REISift Case Study: Growth Through Adaptation, Community, and Strategic UX
Turning a List Stacker into a powerful Real Estate CRM
In 2020, I began working with REISift — a SaaS platform empowering real estate investors to organize, manage, and optimize their property outreach — as a Product Design team of one. What started as a project to improve user retention and engagement evolved into a multi-year journey of strategic product growth, human-centered design, and market adaptation, culminating in REISift’s successful acquisition in April 2025.
This is the story of how design, community, and relentless market adaptation fueled our expansion — and ultimately, our exit.
Project Role
Discover research
User experience
Visual design
Prototype
The Challenge
Back then, the product had around 140 users — early believers who saw potential in the vision and were deeply invested in making it happen.
They consistently provided feedback, suggestions, and ideas for improvement, helping shape the product in real time.
However, REISift faced several foundational challenges:
Low MRR
Revenue was modest, limited by the small user base and early-stage product offering.Limited Functionality
The product wasn’t yet a true CRM — it was primarily a list stacking tool with aspirations of eventually evolving into a full CRM platform.No Metrics or Visibility
At the time, there were no internal tracking systems in place — meaning the team had no data to understand what features were working, where users were dropping off, or how to prioritize improvements.Fragmented User Experience
Navigation and workflows were confusing for new users, leading to friction during onboarding and contributing to early churn.
The opportunity was clear:
Refine the user experience, build proper tracking and feedback loops, transition the product into a full CRM, and design a platform that could intelligently scale with market demands.
0
Events Tracked
30k
MRR
140
Users
No
Planned Roadmap
Community-Driven Design: Building the Foundation
From the beginning, we prioritized deeply integrating user insights into our design process. This human-centered design system became the foundation that allowed REISift to evolve rapidly while staying closely aligned with user needs.
Key elements of the approach included
Mapping the Journey
One of our first major initiatives was to map the entire user journey — not just internally, but directly alongside our users.
Working closely with early stakeholders, we documented every step of the experience: from the moment a user first heard about REISift, to onboarding, list stacking, lead management, and attempted CRM workflows.
This collaborative journey mapping exercise surfaced:
Key friction points
Missing features
User Wins that needed amplification
Gaps between user expectations and current system behaviors
It gave us a clear, user-centered blueprint for the application redesign, prioritizing features, and designing future iterations.
Preparing for the First Major Redesign
Before diving into wireframing and new UX flows, we knew it was essential to capture real, unbiased user behavior inside the platform.
To achieve this, we implemented metric measurement systems including:
Hotjar: to record user sessions and visualize behavior patterns through heatmaps and interaction videos.
Mixpanel: to track feature usage, user journeys, and conversion events across key actions.
This data gave us a clear, objective view of how users were truly interacting with the product — highlighting:
Critical drop-off points
Features that were underutilized or confusing
Unexpected workflows and user adaptations
Bottlenecks in activation and onboarding
Armed with this behavioral data, we were able to make informed design decisions rather than relying on assumptions — ensuring that the first major redesign was grounded in real user needs and usage patterns.
Final Interface
From the beginning, we prioritized deeply integrating user insights into our design process. This human-centered design system became the foundation that allowed REISift to evolve rapidly while staying closely aligned with user needs.
Property Details Page
Siftline
Market Map
Integrating with Other Services
Validating Through Beta Testing
After every feature was developed, it first went through a structured beta testing phase with a selected group of engaged users.
Our beta group was composed of power users, early adopters, and community advocates who:
Provided high-fidelity feedback on new features
Caught usability issues early
Helped surface edge cases that internal testing sometimes missed
Offered real-world validation on whether a feature solved the intended user problem
Only after a feature passed this beta validation loop — often requiring a few rounds of iteration based on feedback — was it formally released into production for the full user base.
This process ensured that REISift maintained a high standard of usability, reliability, and user alignment even as the platform scaled rapidly.
Bootstrapped Success: A Five-Year Journey to Exit
After five years of continuous evolution, REISift reached a major milestone.
Unlike many SaaS companies in the space, REISift was completely bootstrapped — built without venture capital or outside investors.
Every feature shipped, every growth milestone reached, and every dollar earned came directly from building real value for real users.
In March 2025, REISift successfully completed an acquisition, validating the product’s strength, the team's vision, and the power of staying deeply connected to users over time.
It was the culmination of a journey that started with a handful of early adopters, a simple list stacking tool, and a vision — and ended with a fully-fledged CRM and marketing automation platform trusted by thousands.