Saltside

Saltside Technologies is a Kinnevik venture that builds classified sites to buy and sell anything or where you find your new job (think Cragislist, Gumtree, OLX, Blocket).

During my time at Saltside we launched and grew our sites that become the leading classified sites in markets such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Nigeria and Pakistan. We even had more visitors and brand recognition than Youtube, Twitter and Ebay in some of the countries even though you might never have heard of us.

• Built and led the design team across multiple markets and disciplines.
• Was a part of the management team and helped shape business and product strategy.
• Created guidelines for branding, marketing and design systems.
• Responsible for all global branding through all channels.
• Hands on design experience with both product and marketing design.
• Worked closely with local markets to understand our users’ needs.

When I joined in 2012 we were only seven employees, so my role as the only designer in the beginning was to lead everything that had to do with design. That meant everything from creating new brands with brand elements and guidelines for our markets or do ux research on how to increase conversion in the “Post ad flow”.

Each of the five markets had their own brand, domain and content. The sites are available on all platforms and browsers (including feature phones).

A large portion of our users had just started to browse internet for the first time. We had to make our services easy to understand for new internet users, but at the same time be powerful enough for our power users. In Bangladesh we collaborated closely with Internet.org by Facebook to help users in rural areas to get access to internet and our marketplace.

After a couple of years I was promoted to Head of Design. I staffed the design team to consist of designers spread out in Sweden, India, Dubai UAE, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria during my time at Saltside.

This presented a challenge to keep everyone aligned with our our design language. We managed to deliver consistent design in all markets thanks to clear values, design systems, guidelines and a lot of over-communicating to make sure everyone understood and was on the same page.

2013 we did a complete rewrite of the entire (!) application and with that we also set a new design language. I led the design team during this time to redefine the visual system as well as update our logos and brand elements. The rewrite was not a walk in the park however. We struggled a lot in development to build most infrastructure from scratch and at the same time the markets screamed for new features to help them grow today. The rewrite took almost 9 months and most of this time we had a “feature freeze”.

Since we grew from seven to around 900 people during my time at Saltside, the need for brand and design guidelines was essential. A lot of effort and time went in to set up the guidelines and educate people on how to communicate on brand.

I was also responsible for the design of the Saltside brand. Saltside is the parent company for all the local marketplaces around the world. We found that a steering wheel similar to those on boats was a good representation for our journey accross the world in search for new markets.

All the above showcased work was a team effort of the Design Team at Saltside. Special shoutout to all of the members of the design team!