Bloooom
Helping student designers and developers build together
A collaboration platform born from a simple observation: great ideas and great builders rarely find each other.
The opportunity
AI made it possible for me to design and build products end to end
This project started in 2023, right after ChatGPT became widely available. It felt like a turning point. As a designer, I suddenly had the ability to take an idea all the way from concept to a working product without depending on someone else to build it.
I wanted to use that opportunity to solve a problem I had seen around me.
The problem
Great student projects disappear while developers struggle to find meaningful problems
Design students spend months creating thoughtful projects that rarely make it beyond a portfolio. Engineering students are constantly looking for interesting problems to build, but often end up making another notes app or another clone because they do not have access to strong product ideas.
I wondered what would happen if these two groups could discover each other’s work and collaborate.
That became Bloooom.
The hypothesis
What if portfolios became places to start collaborations instead of ending them?
Instead of treating portfolios as final showcases, I wanted them to become starting points for collaboration.
The goal was to build a platform where designers could share unfinished ideas and developers could find meaningful projects to contribute to.
The outcome
A working product with 100 early users validating the idea
I designed and developed the first version of Bloooom from scratch.
The first release included:
- Portfolio boards for showcasing projects
- A collaboration focused onboarding flow
- Project pages with updates and progress logs
- Link sharing and project discovery
- A lightweight visual identity and brand system
Within the first release, around 100 users signed up and shared their work.
Speaking to users
The same problem looked different depending on who I talked to
Before designing anything, I interviewed both designers and developers to understand how they approached side projects and collaboration.
Key insights
Designers
Had ideas but lacked technical collaborators to bring them to life.
Developers
Wanted interesting product problems instead of building tutorial projects or clones.
Both
Were looking for people, not just content.
Designing the interface
Reducing friction was more important than adding features
The experience was designed around one simple idea: make sharing work feel effortless.
I focused on reducing friction during onboarding so users could quickly publish projects and discover others.
Alongside the product, I designed the visual identity, logo, interface, and interaction patterns.
Design principles
- Publish projects in minutes, not hours.
- Encourage sharing unfinished work.
- Make collaboration feel approachable instead of intimidating.
- Keep the interface lightweight so the projects remained the focus.
Building the product
Learning to code changed the way I design
This project was also my introduction to software engineering.
I learned how frontend and backend systems communicate, the difference between client and server rendering, and how modern web applications are structured.
I built the product using HTML, CSS, Tailwind CSS, JavaScript, and modern JavaScript frameworks.
Technical takeaways
- Client vs server architecture
- Backend fundamentals
- Component based UI development
- HTML, CSS, Tailwind CSS
- Modern JavaScript frameworks
More importantly, I stopped thinking about screens as static designs and started thinking in terms of reusable components, application state, and implementation constraints.
Feature spotlight
Onboarding that encouraged people to share unfinished work
Screens and walkthrough of the onboarding flow.
Feature spotlight
Project logs that made progress visible instead of hidden
Screens showing the project logs and loops concept.
Feature spotlight
Small interactions that made sharing feel effortless
Screens showing the add link interaction and microinteractions.
Reflection
Building the product changed the way I approached design
The hardest part was not learning to code.
It was designing for real implementation.
Every interaction had edge cases, loading states, empty states, and technical constraints that never appear in static mockups. Building the product forced me to think through those decisions much earlier in the design process.
Building Bloooom showed me that understanding implementation makes design better. I now prototype, iterate, and ship ideas myself, which has fundamentally changed how I approach product design.