, which mirrors how engineers build them and made handoff faster.

Listing card components in several sizes and states, light and dark — Listing cards: every size, state and theme the feed, search and orders need.

Chat bubble components for offers, declines, meetups and reminders — Offer chat bubbles: the negotiation happens in the conversation.

Order status progress bars for authentication and returns — Order trackers, including authentication and returns.

Banner components for success, warning, error, information and offer countdowns — Banners, from success and errors to offer countdowns.

Growing into Head of Product

As Sibs grew, so did my role. I moved from designing the product to running it as Head of Product: leading our engineers, a PM, customer service and our social media lead, and owning what we built and why.

I design with AI tools every day, using prompts to explore directions, prototype and iterate faster, and I know the development process well enough to give engineers what they need to build.

I also created the company's pitch deck and supported fundraising meetings, telling the product story to investors.

What I took away

The best product decisions at Sibs weren't mine alone. They came from watching what users actually did, like listing sneakers on an app built for everything, and having the conviction to follow them. The strategy grew out of that: serve the sneaker community, then bring in the stores and supply that community wanted.