Far too many people feel embarrassed about or clueless when it comes to their bodies, pleasure, and healthy relationships. I co-founded tabú in 2016 to bridge the gap between our abysmal and non-standardized sex ed and a sexually repressed society.
My roles
CEO, Founder, Creative Director
Built every version of our website
first with Squarespace, then WordPress, now coming back to Squarespace
grew site to half a million readers in 2 years
Designed end-to-end V1 of our app
shipped in the App Store & Google Play Store
1.5K downloads in the first week
Generated a buzz to get people talking … tabú
featured in The New York Times, Mic, Bustle, Refinery29, The Guardian, HuffPost, Women of Silicon Valley, Cosmopolitan, CNN Style, and more!
Led omnichannel brand design
discovered, managed, and worked alongside brilliant graphic designers to bring the tabú brand to life through illustrations, animations, and an iconic logo
Launched nationwide college ambassador program
scaled to 32 ambassadors across the country
worked with sex educators to create proprietary curriculum for college students
heavy involvement with & outreach through on-campus Greek life
Goals
Leverage design to normalize bodies and pleasure (less clinical, more delightful and fun)
Educate consumers (initial demo: "millennials" + college students) about sexual wellness
Point consumers in the direction of experts and resources to address their health concerns (physical & emotional)
Give brands a retail space to promote their products to a relevant, curious, and engaged audience
LAUNCH
LAUNCH
To launch tabú, we worked with photographer Arturo Torres and SF-based agency Lola Creative (now ViV) to humanize the brand and bring bold, play, and a little cheekiness to tabú
THE APP
THE APP
In 2016, we launched an app in the App & Google Play Stores. We were featured in Product Hunt and got 1.5K downloads in the first week of our launch. Our launch was also covered in Mic, Bustle, and the Women of Silicon Valley.
Key Decisions
bright, fun colors and clean UI to make the app feel approachable and de-stigmatize sex
playful, "cheeky" marketing and photography to appeal to a mass audience
mobile-first for a generation constantly on their phones and for added privacy and security for sensitive topics
ability to show up anonymously for shy individuals asking "embarrassing" questions
Fun, playful onboarding with option for user to select topics and curate their feed and in-app experience
Prime real estate for mission-aligned brands
With monetization in mind from day one, we built in ad space front-and-center to connect with users already seeking sexual wellness content
Engaging community feed & structured search
We leveraged a tabbed Q&A response UI to distinguish between community & experts. We wanted to provide the option to hear from other users for normalization and support, alongside experts for access to verified, credible professional.
Our MVP listview for community posts gave users a way to quickly scan the feed for content and ask their own question.
As the app evolved, I designed a more interactive feed that was segmented by topic at the top and gave users more opportunities to engage via polls, quizzes, etc. I also added profile photos and usernames to humanize the experience and give users opportunities to personalize their profiles (even if they wanted to remain anonymous).
Users could easily browse the feed or search for a specific question/topic. We had three different types of content and users could decide which type of response they were looking for.
Profiles for experts & brands
Vibrant profiles for users to humanize, contextualize, and legitimize the experts responding to their questions. The goal for the future state was intended to be bookable.
We also wanted to allow organizations and brands to create profiles to boost exposure and awareness.
TABÚ
EVOLUTION
TABÚ EVOLUTION
We shifted our focus to web to support people Googling their intimate questions and boost SEO.
Milestones & Achievements
90% organic website traffic
Reached 500k+ annual readers in 2 years with $0 ad spend
Featured in CNN Style in 2020 for innovative and compelling web design