Venture
Helping people discover local businesses and activities while rewarding local spending.
Context
Declining local visibility
Local businesses and community activities are often overlooked, even though they play an important role in neighbourhood life. Rising living costs and changing consumer habits mean many residents default to large platforms or travel to central areas, making it harder for small businesses to stay visible and competitive.
My role
Tools
Product designer
Figma, Photoshop
Timeline
2025
The challenge
Connecting residents and businesses
Residents struggle to stay informed about what’s happening nearby, while small businesses lack effective ways to reach local audiences. The challenge was to design a platform that makes discovering neighbourhood experiences easy, rewarding, and relevant, while encouraging ongoing engagement and local spending.
The solution
Reward local exploration
Venture encourages residents to explore their neighbourhood through themed challenges and reward-based incentives. Users discover experiences, commit to challenges, and earn points by visiting participating businesses. Bookable experiences such as restaurants can be reserved directly in the app, while other visits are verified in-store. By turning local exploration into a rewarding experience, Venture aims to drive repeat engagement and support independent businesses.
Feature walkthrough
Challenge -based engagement
Encouraging local exploration through challenges and rewards.
Tap “Reward the Roam” to explore local challenges and customise your filters.
Start your challenge
Discover local challenges
Browse themed challenges, review the details, and start tracking your progress.
Reserve a table directly in the app to complete bookable challenges.
Book instantly
Track progress and rewards
Track your progress as you complete challenges and unlock points and rewards.
Design reflection / trade-offs
During the project, I explored physical kiosks as a way to surface local events. User interviews revealed that residents primarily rely on smartphones, and kiosks risked low adoption and high maintenance costs.
Pivoting to a mobile-first app allowed for personalised challenges, easy booking, and scalable verification through QR codes.
In designing the “Reward the Roam” feature, I balanced ease of use with behavioural incentives ensuring the challenge mechanics were motivating without being overly complex. I also considered business impact, making sure reward structures incentivised local spending while remaining feasible for small businesses.
This project strengthened my ability to make design decisions informed by user behaviour, business goals, and long-term engagement strategy.
Impact & success measurement
Venture aims to create value for both residents and local businesses by increasing local participation and measurable economic activity.
User impact
Increased awareness of local events and independent businesses
Higher participation in neighbourhood activities
Improved trust and credibility in local offerings
Clear sense of progress and achievement through challenge completion
Increased foot traffic to participating businesses
Improved visibility for small and independent shops
Incentivised local spending through rewards and challenges
Stronger connections between residents and local business owners
Business impact
Challenge engagement
Number of challenges started and completed
Reward activity
Points earned and vouchers redeemed
Local participation
Event bookings made through the platform
Retention
Weekly and monthly active users
Business impact
Engagement uplift for featured businesses
