Defining a new world

for shopping locally

Trove is a tech start-up on a mission to transform how people shop locally, connecting customers to nearby grocers, farmers, and independent producers through a single app.

When we began, the founders had a bold idea and a clear vision, but they needed help shaping it into a tangible, testable product. The goal was to create a minimum viable product (MVP) to help them secure funding and validate their concept in the real world.

Client

Trove

Duration

4 Months

Role

Lead UX + UI Designer

Challenge

The project spanned three distinct service areas: customer, delivery, and supplier, each with unique user needs and technical requirements.

With such a wide problem space, our challenge was to identify where to focus first, balance competing priorities, and set a strong foundation for product design that could grow with the business.

Hypothesis

If I could clearly define the most pressing user and operational challenges across the ecosystem, particularly those related to supplier onboarding and order management experience, I could design a simple, scalable foundation that would accelerate Trove’s path to market and investor readiness.

Discovery

Trove had already conducted some early desk and primary research, so my first step was to review and synthesise their findings, filling in any gaps in understanding.

I then ran a Problem Framing workshop, guiding the founders through exercises to:

Prioritise their biggest challenges.
Define user needs across customer, delivery, and supplier groups.
Establish a clear and actionable problem statement to guide the next stage.

This helped align the team on focus areas and avoid trying to solve everything at once, a common start-up pitfall.

Define

With alignment in place, I led the team through a Design Sprint, an intensive, collaborative week designed to move from idea to validated concept quickly.

Over the course of the sprint, I:

Translated insights into potential solutions through sketching and ideation.
Built a clickable prototype to test key assumptions.
Conducted usability testing with five real users, gathering feedback that shaped the next iteration.

This fast, focused process gave Trove a clearer view of what worked, what didn’t, and where to invest effort next.

Develop

Using insights from the first sprint, I ran an Iteration Sprint to refine and deepen the supplier experience, focusing on how vendors set up profiles, manage stock, and process orders.

I mapped end-to-end user flows, created detailed information architecture, and began defining the visual language through R&D moodboards and collaborative design sessions.

This evolved into a component library, ensuring the design could scale efficiently as the product matured.

Deliver

By the end of the engagement, Trove had:

A fully mapped and validated supplier journey.
A ready-to-develop component library and design system foundations.
Early concepts for the customer experience side of the product.
A clear product roadmap for continued development and investor presentation.

The project gave Trove both the confidence and clarity to move forward, from big idea to actionable, testable product strategy.

Outcome + Impact

Helping Trove shape their MVP from the ground up was a reminder of how powerful structured design thinking can be in early-stage environments.

By applying sprint-based methods and focusing on real user validation, I helped transform raw ambition into something tangible, setting the stage for growth, investment, and impact.

“Dominic was really engaging and knowledgable with a direct focus on identifying what our key challenges were and how to best tackle them. We left with a great prototype and more importantly the validation we needed to push us forward.”

Felicity Beasley - Trove Founder