This is the story of how I brought Bondub to life, shaping the product experience, building its visual identity, and designing everything from the app screens and landing page to investor pitch decks.
Date :
Apr 24, 2025
Time Taken :
2-3 Months
My Role :
Founding Designer
Introduction
Bondub is a budding startup built by a team of six, focused on making networking more meaningful, less noisy, and driven by real support and value. We started as being frustration with linkedin, most of our team members were not happy with our networks and we all had faced the problem of trying to build a network but it didn't know where or how to start. With the current solutions, everything used to feel like we are shouting in a void.
At its core, Bondub is a trust-first networking platform that helps people build genuine, lasting relationships instead of just collecting contacts.
As the founding designer on the team, I led everything design-related from the ground up shaping the product & app experience, designing the landing page, building the visual identity, to crafting the investor pitch decks that told our story.
Problem
We live in the most connected era ever, yet 60–70% of people in tech don’t feel confident about their network, or worse, don’t have one and don’t know how to build it. Many struggle to identify the right people to reach out to when they need help, and there’s no consistent way to nurture relationships over time. Without trust and long-term engagement, connections fade, leaving individuals feeling isolated and unsupported in their professional growth.
Despite having thousands of connections on platforms like LinkedIn, most people don’t feel confident about their network.
There’s no easy way to manage contacts, remember where you met someone, or track important conversations.
People forget to follow up, and potentially valuable relationships quietly fade away.
Target Audience
We’re focusing on the tech community designers, developers, founders, freelancers, and creators because they understand how valuable networking is but often find it hard to build and keep strong connections.
Research and Initial Validation
To make sure we weren’t just building for ourselves, we spent time digging into how others felt about networking. We went through tweets, Reddit threads, and posts where people shared how disconnected and unsure they felt about their network, even with hundreds or thousands of connections.
We also ran a survey to understand this better. A majority of people said they didn’t feel confident about their network. All of this made it clear, the problem was real, and a better solution was needed.
I also created a simple user-flow to understand the journey of the user and it helped me to visualise the app in a better manner.
Solution
Most networking tools today focus on growing your reach, Bondub focuses on growing your relationships. It helps people in the tech community build a network they can actually rely on by making consistent, mutual support feel natural and easy.
Bondub helps you stay in touch by organizing important connections and setting follow-up reminders, so you don’t lose touch over time.
You can remember context - where you met, what you talked about, and why someone matters making every interaction more intentional.
When you need help, Bondub gives you a simple, trusted way to ask for intros, advice, or referrals without feeling awkward or transactional.
We believe that through consistent actions, genuine care, showing up when it matters, and actively pursuing meaningful goals, people using Bondub can build a strong, dependable network, a supportive web of relationships they can truly rely on.
Reachout
Reachout is one of the core features of Bondub. It's a dedicated space where people can ask for intros, support, referrals, or even share hiring needs with their trusted network.
Whether you're looking to connect with someone in a specific industry, need help with a project, or want to hire someone through mutual connections, Reachout makes it simple and intentional. No awkward DMs or noisy social posts, just direct, purpose-driven asks that actually reach the right people.
Now, you might ask, why not just do this on LinkedIn or Twitter? The answer is trust and context. On those platforms, your message is either lost in the feed or buried in private messages. Reachout focuses on a trusted network that already knows you or believes in what you're building. You're not shouting into the void, you're reaching out with purpose to people who are more likely to respond and support you.
How does reachout work?
Currently, people can Reachout for three specific needs:
Ask for an Intro
Looking to meet someone in your network’s network? Request a warm introduction with context and purpose.Seek Help or Support
Need feedback, advice, or support for something you're working on? Reach out directly to people who are more likely to care.Ask for a Referral or Share a Hiring Need
Whether you're job hunting or hiring, Reachout lets you tap into your trusted network instead of relying on cold outreach.
To make communication even smoother, posts are color-coded by type to help users quickly identify different kinds of asks. Every Reachout also has a short character limit, encouraging users to be clear and to the point, respecting both their own time and others. Skill requirements (applicable for referrals and hiring) are displayed as clean, readable chips so expectations are clear from the start.
Action
Actions is the backbone of Bondub. It helps users move toward their goals in a structured and consistent way. Whether someone wants to land a job, grow a business, or build a personal brand, Actions breaks that big goal into smaller, daily tasks that are easy to follow and complete.
One of the hardest parts of networking is knowing what to do next. Actions solves this by turning something as broad and overwhelming as "networking" into small, consumable daily tasks. From reconnecting with an old contact to sending a thoughtful message or asking for feedback, every task feels doable and intentional.
"Best networking hack? Be interesting enough that people want to connect with you."
How does actions work?
Users start by picking a goal like getting a job or growing a business. Bondub’s AI then breaks that goal into small, daily tasks that are easy to follow and complete. These tasks help users build momentum while making meaningful connections along the way.
A strong network has three key pillars: finding new people to connect with, organizing them, and nurturing those relationships. The "Action" feature is designed to address all three of these pillars, ensuring that the network people build remains strong over time.
Bonds
Bonds is the place where you organize and manage your network. It’s more than just saving a contact, it’s about remembering who someone is, where you met, and why they matter to you.
Inside Bonds, you can add tags, write notes, set follow-up reminders, and even track the last time you connected. Whether it’s a potential collaborator, someone you met at an event, or a friend you want to keep in touch with, Bonds helps you stay intentional about your relationships.
Profile
The profile is designed to give a complete picture of who someone is and why they’re worth connecting with. It focuses on showcasing context so people can decide if a connection truly makes sense. People can see things like job profession, years of experience, resume, website and even how many people have they supported yet.
Showing it upfront would result into more people helping each other out more.
Since there’s no global search right now, I designed three simple and intentional ways to build your network:
Invite to Connect
Invite the people you already value through a personal link, helping you build a deeper and more intentional network from the start.Scan & Connect
Easily connect with someone you meet offline by scanning their profile QR code, great for events or casual meetups.Save as Passive Contact
Add people you admire or aspire to connect with in the future. These are not active connections, but they help you keep track of potential bonds.
Notifications & Bon-points
Notifications is where users manage all incoming activity, from invite requests to Reachout responses like help, referrals, or hiring. It keeps everything organized so users never miss a meaningful interaction.
Bon-Points is our reward system which makes Bondub more engaging and value-driven. Users earn points for positive actions like staying consistent, showing up, or helping others. By rewarding these everyday behaviors, we aim to shift how people view networking, from a transactional task to something more human and fulfilling.
Design System
For Bondub, I created a small but solid design system to keep everything consistent and easy to scale. It included a library of re-usable components, spacing rules, font styles, color tokens, icons etc. I also set up how each component should behave in light and dark mode using figma variables and color tokens. This helped me move faster while keeping the design clean and connected across the app.
Typeface & Colors
I used Geist as the main typeface for Bondub because it’s modern, clean, and easy to read. It’s also open-source, which made it a practical choice for a growing startup. For colors, I picked a bold purple and a bright green. These two work well together, give Bondub a fresh and unique identity, and make the app feel both friendly and trustworthy.
I was continously testing the designs with people around me such as my peers and always taking feedback on the way. I even implemented some of the feedbacks and some feedbacks are added in the pipeline to be added. The startup is currently focusing on launching it's MVP as soon as possible so we can start getting the early traction and initial validation and feedback which we can work upon and eventually raise funding.
There were more screens and flows, I haven't put everything in the case study as it was getting long. If you want to see the full project I'll give the figma link for the same.
Landing page
After shaping the core product, we knew we needed a landing page. Something simple and effective that explains what Bondub is, what problem we’re solving, and how we’re doing it. The goal was to get early users to sign up for the waitlist so they’d be the first to try the app when it launched.
I started by studying landing pages of similar waitlist-based products, noting what worked well and what didn’t. Then I sketched out a wireframe with the key sections we needed problem, solution, how it works, and a clear call to action. Once the structure felt right, I moved into visual design, constantly taking feedback from our CEO and early users. We shipped the first version fast, thanks to a solid effort from the engineering team.
Post-launch, we got feedback that the page felt a bit text-heavy and that the solution wasn’t instantly clear. I took that feedback seriously and refined the design again. The current version is live at bondub.com if you’d like to see how it turned out.
Challenges
Working on Bondub has been one of the most exciting parts of my journey so far. But it wasn’t all smooth. We had moments where entire flows and screens had to be rethought and redesigned from scratch. After launching an early version during a fest at BITS Pilani, we realized some assumptions didn’t hold up. That feedback led us to pivot, refine our ideas, and build something more aligned with real user needs. In a startup, things change fast, and I learned to adapt just as fast.
Impact
The product is still in its early days and hasn’t launched yet, so the impact is something we’re yet to fully measure. That said, the response so far has been encouraging. The landing page alone has brought in over 2000+ signups, and the design feedback I’ve received from potential users and fellow designers has been genuinely positive. I’m confident Bondub is heading in the right direction, and I’m proud to have played a key role in shaping it.
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