Batch started from a simple frustration: watching a friend run her custom cake business through a tangle of Instagram DMs, email threads, Venmo requests, and sticky notes, and still losing orders to no-shows who never paid a deposit.
The inspiration was clear. Specialty bakeries are creative businesses run by skilled people, but their back-office workflow is stuck in 2012. No accountability, no paper trail, and 15+ hours a week lost to coordination that should be automated.
Building Batch meant deeply understanding the bakery owner's day, from the moment a customer slides into their DMs asking about a birthday cake, all the way to pickup. I mapped that journey into five stages: Request, Quote, Deposit, Design Approval, and Tracking. The challenge was making each stage feel effortless for bakery owners who aren't tech-savvy, while being robust enough to eliminate the disputes and no-shows that cost them real money.
The biggest technical challenge was designing the design approval flow, giving bakeries a way to share visuals, collect feedback, and lock in a version so "that's not what I ordered" stops being a thing. The biggest product challenge was pricing: the dual model (3% transaction fee + $50/month subscription) had to feel fair to small operators while being sustainable at scale.
What I learned most was that the real product isn't software, it's trust. Bakery owners don't need another app. They need something that makes them feel protected, professional, and in control of their business. That reframe changed every design decision.
Built With
- figma
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