Google • Built for Business
Empowering business owners with tools to drive growth
How It All Started
The brief was to reimagine how Google connected small-to-medium businesses with the right products and services to help them grow. The challenge was not simply to build a better web presence. It was to create a genuine service and decision support experience that met business owners where they were, understood their goals, and guided them with confidence toward the tools most likely to move their business forward.
As Director of Product Design, I led multiple teams across every stage of the work, from deep discovery through to delivery. My role spanned experience strategy, team direction, and close partnership with executive stakeholders, translating bold ideas into solutions that were both visionary and ready to execute.
A Closer Look at the Problem
Google offers small and medium businesses a wide range of products and services built to accelerate growth and drive meaningful revenue. The challenge was that the breadth of what was available had become its own barrier. Without a clear path to navigate this landscape, business owners were left to figure it out on their own, often arriving at the wrong solution, or no solution at all.
The real opportunity was guidance. How could Google foster genuine partnerships with small-to-medium businesses, becoming not just a vendor but a trusted growth partner? That question shaped everything that followed.
How We Made It Happen
This was a deeply collaborative effort from the start. Understanding the needs and behaviors of small business owners was not a starting point, it was the foundation. Throughout the discovery phase, we conducted comprehensive research, built rich personas, and mapped detailed user journeys to ensure the solutions we developed were solving the right problems for the right people.
Ideas were generated directly against real customer pain points, producing a strong body of human-centered solutions. From there, prioritization and planning shaped a roadmap built around a single purpose: create a seamless, intuitive experience that helped business owners identify and act on the Google products best suited to their ambitions.
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The Impact So Far
The result was a fundamentally different kind of experience, one that shifted from a product-first mindset to a needs-first one. Small and medium businesses could now arrive with a problem and leave with a clear path forward, guided by personalized recommendations rather than left to navigate an overwhelming product catalog alone.
A decision-support framework at the heart of the experience, including a product coach that guided users to the right solutions, reduced friction significantly and gave business owners the confidence to act. Contextual information surfaced at exactly the right moments, making the most relevant guidance feel natural rather than forced. The work positioned Google not just as a product provider, but as a genuine partner in business growth.
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