Case study
Guest Match Pro.
A two-sided podcast guest marketplace replacing cold outreach with curated, high-relevance matches — from first contact to confirmed recording.
Role
Lead Product Designer
UX Research · Interaction Design · Design System
Year
2023–2024
Platform
SaaS Web App
Two-sided marketplace
The Problem
Podcast hosts were spending hours cold-emailing potential guests, with response rates under 10%. Guests had no efficient way to surface themselves to the right shows.
- No structured matching — hosts relied on social connections or manual research
- Guest outreach was asymmetric — hosts held all the power, guests had no discoverability
- Booking coordination happened across email, DMs, and calendar tools with no unified flow
The market needed a neutral, intelligent surface that could match both sides on expertise, audience fit, and availability — without friction.
What Changed
Smart Match Engine
Designed an AI-assisted compatibility score surfacing guests by topic expertise, audience alignment, and past episode themes.
Guest Profiles with Signal
Guests built rich profiles showcasing previous appearances, media kit, topic angles, and real-time booking availability.
Unified Booking Flow
End-to-end booking workflow — from match to confirmed recording — including proposal templates, scheduling, and confirmation.
Dual-Sided Dashboard
Separate dashboard experiences for hosts and guests with role-specific metrics: pipeline status for hosts, appearance history for guests.
Design Process
- 01
User Research
Interviewed 12 podcast hosts and 8 regular podcast guests to map pain points.
- 02
Jobs-to-be-Done Mapping
Defined the core JTBD for each side of the marketplace.
- 03
Information Architecture
Designed dual IA supporting two user roles without cognitive overhead.
- 04
Iterative Prototyping
Two rounds of usability testing with lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes.
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