Dreamy

ROLE

Designing the Operational Platform and Role Architecture for a Hyperlocal Delivery Startup Scaling Beyond MVP

Overview

Dreamy was a hyperlocal delivery startup operating in Washington, D.C. during the early period of cannabis decriminalization. The company had achieved rapid growth with a simple web-based MVP and a promise of ultra-fast delivery, building a loyal customer base and reaching $1M in annual revenue.
As demand increased, the founder sought to scale operations through a new React Native mobile platform. I was brought in to redesign the product architecture and lead development sprints to support workforce expansion, delivery coordination, and operational control.

THE OPERATIONAL CHALLENGE

Dreamy’s early platform supported only two user types - customers and workers - creating significant risk and inefficiency as the team grew:
• New hires received excessive permissions and access to customer data
• Orders could not be prioritized by urgency or proximity
• Dispatch relied on manual decisions and informal coordination
• Workforce growth strained a trust-based team structure
The core issue was structural: the product lacked the role hierarchy and workflow logic required for scale.

Research

OPERATIONAL MAPPING

I conducted a focused discovery phase including:
• Interviews with the founder and staff on operational pain points
• Field shadowing of delivery workers during live routes
• Customer conversations to preserve strengths in the experience
• Team workshops mapping workflows and responsibilities
• A UML-style audit of the existing platform
This revealed that Dreamy’s growth bottleneck was organizational - and not their customer-facing user experience.

SOFTWARE AUDIT

I created a Customer account and a Worker account to test Dreamy’s existing platform. Then I created a UML map of their current functionality to understand which features should be kept and which should be improved.

Role & Permission Architecture

I synthesized all my research findings into four user types. I kept the Customer’s user journey the same since everyone interviewed appreciated Dreamy’s simplicity and ease of use. Then I created three staff user types with overlapping functionalities. Everyone is a Worker, but Managers administer Zones and the Admin is the only one who can add or delete employees, manage the store opening hours and surge rates, and assign Managers to Zones.
The new architecture introduced:
• Permission boundaries aligned with responsibilities
• Zone-based delivery coordination
• Order prioritization by urgency and proximity
• Administrative controls for staffing, hours, and surge conditions
This shifted Dreamy from an informal team model to a scalable operational system embedded in the product.

PRODUCT DEFINITION & PHASED ROADMAP

After validating the role model with the founder, I created comprehensive wireframes covering all order processing and managerial features. I then mapped features into a full user-flow directory and defined a three-phase development roadmap:
Phase 1 - Customer onboarding + Worker delivery workflow
Phase 2 - Manager/Admin roles + zone permissions
Phase 3 - Inventory tracking
This provided a structured path from MVP to operational scale, allowing me to validate the scope with the founder based on iterating wireframes and finalizing user journeys.

Design & Development

DESIGN SPRINTS

I worked on weekly design sprints to validate experiences for each type of user. In the meantime, I explored different UI directions to fit the Dreamy brand. This weekly collaboration with the founder was critical in arriving at the final user journeys and their look and feel in the shortest time possible.

CUSTOMER SCREENS

The only user to have a desktop as well as a mobile view is the Customer. For both, I prioritized the speed and ease of signing up and logging in to ordering immediately.

WORKER SCREENS

Next, I designed the Worker screens to focus on the global order-processing feed and filter each Worker's personal record of available, accepted, and completed jobs.

MANAGER SCREENS

Managers have all the order processing functionality of Workers in addition to special Zone management functions. Each manager assigned to a Zone can create their own team and track Workers across their deliveries.

ADMIN SCREENS

The Admin has the added functionality of assigning Managers as team leaders for a given Zone. This assignment gives a Manager the label of GM, allowing them to add active workers to their roster. The Admin can also oversee team creation and add or remove Workers, turn the store On and Off, as well as trigger Surge Pricing and an Inclement Weather charge.

AGILE DELIVERY LEADERSHIP

I led product development with a remote engineering team in Pakistan through weekly SCRUM sprints, maintaining a one-week design lead over development.
My role included:
• Translating operational needs into product specifications
• Sequencing features by roadmap phase
• Approving UI with the founder
• Coordinating implementation of role and dispatch systems
I remained through Phase 1 delivery of the React Native MVP, ensuring Customer and Worker functionality aligned with the defined architecture.

Outcome

The redesigned platform enabled Dreamy to:
• Expand its workforce with controlled permissions
• Improve delivery coordination through structured dispatch logic
• Reduce operational risk associated with rapid hiring
• Preserve the simple customer experience that drove early growth
• Establish a scalable foundation for continued development

WHY THIS PROJECT MATTERS

This project demonstrates my ability to translate early-stage business operations into scalable product architecture and delivery plans. It shows how role design, permissions, and workflow systems can transform a fast-growing startup from informal processes to structured scale - while leading cross-border product development.