Ready or not, here I come: helped a client bring the idea of a B2B classifieds platform for European entrepreneurs to life without exceeding the limited budget. Look4pro case

B2B platform for finding contractors, suppliers, investors, and business partners

The client from Switzerland asked us to design and develop a web platform for the B2B sector that operates on the principle of a classifieds board. The difference here is that users don’t offer their services or goods but look for those who can provide services, sell something, or invest in a project.

A classified is an online platform where people post about selling, buying, or trading goods or services.

The platform, which was later named Look4pro, is aimed at small and medium-sized European businesses. Moreover, it allows users to post unique requests when other channels haven’t yielded the desired result.

Look4pro makes it easier for entrepreneurs to find contractors or suppliers, even in niche areas. In turn, it helps the latter find new clients in the B2B sector, as well as new sales or supply channels.

Our client had been nurturing the idea of launching her own digital product for many years, but the opportunity didn’t arise right away. When she found an investor willing to support the startup and a marketer to handle promotion, she sought a team capable of turning the idea into a product.

She was choosing between us, Purrweb, and other teams. She liked the cases in our portfolio. What also attracted her was our ability to create MVPs for startups. This was important because the client planned to launch a minimal version of the product with basic functionality, test the market interest, and only then add more complex and costly features.

And it’s an excellent way to bring a new product to market. For instance, we had a similar case when we developed a platform for online consultations with psychologists, implementing only the core features. Later, the client came back to us to create more complex features to scale the platform.

Fun fact: the client originally came to us with a different idea 🙂

She wanted to launch a platform for finding rare items that are unavailable in regular stores or marketplaces. For example, vintage perfumes that are long out of production, first editions of comic books, or collectibles.

The platform’s working principle was the same — people would post ads like “looking for old Christmas postcards from the early 20th century, willing to pay well,” and lucky owners of these rarities could respond to the request and arrange a deal.

The platform’s idea is to show owners of rare or unusual items that there are people who are willing to pay for these things.

During the project discussion, this idea evolved: the client decided to narrow down the target audience and niche, focusing on creating a platform for businesses. She herself worked in the B2B sector and understood the pain points that entrepreneurs face — how hard it can be to find a reliable supplier or manufacturer.

We fully supported her decision, as we believe it’s better to launch an MVP for a more focused audience. In the original idea, the target audience was too diverse. This means the pain points and needs of the users could vary greatly, making it difficult to address them all.

By the way, we’ve created a guide specifically for those thinking about launching their own startup, where we show you how to assess the business potential of your idea in 4 steps.

What we had to do

For this project, our tasks were:

The client didn’t have a strict deadline for when Look4pro had to be released, but she wanted to have a finished product within a realistic timeframe. We estimated that the design and development would take five months — and the client agreed to this timeline.

That’s exactly how it turned out: we completed the main tasks within this timeframe, and we even had some buffer time left to implement additional features. But more on that later.

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Helped choose features for the MVP

When developing an MVP, it’s important to focus solely on key functions — without which a release would be impossible. The hardest part is prioritizing and deciding which functions to work on now to stay on schedule and budget and which can be added in later versions of the product.

We help at this stage: analyze the business objectives of the project and, together with the client, choose what’s crucial for a successful launch and what can be added later.

For example, when we estimated the design and development of Look4pro, we worked with the client to determine which features should definitely be included in the MVP:

To stay within budget, we removed some features from the MVP, such as chats. For businesses, these aren’t as necessary — agreements can be made via email or messenger. Developing and integrating chats into the platform could have been very costly for the client. We also decided to forgo the blog and ad management features.

Researching the market and creating the design concept

Take a look at Look4pro. We created a sleek and modern design with intuitive navigation. Our goal was to make the platform as simple and user-friendly as possible. Here’s how we achieved that 👉

When we create UI/UX designs for new products, we ask the client to fill out a brief — sharing references, visual preferences, and ideas about the target audience and their needs.

The brief helps us meet the client’s expectations and quickly find the right style. We’ve written an article about the benefits of design briefs and how they save time and resources. We’ve even included a template for a universal brief — grab it, it’ll be useful!

In the brief, the client noted that the platform should have a clean, business-like, and modern design. We took that into account and started looking for the right style. The first step was the design concept.

To prepare for it, we analyzed similar solutions on the market. Look4pro had a unique concept, so we didn’t find any direct competitors. We reviewed classified ad services like MerchantCircle.

Analyzing platforms where people can post ads for goods and services.

Our designers noticed that platforms for finding contractors usually use shades of red combined with neutral tones. In contrast, platforms for goods often feature bright color schemes, with blue and green dominating.

Red and yellow for services, and blue and green for goods.

We offered two color schemes to choose from: one with red as the dominant color and another with blue as the main color and green as a secondary one. We discussed both options with the client and settled on the second palette.

We chose a palette dominated by blues and greens.

To capture the right vibe, we created a mood board. We selected visuals with non-standard shapes and modern solutions but kept in mind that we were designing a business platform — a touch of seriousness and professionalism wouldn’t hurt here 👔

The main associations of this mood board: modern, airy, and reliable.

Here’s what our design concept looked like — showing an example of the homepage:

The client liked the concept, and we moved forward with the design.

A design praised even by Swiss startups

We created a platform with an intuitive interface and a minimalist design featuring a lot of white space. The block structure ensures easy navigation and quick search. We focused on making the service trustworthy and meeting modern standards for entrepreneurs.

Let’s go through the main flows and show how everything works in Look4pro.

Authorization. Instead of a modal window, we suggested using a sidebar — this is a relevant solution in UI/UX design. The sidebar doesn’t cover the main content, so the user doesn’t get lost while interacting with the site, and it’s easier to adapt to mobile screens.

Homepage. The platform offers a very simple user journey: after registration/authorization, the user lands on the homepage — a feed with listings. Users can immediately create their own listing — we placed the action button on a banner at the top of the page — or continue browsing using filters or the search bar.

Listing page. All the necessary information is immediately visible to the user, with the price of the service or product highlighted in green and the contact information placed in a separate block.

Creating a listing. This is the key action on the platform, so we made it as simple and convenient as possible. Understanding that our users are entrepreneurs who value their time, we divided the process into three quick steps. To make it even simpler, we added category selections, minimized the number of fields to fill out, and added a circular progress bar.

Before publishing, the user can preview the listing, go back, and edit it if necessary.

Personal account. In the personal account, the user can edit general information about themselves, their business and their field, change passwords, and manage listings and subscriptions. We implemented simple navigation as a vertical sidebar for quick switching between sections.

After completing the project, the client presented Look4pro at a startup conference in Switzerland. Our design received a lot of positive feedback.

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Development stack

We used our familiar stack and selected ready-made solutions to save the client time and budget.

Our developers admitted — the project was easy, in a good way, but there were still some challenges 🤯

Multilingual content

Look4pro is aimed at the European market. Therefore, it was important to add the option to switch between different languages to increase the platform’s conversion and appeal.

It’s best to include multilingual support from the beginning to simplify the work with the frontend and backend. Since the client didn’t decide on the list of languages right away, we were worried it would cause issues. But we found a suitable solution in the end.

Instead of hardcoding a fixed set of languages, we implemented a system that allows for the flexible addition of new languages at any time.

This was done using JSON files and databases with text strings that can be easily expanded without rewriting the code.

Currently, in addition to English, users can access the platform in French, German, Spanish, and Russian.

Tackling the integration of the international payment system Stripe

Look4pro has a subscription model for monetization. The subscription allows users to view the contact details of listing authors. To make payments possible within the platform, we integrated the international online payment service Stripe. But it wasn’t without challenges 🙂

We faced an issue: cards with 3D Secure protection weren’t being attached, and there was a constant error — the system thought the information had already been processed and wouldn’t allow the process to be repeated.

We changed a key component that was responsible for handling cards. Originally, this component relied on a special security code that became outdated by the time it was verified. We rewrote the component to work without this code, and when necessary, we provided a new code directly from the server. And everything started working as it should.

Staying within the deadline and budget while adding extra features

Throughout the project, we offered solutions that addressed the client’s business needs while keeping the budget in check. For instance, the platform has two roles — businesses and contractors. We didn’t complicate the architecture by creating different functionality for each role. For all users, the platform’s interface and options look the same.

In the end, we saved hours and implemented additional features while staying within the initial budget. Now, users can:

• • archive irrelevant listings instead of deleting them completely
  • leave feedback or ask questions via a special form
  • add listings to favorites
  • use Look4pro on various devices — we adapted the site for smartphones and tablets

We delivered a fully functional platform to the client, here is the result. The entire project took us 5 months.

Currently, the client is preparing a marketing campaign to promote Look4pro. While we were working on the project, she completed marketing courses to better understand all the nuances and effectively manage the product 👏

The client shared her thoughts on working with us:

➡️ If you have an idea but don’t know how to bring it to life, contact us. We’ve developed over 300 MVPs for startups in various niches, and we have plenty of experience to share. We’ll listen to your ideas, estimate the timeline and budget, and find the best solution for you.