MyCo, HoneyBook

Designing an AI teammate owners trust with their clients.

I work as a builder: design, code, pull requests, QA and product strategy.

Role
Design lead and builder, solo designer
Worked with
PM, engineering, UX research, content, marketing
Timeline
March to November 2026
Scope
Product, onboarding, design system, web, brand
The MyCo Jobs page with one job running

In short

MyCo is HoneyBook's AI employee for service pros, from venues and photographers to coaches and consultants. It reads the inbox, follows up with clients and flags what's slipping. As its only designer, I made it something owners trust to act for them.

How I worked

On MyCo I'm a builder, not only a designer. I write the code, open the pull requests, run QA and help set product strategy. That lets me move fast, put real product in front of users and ship their feedback within days. Before MyCo I managed design teams of 6 and 7 at Melio and Houzz. Here I lead without reports, through principles, the system and research the whole team uses.

The challenge

An AI that acts on your clients has to earn the right to.

Trust

1 wrong client message costs more than every hour saved.

Discovery

A blank chat box hides what MyCo can do.

A moving target

The product changed every week.

1 designer

I couldn't be in every decision.

Principles

4 answers to 1 question: can I let it act?

Approve before acting

MyCo drafts. The owner decides.

Grounded in Parasuraman, Sheridan & Wickens, 2000 ↗

Show what happened

Every client message is reported back.

Grounded in Lee & See, 2004 ↗

Reach out first

Briefs and alerts come to the owner. Chat is the fallback.

Grounded in Horvitz, 1999 ↗

Hand back the wheel

Owners can take over anytime. Passwords stay in a vault the AI never sees.

Grounded in Dietvorst, Simmons & Massey, 2018 ↗

Design sprint

A sprint on 1 question: what should a new owner see first?

I ran it with my manager. We turned research into personas and principles, mapped how MyCo picks the right first moment, and prototyped the first hour. Open the sprint board ↗

01

6 owners from the research

From the trust-cautious newcomer to the mobile-first juggler running the business from a truck. Each came with a real quote.

Six persona cards from the sprint, each with a quote
02

5 design principles

Drawn from earlier research with service pros: the Service Machine study Ashley Forte and Logan Marg ran.

  • Deliver value at every turnEvery interaction moves the owner forward.
  • Transparency without noiseClear and honest, never cluttered.
  • Ladder up autonomyTrust grows 1 approved step at a time.
  • Sound like the business, not softwareReal work words, no jargon.
  • Fit the life, not just the businessDesign for the whole person.
03

How MyCo picks the right first moment

Each owner's biggest pain, from onboarding answers and connected data, decides which “aha” they get first. Every aha is visual, not text-only.

Flow: five owner pains lead to MyCo picking the right aha per user, shown across four surfaces
04

Prototypes for the first hour, then for money

First, catch what the owner missed: “You have 4 reminders to send out today,” or a Thursday reshuffle that saves 90 minutes. Only then earn the right to talk about money: unpaid invoices and regulars who went quiet.

P0: earning the first hour of trust
P0 prototypes: reminders and schedule optimization flows
P1–P2: earning the right to talk about money
P1 to P2 prototypes: unpaid invoices and client retention flows

What we came up with

  • A trust ladder: catch what owners missed first, then handle money.
  • 1 aha per owner, picked from their own pain and data.
  • Visual first moments, built to be approved in seconds.

With a few prototypes built and the direction set, we took it to Miami to build it live with owners. See Miami ↓

Research

Research moved the spotlight from chat to proactivity.

4 days in Miami, building MyCo live with 9 owners. 🌴

Research ran almost weekly from September, and every readout fed a decision. In Miami, engineers shipped what we saw the same week: 100+ changes before we flew home.

The team building MyCo around one table in Miami
With a business owner after a working session
On site at an owner's warehouse: the packing slips MyCo was set up to read

Owners only let MyCo act after their OK

Approval is the default

The wow was MyCo catching what they missed

Briefs and alerts lead

Owners didn't know what to ask

Suggestions up front, not a blank box

Long answers went unread

Reports lead with what needs attention

Almost every business has a team

Team access in a week, then groups

The work

From the first sign-in onward.

Onboarding: value before conversation

1 promise, then MyCo reads the inbox, tells you what it learned and moves to iMessage.

The trust pre-screen: you're in controlYou're in control
MyCo reads your inbox
What I know about you
Hey Maya, what's first?

Connectors and channels

Connectors are the tools MyCo works in. Channels are where owners talk to it. Owners connect the tools they already use, so MyCo works inside their stack instead of replacing it.

Connectors: the tools MyCo works in
Connectors: connected tools and the catalog

Any tool, even one that isn't listed

Not in the catalog? Owners add a custom connection over MCP, or just ask MyCo in chat. It works with whatever the business already runs on.

  • Gmail
  • Google Calendar
  • HoneyBook
  • QuickBooks
  • Stripe
  • Slack
  • Google Drive
  • Google Sheets
  • Square
  • Airbnb
  • + Any tool via MCP

Channels

Owners talk to MyCo where they already are.

Ask for something and MyCo sends the right link, with its own preview: the Vault for a login, a group link to bring in the team.

9:41
MyCo ›
+iMessage
9:41
MyCo ›
+Text Message • SMS
9:41
9:41
MyCoAPP
Message MyCo
+Aa@

Jobs

Work MyCo does on its own, on a schedule.

A job is a standing instruction in plain words. MyCo writes it, runs it and reports back.

01

The Jobs page

The Jobs page: one job running, one that needs the owner, the rest on schedule
02

Creating a job

New chat
Every morning, text clients with a balance due this week a friendly reminder.
Setting up a job…
🔔 Deposit and balance remindersDraft
Runs
Daily at 9:00 AM
Does
Texts clients with a deposit or balance due in the next 7 days, with the payment link
Reports
By iMessage
EditCreate job
Ask anything...
Job created. First run tomorrow at 9:00 AM
  1. Ask in plain wordsNo forms, no triggers to set up.
  2. MyCo writes the jobWhen it runs, what it does, where it reports.
  3. You approve it
  4. It runs and reports back
03

Active jobs

A running job: status, schedule, historyA running job's page with its schedule and run history
Ask MyCo about this jobThe Ask MyCo panel open on a job

Empty states

An empty page should explain itself.

Every empty screen answers 3 questions: what is this page, what will show up here, and how do I start?

1

No vault items yet

2

Add a login or personal detail so MyCo can fill it into a website for you.

3
+ Add item4
  1. 1

    A picture of the thing

    1 illustration per object: a safe for the Vault, a bookshelf for the Library, on the same soft grid everywhere.

  2. 2

    The title names the state

    “No vault items yet,” not “Nothing here.”

  3. 3

    The hint explains the page

    What will show up and why it helps you.

  4. 4

    1 action to start

    The single next step, right there.

No jobs yet

Create a job to have MyCo work for you on a schedule.

+ New job

Your library is just getting started

Create proposals, invoices, contracts and more with MyCo, and share them with clients by link.

Create with MyCo

No contacts yet.

Add someone yourself, or bring in the contacts you already keep in Google, Apple or Acuity.

Add contacts

No results isn't empty

A search that finds nothing says so and offers a way out. It never shows the first-time state.

Loading isn't empty either

While data loads, a page shows its own shape, so “No jobs yet” never flashes past someone who has jobs.

The flower

A flower that shows MyCo is working.

1 face for an AI with none, and a sign of life instead of a spinner.

Thinking

In place of “Thinking…”

Bloom

Greets a new chat

Celebrating

When a group is ready

Today

MyCo grows past 1 owner.

Groups: MyCo joins the team chat

The owner sets what the group may ask. MyCo handles the rest.

MyCoHi team! Maya added me for event details: timelines, vendors, headcounts. No need to tag me.
When does the band load in Saturday?
MyCo2:30 through the north gate. Catering arrives at 1.
S
SamCoffee run, anyone? ☕
Yes please!
S
SamThe Trans asked for a discount on the rehearsal dinner
MyCoPricing is Maya's call. I've sent it to her privately and will update you here.
9:41
M3 People ›
+iMessage
  1. Says what it can help withSet by the owner before MyCo joins.
  2. Answers without being tagged
  3. Stays quiet on small talk
  4. Sends pricing to the owner, privately

Pages worth forwarding

Replies become pages owners share. Every shared page invites the reader to try MyCo.

October income vs. expenses

Share

Willow & Oak Events · made with MyCo

October: you kept $8,420

Income$24,600↑ 12% vs September
Expenses$16,180↑ 5% vs September
Kept$8,42034% of income

Income vs. expenses, May to OctoberIncomeExpenses

Where October's money went

Catering staff$6,200

Rentals$3,900

Florals$2,450

Marketing$1,830

Software$1,800

Made with ❤️ by MyCoTry MyCo free

What I owned

Principles, a system, and a seat at the strategy table.

The design system

Designed in Figma and pushed through MCP into the codebase, where everyone who builds picks up changes live. PMs and engineers ship UI that already looks like MyCo. I wrote the design rules engineers and AI coding agents follow, and put the key ones into lint, so a broken rule fails CI.

Strategy

6 positioning directions, a design sprint, and funnel data that cut steps from sign-in. I wrote the groups rollout.

Impact

What changed

10×

daily signups in the 2 weeks after the redesigned launch

~30

UI improvements I shipped in 2 weeks after Miami

  • The trust principles became the product
  • Proactivity is what owners name first
  • Setup “simple enough for a child,” said an owner
  • The whole team ships on the system, and lint holds the bar
  • Design has a say in what MyCo builds next
  • Groups and shared pages take MyCo past 1 owner

Looking back

What I'd do differently.

Put owners in the room sooner

Miami changed more in 4 days than months of planning. I'd build live with owners from the first month, not the sixth.

Start proactive, not with a chat box

We began with chat, and research moved us to briefs and alerts. I'd prototype the moments MyCo reaches out first.

Write the rules before the drift

The design rules came after screens drifted apart. Writing them, and the lint behind them, on day 1 would have saved a lot of cleanup.