Off the Grid Creator Onboarding

Project summary

Off the Grid supports a rapidly scaling network of mobile food vendors known as Creators, delivering curated markets, catering, and emergency feeding across the Bay Area. As the event types diversified—from public markets to large-scale catering and relief efforts—the existing onboarding workflow became inconsistent and fragmented. New vendors struggled with unclear requirements and visibility into their status, while internal teams spent excessive hours manually managing onboarding and event preparation.

Research & Process

I led a full-system audit of both vendor and internal workflows to uncover the true onboarding bottlenecks. Partnering with product management, operations, and active Creators, I conducted interviews and mapped task flows across the ecosystem. The findings were clear: creators lacked clarity on expectations and progress, and support teams were overburdened by repeated follow-ups.

Using these insights, I redesigned the onboarding journey to be progressive and self-serve—simplifying steps for new users, surfacing compliance issues for returning vendors, and providing clear progress tracking. I introduced features for streamlined data collection, event-readiness tracking, and autonomous profile management, all aimed at reducing manual coordination and increasing vendor confidence.

Results

The redesigned Creator Onboarding experience empowered vendors with a clear, cohesive, and autonomous journey while significantly reducing the operational workload. It created a scalable foundation for vendor management, improving efficiency, clarity, and flexibility across Off the Grid’s expanding event operations.