2019 — 2021 · Product Designer + Head of Marketing
Outbuild
I joined to make marketing material and ended up designing the product
ProPlanner was a project-management SaaS for the construction industry, used by 40+ contractors across 8 Latin American countries. I was hired to grow the customer base with marketing material, took over the marketing function, and became the product designer — for the same product that would later make the leap to the US market.
- Empresa
- IPSUM → Outbuild
- Producto
- ProPlanner
- Equipo
- Sole designer · 5 engineers
- Plataforma
- Web
- Disciplinas
- Figma · Adobe Creative Suite · Product Discovery · Brand Systems
El contexto
Construir software para la construcción
IPSUM — the company that would later become Outbuild — built ProPlanner: a SaaS to manage construction projects end to end, both the planning of people on site and of project resources. Two worlds that had historically lived in spreadsheets, whiteboards, and a site manager's head. It was also one of the first venture-backed construction-tech startups in Latin America — in an industry that still eyed software with distrust. I was brought onto the team right after the company closed a one-million-dollar funding round, and they recruited me while I was still working at a digital agency, with a very specific profile in mind: someone who could design and, at the same time, move the needle on marketing.
La trayectoria
Un rol que no dejó de crecer
No entré como Product Designer. Entré para resolver un problema de marketing — y cada encargo cumplido fue ampliando el siguiente. En menos de dos años el rol pasó por cuatro etapas, sin que ninguna reemplazara del todo a la anterior.
Entrada
Diseñador de marketing
Contratado con una misión concreta: crear el material de marketing que haría crecer la base de clientes.
Expansión
Rediseño del sitio web
El primer encargo cumplido abrió el segundo — un rediseño completo del sitio web corporativo, de punta a punta.
Liderazgo
Head of Marketing
Cuando la dirección del área quedó disponible, la compañía me pidió asumirla y responder por todo el marketing.
Producto
Product Designer
Con responsabilidades sobre la plataforma, pasé a diseñar ProPlanner como su Product Designer.
La distribución de mi tiempo una vez que el rol abarcó las dos disciplinas a la vez.
2019 – 2021 · El telón de fondo
El alcance del rol creció rápido, pero no creció en un vacío.
Todo esto ocurrió mientras Chile vivía las réplicas del estallido social de octubre de 2019 y el mundo entraba en pandemia — un contexto que, de un día para otro, obligó a la compañía a dejar la oficina y reinventarse como un equipo completamente remoto. Sostener el estándar de diseño, dirigir el marketing y aprender el oficio de Product Designer ocurrió, todo, sobre ese terreno movedizo.
Discovery
Diseñar para la obra, no para la oficina
Before designing features, I had to understand an operating context unusual for a SaaS. ProPlanner served two almost opposite profiles: the site manager, who lives the job on the move with an unstable connection, and the office planner, who needs to see the whole project and project it over time. Designing for one without losing the other framed nearly every decision. Understanding BIM models — their weight, their complexity, and their role in the workflow — was a central part of that learning.
Conectividad intermitente
Las obras de construcción rara vez tienen buena señal. Las tareas críticas tenían que resistir una conexión que se cae.
Modelos BIM
Archivos pesados y complejos que el producto debía manejar sin volverse lento ni intimidante para el usuario.
Usuarios sin software
Buena parte de los usuarios en terreno no tenía historia previa de uso de herramientas digitales.
Dos perfiles opuestos
El jefe de terreno, en movimiento, y el planificador de oficina, con visión completa. Un solo producto para ambos.
Decisiones
Tres decisiones que definieron el trabajo
Earning the product through marketing
The first mission was concrete: create the marketing material that would grow the customer base. Delivering on it opened the next door — a full redesign of the corporate website — and that one opened the next. Access to the product was not asked for: it was earned by delivering on every prior front.
Design for the worst case, not the demo
Critical tasks had to work with intermittent connectivity and for users with no prior software experience. That pushed toward minimal-input interfaces, clear hierarchy, and predictable navigation. The job site does not forgive an ambiguous screen.
Integrate instead of replace
Rather than asking the industry to abandon its tools, ProPlanner connected to them: attendance tracking with GeoVictoria, BIM model support, and integration with Procore, one of the global benchmarks of construction tech. Plugging into the ecosystem contractors already used — instead of competing against it — is what made ProPlanner a viable piece of their real operation.
El producto
ProPlanner, de la planilla a la plataforma
I designed the product's core features — Gantt charts, activity scheduling, and resource planning — built so a team in the field could optimize the job's processes without fighting the tool.
Ejecución
Un producto que se conecta al rubro
ProPlanner added integrations that made it part of construction's real ecosystem: attendance tracking with GeoVictoria, BIM model support, and integration with Procore, one of the global benchmarks of construction tech.
Control de asistencia
GeoVictoria
Conectó la planificación del proyecto con la marcación real de asistencia del personal en obra.
Información del proyecto
Modelos BIM
Soporte de modelos BIM para que la planificación se apoyara en la información real de cada proyecto.
Integración global
Procore
La conexión con uno de los referentes globales del construction-tech — integrar ProPlanner al ecosistema de herramientas que las constructoras ya usaban a diario.
Resultados
El impacto del trabajo
$1M
Funding round closed as I joined the team
40+
Contractors using ProPlanner across 8 Latin American countries
2 functions
Product and marketing, led in parallel
United States
The market the company leapt to after the pandemic
Más allá del producto
Marca, marketing y dirección de área
My first assignment was the marketing material to grow the customer base; the second, a full redesign of the corporate website. When the lead of the function opened up, the company asked me to take it on, and I became responsible for all of marketing and positioning.
El desenlace
De IPSUM a Outbuild
En Latinoamérica
IPSUMEn Estados Unidos
OutbuildAfter the pandemic, the company made a bold call: take the product to the US market. A partnership with Haskell, one of the country's large general contractors, marked that entry. The product and the positioning I helped build in Latin America were part of the foundation that leap was made on. That same product, now in the US, was rebuilt and renamed Outbuild.
La apuesta fue competir en el mercado más grande del mundo del construction-tech. Un producto que nació resolviendo la planificación de obras en Latinoamérica terminó cruzando a Estados Unidos.
Aprendizajes
Lo que me llevo
- 01
Marketing and product are not opposite disciplines: both start from understanding the user. Moving between them gave me a business lens that pure design does not hand you.
- 02
Designing for the job site taught me that the user's physical context rules. A screen that assumes a good connection and an expert user is not a finished screen.
- 03
The scope of a role is not always negotiated. Sometimes it is earned by delivering on every prior front, until the next one becomes the natural consequence.
- 04
A well-chosen integration can make a product part of its industry's ecosystem. Connecting ProPlanner to the tools contractors already used was, at once, a product decision and a business one. They are almost always the same conversation.
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