Fudtraka
Designing a Mobile-First Food Discovery Marketplace
2025
Designing a Mobile-First Food Discovery Marketplace
Overview
Fudtraka helps people discover restaurants and street food vendors that are often invisible on maps.
Some of the best food spots in Sub-Saharan Africa are hidden in unfinished buildings, behind offices, or along busy roads. Most people only find them through word of mouth.
I joined as the sole freelance product designer to help bring the idea to life. I also used my product management experience to help the founder sharpen the product direction, define the user journeys, and make the idea easier to understand and pitch.
The Problem
Fudtraka had an early web-only version, but engagement was low.
The issue was clear: the vendors the platform wanted to serve worked mainly from their phones, not laptops. A web-only product could not reach them properly.
It was a two-sided problem:
Vendors could not easily be found
Eaters could not easily find hidden food spots around them
The Opportunity
Most vendors already had smartphones. A mobile-first product could help small food sellers become visible and give everyday eaters a simple way to discover food around them.
The product also had the chance to give small vendors tools usually reserved for bigger restaurants, such as menus, deals, and loyalty rewards.
My Role
I led the product design work from research to high-fidelity design.
I interviewed eaters and vendors, shaped the product flows, created wireframes, and designed the key experiences across the user app, vendor tools, and admin dashboard.
I also helped the founder turn a broad idea into a clearer marketplace proposition.
What I Designed
1. User app
A mobile experience that helps eaters discover nearby food vendors on a live map, view menus, find deals, and collect loyalty points.
2. Vendor dashboard
A web dashboard for established vendors and restaurants to manage profiles, menus, deals, and rewards.
3. Mobile vendor tools
A simpler mobile version for street vendors who work mainly from their phones and may have low to moderate digital confidence.
4. Admin dashboard
A web dashboard for the Fudtraka team to manage users, vendors, plans, deals, and marketplace activity.
What This Shows
This project shows my ability to design for both sides of a marketplace while keeping the experience simple for users with different levels of digital confidence.
It also shows how I use product management thinking inside design work. I did not just design screens. I helped clarify the problem, define the journeys, and shape the product into something the founder could communicate more clearly.
The biggest lesson was respect and empathy. These vendors are experts at their craft, but many are new to digital tools. Every screen had to be simple, useful, and worth their time.
