Product Lead

From waiting in line to winning $10K

I kept waiting an hour at the same restaurant — physically writing my name on a whiteboard like it was 1995. I thought: this is stupid, let me build a waitlist solution.

Then I actually talked to restaurant owners.

The pivot that changed everything

After interviewing ~30 restaurant owners, I discovered they didn't care about waitlists. What they cared about: COVID had just forced them to go digital, and they were drowning.

Physical menus disappeared overnight. Restaurants scrambled to adopt food delivery apps, QR codes, digital everything. Menu generation was the breaking point — they didn't have time or skills to do it themselves, and hiring designers was expensive.

The insight: if digital menus are becoming standardized anyway, why not make conversion dead simple?

What I built

A platform where restaurant owners could:

• Upload their PDF menu
• Automatically get an interactive digital menu
• No designer needed, no technical skills required

Based on customer research (100+ diners interviewed), I added what people actually wanted:

• Pictures of menu items
• Dietary filters (gluten-free, vegetarian)
• Clean, browsable interface

The product decision that mattered:

We debated building data tracking first (eye tracking, click analytics - the real differentiator) vs. menu generation (the immediate pain point).

Data tracking would take longer to implement and was harder to demonstrate value. Restaurant owners needed to FEEL the value - menu generation did that through beautiful UI and easy onboarding. For pitching, we could talk about future data features without building them, but we needed a working menu product to show.

We chose menu generation. Restaurants needed it NOW or they'd be left behind. Data tracking could come later.

In hindsight: this decision was right. We got real-time feedback from restaurant owners on the working product, and the live demo made our pitch competition presentation tangible.

Arkansas Governor's Cup

Result: 2nd place, $10,000 — built working prototype, crafted pitch deck, and pitched to audience of 100+ investors and sponsors.

How we divided and conquered:

I owned customer discovery and product direction — turning vision into Figma designs and PRDs. Gustavo implemented everything lightweight so we could iterate quickly. Olivia handled the business side — pitch deck, competitive analysis, financials.

I worked closely with Justin Urso, the Studio director and our mentor. He's a restaurant owner with startup experience. I constantly brought him feedback, he'd push back or validate, and I'd implement fast. That cycle of feedback → rapid iteration kept us sharp.

Why we won: The judges said our customer discovery set us apart. It wasn't just an idea — we had real data, a working product, and a problem everyone could relate to.

What this taught me

This was my first true 0-to-1 experience. Everything I'd learned about design thinking finally came together in a real product with real stakes.

The skill that stuck: Let data drive the solution. I started with one idea (waitlist), killed it based on research, and pivoted to something the market actually wanted. That discipline — being obsessed with the problem, not the solution — shapes how I work today.