Making a two-person outdoor-jobs startup look like a company worth trusting

Situation

Adventure Careers needed to look like a real company before it quite was one yet. Job boards for outdoor and experiential-ed work tend to look like a Craigslist post that got ambitious, and the people checking listings were doing it on a phone between shifts, not at a desk with time to squint.

Approach

I built the brand and the site at the same time instead of one then the other, mobile-first from the start. That meant talking to users on both sides of the platform, job seekers and the employers posting listings, then designing a bold, youthful identity system and an intuitive job-search flow around what I heard, with specs and live support handed off to dev.

Outcome

Bounce rate dropped 40%. Clean navigation and a site that didn't feel like homework got people past the first click. The founder's read on it: "it looks and feels like a real company now." I'll take it.

• 40% reduction in bounce rate
• Mobile-first job-search flow shipped for both sides of the platform
• Full brand and UI system handed off with dev specs and live support