Scaling a YC Product to Global Enterprise Standards

Unlayer provides an embeddable email editor SDK used by major enterprises. When I joined, the product had strong technical foundations but minimal design maturity. It had been built by developers, for developers.

The company had two parallel directions: Unlayer Studio (B2C): A Canva-like standalone editor for individuals. Unlayer Embed (B2B): A white-labeled SDK integrated into enterprise platforms.

While Studio attracted users, revenue and long-term value were clearly in Embed.

My mandate was to take design ownership, define direction, and elevate the product to enterprise-grade quality.

Before touching the UI, I worked with stakeholders to clarify product vision.

Through brand workshops and alignment sessions, we extracted a core direction:

Make email design accessible. Anyone should be able to design beautifully, without expertise.

From this, we defined:

The editor was the heart of the product but it was fragile, developer-built, and complex. The engineering team was understandably protective.

Instead of proposing a risky rebuild, I introduced a low-friction strategy

Phase 1: Reskin and modernize

Phase 2: Improve interaction patterns gradually

Once visual trust was established, I began improving usability.

I did a brief usability audit of editor when we joined the company and found some very obvious issues. I also did asked our in house power user to share their frustration they face in their daily usage. Also did some high level competitor analysis to see whats working for them.

Unlayer introduced generative image AI into the editor.

The problem: Users were not familiar with prompt writing. They treated it like Unsplash search typing short phrases and generating poor results. This caused: Low satisfaction, High credit burn, Increased infrastructure cost.

A classic UX literacy problem

My Approach to Solution — Structured Prompt Workflow. Instead of a single input field, I redesigned the experience.

This flow: User describes intent in simple language → System rewrites the prompt into an enhanced version → User chooses from refined prompt options → User selects visual style → Image is generated.

This flow: Reduced failed attempts, Reduced credit waste, Increased quality of output.

As the company shifted focus fully to Embed, the Console became central.

The Console managed: Domain publishing, API keys, Templates, Team collaboration, Custom fonts, Feature controls.

Then, we introduced structured upsells inside the product: Locked premium templates, Custom domains as upgrade triggers, Team collaboration tiers, Custom fonts, Advanced features behind plan walls.

I restructured navigation and information architecture to support scalability and developer-first positioning.

Instead of aggressive paywalls, we used contextual upgrade nudges tied to user intent.

Unlayer Studio (B2C) required heavy marketing investment and showed limited conversion.