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First Steps
Discovery: user and business goals
We conducted around 15 interviews with companies of various profiles and countries, ranging from established industries to small emerging businesses. This allowed us to identify two very distinct realities: small businesses faced high barriers when negotiating with established players and managing international logistics, while consolidated companies needed to diversify their inventory and move new materials quickly.
Based on these findings, we developed user personas to represent each profile. These tools served as our main reference to keep the focus on actual user needs, guiding the team when making decisions and prioritizing features throughout the design process.
A key insight across all profiles was that, when closing a deal, users prioritized price and speed above all else. Accustomed to operating via WhatsApp without bureaucracy, they delegated administrative tasks to others. This made it crystal clear that even the slightest friction in the negotiation flow would be a critical issue.
Product structure and core flows
Tackling the complexity of this B2B marketplace required a deep understanding of how users operated before designing anything. Using the insights from our research, we mapped out the user journeys of their existing processes: we identified all the channels they were using (email, phone calls, WhatsApp, industry trade shows) and pinpointed friction points at every stage, from finding counterparts to closing deals and managing subsequent documentation.
This exercise served as the foundation for defining the marketplace structure, information architecture, and core user flows. We made sure the product logic respected how users already operated. All this groundwork was key to aligning with the engineering team before we began iterating on screens.
Design decisions
Designing key flows and features
Based on the research findings and business needs, we defined the marketplace's core sections and features. Every decision aimed to balance the efficiency users expected with internal operational requirements.
Ad System: We designed ads that highlight the essential information users need to evaluate the viability of a transaction at a glance, without having to dive into the details: country or port, material category, specific metal codes, volume, and price. Additionally, we included a personal management section where users can edit or delete their own ads.
Multi-User Accounts: The platform is built to operate at an enterprise level. Each account can have multiple active users under the same organization, including profiles from different departments like finance or administration.
Negotiation: Users were accustomed to closing deals via WhatsApp: fast, direct, and hassle-free. We designed a chat system that respected that dynamic.
Document Management: In many companies, the person who closes the deal isn't the one who manages it afterward. Without a centralized space, contracts and documentation ended up scattered across emails and WhatsApp, leading to information loss in high-value transactions. We designed a transaction details screen that links all related documentation.
Logistics Tracking: Research revealed that once a deal was closed, users lost visibility into the shipment status, so we included an integrated tracking module within each transaction, allowing users to follow the shipment status of materials without leaving the platform.
Reducing Friction
The main challenge was getting an analog, low-trust industry to share sensitive information on a digital platform. The registration process perfectly illustrated this tension: requiring company verification upfront caused a high drop-off rate. To solve this, we implemented a progressive onboarding flow. We designed a lightweight first phase to explore the marketplace commitment-free, deferring company verification as a second step required only when negotiating or publishing. This strategic shift reduced registration drop-offs by 12%.
Similarly, the initial ad listing form was too lengthy and demanded technical specifications that users hesitated to share immediately, resulting in a remarkably low publication rate. We redesigned it into a streamlined three-step flow, eliminating unnecessary fields and making technical material data optional. By allowing users to publish quickly and fill in the details later, we achieved a 15% increase in published ads.
Impact & Results
Impact and results
Following the launch, the product continued to evolve in short cycles based on real feedback: we iterated on the search engine by adding access to recent searches and favorite materials, introduced an alert system for new listings, and expanded the experience to mobile, which officially launched in late 2024.
Since its launch, the marketplace has been operating in over 45 countries, with a particularly strong footprint in markets like Spain, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, China, Pakistan, and India. The platform now has more than 1,600 registered companies, and the app has surpassed 10,000 downloads.
In terms of business volume, over 400 types of materials have been listed, and more than 55,500 tons have been negotiated through the platform, a figure that reflects that the product was not only adopted but became a vital operational tool for the industry.
This growth has been backed by investor support: following an initial seed round of €1 million and a second round of €5 million, Scrapad closed a €6 million Series A funding round led by Suma Capital and Inclimo in late 2025.
Learnings
One of the most valuable learnings from this project was using user research not just to design screens, but as a key tool for internal negotiation and decision-making. There was a significant gap between formal sales requirements and the industry's reality: users accustomed to closing fast, bureaucracy-free deals via WhatsApp. To find a middle ground, we started bringing interview findings and usability test results into meetings with stakeholders. Relying on this real-world data allowed us to negotiate and add flexibility to seemingly strict requirements, such as certain commercial conditions and material specifications. This project proved to me that empirical evidence is the strongest argument for aligning business demands with what users will actually adopt.
