tuGerente — turning pen-and-paper inventory into real-time transaction management
A business management SaaS for minimarts and small retailers: inventory control, product labeling, and an infrared scanner-based point-of-sale that records every transaction in real time.
The problem
Small business owners were running entirely on paper
Notebooks, memory, and rough estimates were the only management tools available to most small retailers. No reliable view of real stock, no trusted sales record, and no way to know whether the business was growing or bleeding.
tuGerente already existed when I joined. The product was built — but users couldn't operate it on their own. Flows had friction, the language was written for the product team rather than the merchant, and the most critical part of the system — recording a sale at checkout — required too many steps with no clear guidance.
My role
Stepping into a live product and making it genuinely usable
As Head of Product, my job wasn't to build from scratch — it was to understand what was breaking the real user's experience and lead the team to fix it. That meant researching, prioritizing, and making decisions alongside the CEO, developers, and design team simultaneously.
User interviews in the field
I went out and talked to real merchants. What I found was that the biggest pain wasn't inventory itself — it was the moment of sale. The checkout flow with the infrared scanner was the heart of the system and the place where comprehension broke down most often.
UX writing as a design decision
I rewrote interface copy throughout the product. The language had been written by and for the technical team — not for a 50-year-old shop owner managing their minimart. Every label, instruction, and error message was reviewed and rewritten in the user's own vocabulary.
Friction reduction: fewer screens, cleaner flows
I identified redundant screens and unnecessary steps across the product. The checkout flow — infrared scan to completed transaction — was simplified so users could complete it independently, without calling support.
Consistency across web and mobile
I led the design team to unify the experience across the web platform, tuGerenteapp, and Zozziapp — maintaining visual and functional consistency across three interconnected products.
The most critical flow — before and after
Recording a sale at point of sale
This was the highest-tension moment: a merchant with a customer waiting, scanner in hand, and a flow that wasn't clear. Here's what the experience looked like before and what we achieved.
Before
No clear progress signal. Technical copy. Users called support to complete a basic sale.
After
Guided linear flow. Merchant-friendly language. Sales completed independently, without assistance.
