Kajabi at a Glance
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for creating and monetizing content.
$170 M
GMV processed in Jan 24
6.5 M
Total active users
Creators + subscribers
Communities
Communities is Kajabi’s retention engine—and it was failing.
As our primary retention surface, Communities had to evolve fast—or risk dragging down Kajabi’s entire flywheel.
Surface for 65% of creators’ DAU
#1 retention & expansion engine
Adopters earn +8 % GMV in first 30 d
Problem Statement
Creators skip Communities because
“it feels confusing and off-brand.”
New creators
17 k
Communities enabled
3 k
Active communities
1.2 k
Lower churn sites
-3 pp
Higher-earning sites
+8 % GMV
A huge slice of revenue was leaking because the experience is too hard to discover — and too frustrating to keep users coming back.
Communities Redesign
I reimagined the experience from the ground up.
17k
New communities
3M
New memberships
$ 207M
Community-included GMV
Feb. ‘25 - Present
My Scope
Analysis & Research
Strategy
Design
Delivery
Cross Functional Team
1
Product Manager
1
Program Manager
8
Engineering
Shared Resources
1
Data Science
1
Data Analytics
2
Research
Design Team
1
Design Manager
6
Sr. Product Designers
1
Mid-level Product Designer
I mentored and helped promote to Senior Product Designer
Strategic Influence
•
Vision & strategy
•
Design-system stewardship
•
Mentorship
•
Cross-geo leadership
From Insight to Impact
Why are creators churning?
I ran five un-moderated Maze tests to diagnose the funnel dip—and turned each insight into an actionable design decision.
Watch Slides
“I’m in—what now?”
Learning
New users froze at the empty feed—needed a clear next step.
Goal
Surface value before content exists
Design decision
Added clear CTAs to empty states to guide creators from 0 to 1.
“I can’t find Live”
Learning
Top tabs scattered actions; users repeatedly asked “where is Go Live?”
Goal
Find best IA for key features
Design decision
Consolidated navigation into one left rail (“Channels”) so all key features are discoverable instantly
“Looks off-brand”
Learning
Creators felt zero ownership when UI stayed generic—even a quick cover photo felt empowering.
Goal
Validate various branding controls
Design decision
Introduced token-driven theming, cover-photo upload & custom page icons so creators own the look.
“Replies are buried”
Learning
Users loved in-context modal replies—felt faster and kept them engaged in discussion
Goal
Compare thread modal vs full-page reload
Design decision
Implemented thread-reply modals that load separately, keeping context and flow without page reload.
Rebuilding Trust Fast
But things got worse before they got better...
We had to act–fast.
Real creator’s feedback.
I quickly aligned with engineering to launch a private Insider Community to engage our most vocal users.
This created a fast feedback loop, diffused public criticism, and rebuilt trust with high-value customers.
Ali D.
Can’t tell you how much
this benefits my community.
This visibility is a win-win
for Kajabi and for us.
84
Real creator’s feedback.
Hero Move 1
Information architecture redesign
to match how creators think
I restructured a previously fragmented navigation into a single, intuitive left rail.
Now creators can focus on activation and revenue.
Goal
Clarify and unify our growing feature set in one intuitive experience.
Why it Matters
Clear nav = instant discoverability → higher first-session confidence
Zoom In: Navigation
Watch Slides
Deep-dive iterations into how I evolved IA, visuals, and interactions toward a clearer, richer experience.
Info-rich, image-driven layout. Expanded previews and cards surface context and boost engagement at a glance.
Unified left-rail navigation. Consolidated all channels into one rail for faster way-finding and cleaner UI.
Persistent engagement widgets. Right-rail modules (Challenges, Meetups) keep high-value actions front-and-center.
Multi-surface compatibility. Designed nav to live inside our branded mobile-app tab—no bottom bar.
↑ 88 %
Task success
Users found “Live Room” in < 30s
↑ 11 %
Creator retention
W1, <0.2% reverts
Hero Move 2
Brand & Belonging at Scale
Designed the feed to align with creator’s brand, scale conversation, and surface revenue drivers.
Goal
Instant brand alignment for creators to drive early trust and engagement.
Why it Matters
Brand is creator’s trust-signal that keeps audiences inside platform, and raises conversion.
Branding
Threads
Banners
Creator brand fit, instant trust. Cover photo uploads, brand-color tokens, and custom navigation icons allow creators to instantly align their community with their brand identity, driving faster trust and improved retention.
Zoom In: Branding
Here’s the breadth of creator’s branding features I designed giving creators full visual ownership of their space.
Customizable nav icons. Creators personalize pages with custom icons, reinforcing ownership and improving navigation clarity—especially critical as communities grow.
New Shadcn design system. Introduced tokens, type scale, and spacing primitives—while maintaining clear versioning and running audits.
Branded cover photo. We descoped cropping tools to ship faster. Creators upload simple images to personalize pages, favoring speed over advanced customization for launch.
Accessible color tokens. Auto-adjusts contrast (HSL adjustment for 4.5:1 contrast) so creators can’t pick unreadable colors; dark-mode ready.
Timeline
Vision Sprint
July 2024
Co-created north-star experience map & jobs-to-be-done with PM + Eng; aligned on “one-screen to community” aspiration.
Rapid Concept Validation
August 2024
Tested Figma flows with users, removed friction, and simplified the core experience—while staying aligned with leadership and shifting roadmaps.
Design System Uplift
September 2024
Rolled out theming tokens and accessibility best practices, creating a cohesive toolkit embraced by designers and auditors alike.
Pilot & Learning Loop
Oct
Dec 2024
Led bi-weekly beta sessions to refine onboarding and build early confidence.
General Availability
Feb 2025
Present
Launched product-wide with live walkthroughs and AMA team sessions; continuously refined based on feedback to drive adoption and delight.
Next Steps
2025 +
Making Communities free for every user—soon the platform’s backbone.
Business Impact: Targets vs. Results
- 3 pp
Target
- 4.2 pp
Actual
30-day churn
Creators leaving Communities within thirty days of adoption.
75 %
Target
82 %
Actual
First-session post
New creators publishing one post during their initial session.
Creators now call Communities “the easiest way to keep subscribers engaged.”
Reflection & Next Steps
What challenged me
Letting go of “perfect”. We shipped lean, fast and intentionally scrappy—which left some users wanting more.
Missing signal. No per-user analytics made it hard to separate “not used” from “not found.”
Listening to loud voices. Heavy reliance on qual made it hard to hear quiet, important needs.
What I’m taking forward
Track earlier. Push for individual usage analytics sooner next time.
Strengthen design-system governance. Formalize token versioning and ownership.
Design for delight. Layer in micro-moments—play matters, not just polish.
What I’m proud of
Scalable brand system. Introduced scalable systems (tokens, type, branding) slashing dev rework.
Mentorship & partnership. Mentored a junior designer and co-hosted monthly cross-team design critiques.
Roadmap influence. Championed branded communities and mobile-app parity into 2025 planning.
Thank you.
Connect
Kajabi at a Glance
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for creating and monetizing content.
$170 M
GMV processed in Jan 24
6.5 M
Total active users
Creators + subscribers
Communities
Communities is Kajabi’s retention engine—and it was failing.
As our primary retention surface, Communities had to evolve fast—or risk dragging down Kajabi’s entire flywheel.
Surface for 65% of creators’ DAU
#1 retention & expansion engine
Adopters earn +8 % GMV in first 30 d
Problem Statement
Creators skip Communities because “it feels confusing and off-brand.”
New creators
17 k
Communities enabled
3 k
Active communities
1.2 k
Lower churn sites
-3 pp
Higher-earning sites
+8 % GMV
A huge slice of revenue was leaking because the experience is too hard to discover — and too frustrating to keep users coming back.
Communities Redesign
I reimagined the experience from the ground up.
17k
New communities
3M
New memberships
$ 207M
Community-included GMV
Feb. ‘25 - Present
My Scope
Analysis & Research
Strategy
Design
Delivery
Cross Functional Team
1
Product Manager
1
Program Manager
8
Engineering
Shared Resources
1
Data Science
1
Data Analytics
2
Research
Design Team
1
Design Manager
6
Sr. Product Designers
1
Mid-level Product Designer
I mentored and helped promote to Senior Product Designer
Strategic Influence
•
Vision & strategy
•
Design-system stewardship
•
Mentorship
•
Cross-geo leadership
From Insight to Impact
Why are creators churning?
I ran five un-moderated Maze tests to diagnose the funnel dip—and turned each insight into an actionable design decision.
Watch Slides
“I’m in—what now?”
Learning
New users froze at the empty feed—needed a clear next step.
Goal
Surface value before content exists
Design decision
Added clear CTAs to empty states to guide creators from 0 to 1.
“I can’t find Live”
Learning
Top tabs scattered actions; users repeatedly asked “where is Go Live?”
Goal
Find best IA for key features
Design decision
Consolidated navigation into one left rail (“Channels”) so all key features are discoverable instantly
“Looks off-brand”
Learning
Creators felt zero ownership when UI stayed generic—even a quick cover photo felt empowering.
Goal
Validate various branding controls
Design decision
Introduced token-driven theming, cover-photo upload & custom page icons so creators own the look.
“Replies are buried”
Learning
Users loved in-context modal replies—felt faster and kept them engaged in discussion
Goal
Compare thread modal vs full-page reload
Design decision
Implemented thread-reply modals that load separately, keeping context and flow without page reload.
Rebuilding Trust Fast
But things got worse before they got better...
We had to act–fast.
Real creator’s feedback.
I quickly aligned with engineering to launch a private Insider Community to engage our most vocal users.
This created a fast feedback loop, diffused public criticism, and rebuilt trust with high-value customers.
Ali D.
Can’t tell you how much
this benefits my community.
This visibility is a win-win
for Kajabi and for us.
84
Real creator’s feedback.
Hero Move 1
Information architecture redesign
to match how creators think
I restructured a previously fragmented navigation into a single, intuitive left rail.
Now creators can focus on activation and revenue.
Goal
Clarify and unify our growing feature set in one intuitive experience.
Why it Matters
Clear nav = instant discoverability → higher first-session confidence
Zoom In: Navigation
Deep-dive iterations into how I evolved IA, visuals, and interactions toward a clearer, richer experience.
Watch Slides
Info-rich, image-driven layout. Expanded previews and cards surface context and boost engagement at a glance.
Unified left-rail navigation. Consolidated all channels into one rail for faster way-finding and cleaner UI.
Persistent engagement widgets. Right-rail modules (Challenges, Meetups) keep high-value actions front-and-center.
Multi-surface compatibility. Designed nav to live inside our branded mobile-app tab—no bottom bar.
↑ 88 %
Task success
Users found “Live Room” in < 30s
↑ 11 %
Creator retention
W1, <0.2% reverts
Hero Move 2
Brand & Belonging at Scale
Designed the feed to align with creator’s brand, scale conversation, and surface revenue drivers.
Goal
Instant brand alignment for creators to drive early trust and engagement.
Why it Matters
Brand is creator’s trust-signal that keeps audiences inside platform, and raises conversion.
Creator brand fit, instant trust. Cover photo uploads, brand-color tokens, and custom navigation icons allow creators to instantly align their community with their brand identity, driving faster trust and improved retention.
Zoom In: Branding
Here’s the breadth of creator’s branding features I designed giving creators full visual ownership of their space.
Customizable nav icons. Creators personalize pages with custom icons, reinforcing ownership and improving navigation clarity—especially critical as communities grow.
New Shadcn design system. Introduced tokens, type scale, and spacing primitives—while maintaining clear versioning and running audits.
Branded cover photo. We descoped cropping tools to ship faster. Creators upload simple images to personalize pages, favoring speed over advanced customization for launch.
Accessible color tokens. Auto-adjusts contrast (HSL adjustment for 4.5:1 contrast) so creators can’t pick unreadable colors; dark-mode ready.
Timeline
Vision Sprint
July 2024
Co-created north-star experience map & jobs-to-be-done with PM + Eng; aligned on “one-screen to community” aspiration.
Rapid Concept Validation
August 2024
Tested Figma flows with users, removed friction, and simplified the core experience—while staying aligned with leadership and shifting roadmaps.
Design System Uplift
September 2024
Rolled out theming tokens and accessibility best practices, creating a cohesive toolkit embraced by designers and auditors alike.
Pilot & Learning Loop
Oct
Dec 2024
Led bi-weekly beta sessions to refine onboarding and build early confidence.
General Availability
Feb 2025
Present
Launched product-wide with live walkthroughs and AMA team sessions; continuously refined based on feedback to drive adoption and delight.
Next Steps
2025 +
Making Communities free for every user—soon the platform’s backbone.
Business Impact: Targets vs. Results
- 3 pp
Target
- 4.2 pp
Actual
30-day churn
Creators leaving Communities within thirty days of adoption.
75 %
Target
82 %
Actual
First-session post
New creators publishing one post during their initial session.
Creators now call Communities “the easiest way to keep subscribers engaged.”
Reflection & Next Steps
What challenged me
Letting go of “perfect”. We shipped lean, fast and intentionally scrappy—which left some users wanting more.
Missing signal. No per-user analytics made it hard to separate “not used” from “not found.”
Listening to loud voices. Heavy reliance on qual made it hard to hear quiet, important needs.
What I’m taking forward
Track earlier. Push for individual usage analytics sooner next time.
Strengthen design-system governance. Formalize token versioning and ownership.
Design for delight. Layer in micro-moments—play matters, not just polish.
What I’m proud of
Scalable brand system. Introduced scalable systems (tokens, type, branding) slashing dev rework.
Mentorship & partnership. Mentored a junior designer and co-hosted monthly cross-team design critiques.
Roadmap influence. Championed branded communities and mobile-app parity into 2025 planning.
Thank you.
Connect
Kajabi at a Glance
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for creating and monetizing content.
$170 M
GMV processed in Jan 24
6.5 M
Total active users
Creators + subscribers
Communities
Communities is Kajabi’s retention engine—and it was failing.
As our primary retention surface, Communities had to evolve fast—or risk dragging down Kajabi’s entire flywheel.
Surface for 65% of creators’ DAU
#1 retention & expansion engine
Adopters earn +8 % GMV in first 30 d
Problem Statement
Creators skip Communities because
“it feels confusing and off-brand.”
New creators
17 k
Communities enabled
3 k
Active communities
1.2 k
Lower churn sites
-3 pp
Higher-earning sites
+8 % GMV
A huge slice of revenue was leaking because the experience is too hard to discover — and too frustrating to keep users coming back.
Communities Redesign
I reimagined the experience from the ground up.
17k
New communities
3M
New memberships
$ 207M
Community-included GMV
Feb. ‘25 - Present
My Scope
Analysis & Research
Strategy
Design
Delivery
Cross Functional Team
1
Product Manager
1
Program Manager
8
Engineering
Shared Resources
1
Data Science
1
Data Analytics
2
Research
Design Team
1
Design Manager
6
Sr. Product Designers
1
Mid-level Product Designer
I mentored and helped promote to Senior Product Designer
Strategic Influence
•
Vision & strategy
•
Design-system stewardship
•
Mentorship
•
Cross-geo leadership
From Insight to Impact
Why are creators churning?
I ran five un-moderated Maze tests to diagnose the funnel dip—and turned each insight into an actionable design decision.
Watch Slides
“I’m in—what now?”
Learning
New users froze at the empty feed—needed a clear next step.
Goal
Surface value before content exists
Design decision
Added clear CTAs to empty states to guide creators from 0 to 1.
“I can’t find Live”
Learning
Top tabs scattered actions; users repeatedly asked “where is Go Live?”
Goal
Find best IA for key features
Design decision
Consolidated navigation into one left rail (“Channels”) so all key features are discoverable instantly
“Looks off-brand”
Learning
Creators felt zero ownership when UI stayed generic—even a quick cover photo felt empowering.
Goal
Validate various branding controls
Design decision
Introduced token-driven theming, cover-photo upload & custom page icons so creators own the look.
“Replies are buried”
Learning
Users loved in-context modal replies—felt faster and kept them engaged in discussion
Goal
Compare thread modal vs full-page reload
Design decision
Implemented thread-reply modals that load separately, keeping context and flow without page reload.
Rebuilding Trust Fast
But things got worse before they got better...
We had to act–fast.
Real creator’s feedback.
I quickly aligned with engineering to launch a private Insider Community to engage our most vocal users.
This created a fast feedback loop, diffused public criticism, and rebuilt trust with high-value customers.
Ali D.
Can’t tell you how much
this benefits my community.
This visibility is a win-win
for Kajabi and for us.
84
Real creator’s feedback.
Hero Move 1
Information architecture redesign
to match how creators think
I restructured a previously fragmented navigation into a single, intuitive left rail.
Now creators can focus on activation and revenue.
Goal
Clarify and unify our growing feature set in one intuitive experience.
Why it Matters
Clear nav = instant discoverability → higher first-session confidence
Zoom In: Navigation
Deep-dive iterations into how I evolved IA, visuals, and interactions toward a clearer, richer experience.
Watch Slides
Info-rich, image-driven layout. Expanded previews and cards surface context and boost engagement at a glance.
Unified left-rail navigation. Consolidated all channels into one rail for faster way-finding and cleaner UI.
Persistent engagement widgets. Right-rail modules (Challenges, Meetups) keep high-value actions front-and-center.
Multi-surface compatibility. Designed nav to live inside our branded mobile-app tab—no bottom bar.
↑ 88 %
Task success
Users found “Live Room” in < 30s
↑ 11 %
Creator retention
W1, <0.2% reverts
Hero Move 2
Brand & Belonging at Scale
Designed the feed to align with creator’s brand, scale conversation, and surface revenue drivers.
Goal
Instant brand alignment for creators to drive early trust and engagement.
Why it Matters
Brand is creator’s trust-signal that keeps audiences inside platform, and raises conversion.
Creator brand fit, instant trust. Cover photo uploads, brand-color tokens, and custom navigation icons allow creators to instantly align their community with their brand identity, driving faster trust and improved retention.
Zoom In: Branding
Here’s the breadth of creator’s branding features I designed giving creators full visual ownership of their space.
Customizable nav icons. Creators personalize pages with custom icons, reinforcing ownership and improving navigation clarity—especially critical as communities grow.
New Shadcn design system. Introduced tokens, type scale, and spacing primitives—while maintaining clear versioning and running audits.
Branded cover photo. We descoped cropping tools to ship faster. Creators upload simple images to personalize pages, favoring speed over advanced customization for launch.
Accessible color tokens. Auto-adjusts contrast (HSL adjustment for 4.5:1 contrast) so creators can’t pick unreadable colors; dark-mode ready.
Production preview
Timeline
Vision Sprint
July 2024
Co-created north-star experience map & jobs-to-be-done with PM + Eng; aligned on “one-screen to community” aspiration.
Rapid Concept Validation
August 2024
Tested Figma flows with users, removed friction, and simplified the core experience—while staying aligned with leadership and shifting roadmaps.
Design System Uplift
September 2024
Rolled out theming tokens and accessibility best practices, creating a cohesive toolkit embraced by designers and auditors alike.
Pilot & Learning Loop
Oct
Dec 2024
Led bi-weekly beta sessions to refine onboarding and build early confidence.
General Availability
Feb 2025
Present
Launched product-wide with live walkthroughs and AMA team sessions; continuously refined based on feedback to drive adoption and delight.
Next Steps
2025 +
Making Communities free for every user—soon the platform’s backbone.
Business Impact: Targets vs. Results
- 3 pp
Target
- 4.2 pp
Actual
30-day churn
Creators leaving Communities within thirty days of adoption.
75 %
Target
82 %
Actual
First-session post
New creators publishing one post during their initial session.
Creators now call Communities “the easiest way to keep subscribers engaged.”
Reflection & Next Steps
What challenged me
Letting go of “perfect”. We shipped lean, fast and intentionally scrappy—which left some users wanting more.
Missing signal. No per-user analytics made it hard to separate “not used” from “not found.”
Listening to loud voices. Heavy reliance on qual made it hard to hear quiet, important needs.
What I’m taking forward
Track earlier. Push for individual usage analytics sooner next time.
Strengthen design-system governance. Formalize token versioning and ownership.
Design for delight. Layer in micro-moments—play matters, not just polish.
What I’m proud of
Scalable brand system. Introduced scalable systems (tokens, type, branding) slashing dev rework.
Mentorship & partnership. Mentored a junior designer and co-hosted monthly cross-team design critiques.
Roadmap influence. Championed branded communities and mobile-app parity into 2025 planning.
Thank you.
Connect