Huddo Boards
Digital Marketing Manager |
Jul 2020 — Mar 2025
Full rebrand, go-to-market strategy, freemium model launch, and UX overhaul for a B2B SaaS project management platform.
Huddo Boards is a lightweight project management application developed by ISW, originally built for the HCL Connections ecosystem. I was brought in initially to lead a full rebrand, the product was being renamed from Kudos Boards to Huddo Boards to resolve a trademark dispute, and everything needed rebuilding from the name up. I worked closely with the ISW sales team, the development team, and agency partner Digital Ink throughout my five years there.
Over time, the role evolved significantly, from pure branding and marketing into UX design, product strategy, and go-to-market planning as the product expanded into the Microsoft ecosystem.
Microsoft App Store Strategy
In 2022, Huddo Boards launched into the Microsoft App Store — a significant new market. I developed and executed the market penetration strategy, including targeted Bing advertising, App Store optimisation, and a new acquisition funnel designed for self-serve Microsoft users. Customer acquisition increased by 117% following the launch.
Freemium Model
After analysing retention data and user feedback, I identified that the product's paid-only model was creating friction at the point of acquisition. I led the case for moving to a freemium model and designed the new user onboarding experience to support it. The shift to freemium drove a 788% increase in user acquisition, as the product opened to self-serve for the first time.
RESULSTS
Customer acquisition increased by 117% following Microsoft App Store launch.
User acquisition increased by 788% following freemium model launch.
User retention increased by 49% following UX improvements.
UX Design
In the final two years at Huddo Boards, retention became the central challenge. I proposed and led a UX design initiative in response to declining retention metrics and recurring user feedback. This ultimately led me to study and gain a Diploma in UX/UI Design.
In Q4 2024, I conducted around 15 interviews with new users and 5 with paying customers, focused specifically on the first-use experience. My research identified two primary friction points: the immediate prompt to select a template on signup, and the complexity of the toolbar and navigation.
The output was a mid-fidelity Figma prototype redesigning the onboarding flow, introducing templates, colours, members, and views in a structured sequence rather than all at once. The project was ongoing at the point I left.
Graphic Design
I led the full rebranding of the product from Kudos Boards to Huddo Boards. This included the new name, logo, brand identity, visual language, and website design. The brand direction was deliberately bold and playful — drawing influence from companies like Mailchimp and Duolingo — to stand out in a market dominated by utilitarian enterprise tools.
Huddo Boards has a strong visual identity — vibrant, bold, and unapologetically fun. I produced all graphic design work across events, merchandise, social media, and the website, including a series of playing card-themed event materials that became some of the most recognisable assets the brand produced.
Video Design
I produced two types of video content for Huddo Boards. Produced videos, made in partnership with agency Digital Ink, using animation and AI voiceover for longevity and broad use. And human videos — featuring team members speaking directly to the community, designed to be genuine rather than polished. Both served different purposes and different audiences.
Web Design
The Huddo website went through two full iterations under my watch, both built entirely in Squarespace. The second iteration, still in progress at the time I left, moved the site to a productised strategy focused almost entirely on converting new visitors into signups. I introduced interactive elements including sliding image comparisons, timeline scrolling, and a drag-and-drop whiteboard that replicated the product's core Kanban functionality in the browser.
Marketing
Huddo Boards operates on three levels of marketing activity running simultaneously. At the foundation, a consistent baseline of social media, newsletters, and video content keeps the brand present and the existing user base engaged. On top of that, semi-regular campaigns — blog series, guides, and events — run across the year, each designed with a specific objective, either acquiring new users or retaining the ones already on the platform.
The strategic work sits above both. Over five years I shaped the direction of how Huddo Boards positioned itself, who it was talking to, and how it went to market. The two most significant strategic shifts I led were the move into the Microsoft ecosystem and the transition to a freemium model.
The Microsoft strategy combined targeted Bing advertising with App Store optimisation, which improved the product's visibility and placement within the Microsoft App Store and drove a 117% increase in customer acquisition. It remains the highest-performing acquisition channel the product has run.
The freemium transition was a longer play — making the case internally, redesigning the onboarding experience, and building the self-service purchase flow to support it. Removing the barrier to entry opened the product to a new audience entirely and drove a 788% increase in user acquisition. Alongside new onboarding tutorials designed to reduce time-to-value, it also had a measurable impact on retention.
