B2B SaaS · 0→1 · Designed & built end to end

Solobilt

Websites for contractors who went solo. Built for speed to market: I designed and built it end to end to get a real product in front of contractors fast.

At a glance

Problem

Solo tradespeople need a site that earns a homeowner's trust in seconds. What they have is a blank Wix theme they don't have time to fill, or no site at all, and generic builders bury license, insurance, and years on the job under “About Us.”

Solution

Paste a Thumbtack, Google, or Yelp link and see a trade-specific site in about 10 seconds, with no account needed. License, insurance, and service area sit in the hero, and distinct theme families replace color swaps.

  1. Paste a linkThumbtackGoogleYelp
  2. Site in about 10 secondsTrade-specific, no account needed
  3. Trust in the heroLicenseInsuranceService area
  4. Theme familiesDistinct families, not color swaps

Impact

  • Designed and built end to end by me
  • Live in pilot at solobilt.vercel.app
  • Pilot test: I ran a paid ad that drove 200 clicks to the Home page

Context

Solobilt is a website product for independent plumbers, electricians, roofers, and other trades who left a company to work for themselves and now find jobs through Thumbtack, Google, and Yelp.

Role
Designer and builder, end to end
Team
Solo
Status
Pilot
Live
solobilt.vercel.app
Solobilt on laptop and phone: pasting a Thumbtack profile link builds a finished contractor site
Paste a Thumbtack profile link, get the finished site · Rivers Edge Plumbing is an example business
See more if interested

01 / Problem

Win a homeowner’s trust in seconds

Homeowners look a contractor up before they hire. The page that wins the job puts license, insurance, service area, and real job photos where they look first. Generic builders treat a plumber like an agency, so that proof ends up under “About Us.”

This came from interviews with 5 contractors.

02 / My role

One person, whole stack

I designed and built Solobilt end to end: positioning, onboarding, the site-generation theme system, pricing, and the marketing site. Working alone, every decision had to hold up in design and in code. Tools: Grok Bot to build, Vercel to ship.

Constraints

  • Users won't fill out forms. A contractor between jobs has minutes.
  • Data I don’t control: each profile source exposes different fields, or none.
  • Trade-specific, not one template with a new color.

03 / Key decision

Start from a link, not a blank page

Paste a profile link and see your site in about 10 seconds, with no account. Claim it when it looks right. If you already have a site, the “Replace my site” path pulls its title, description, and contact details instead.

Solobilt start page: paste a Thumbtack, Google or Yelp link and see the site
Start page: paste a profile link, or type your business name

04 / Key decision

Proof above the fold, nothing faked

License number, insurance, years on the tools, and service area by town name sit in the hero strip, because those are what reassure a homeowner. Trust is the pitch, so anything that isn't real is labeled: example ratings say “example,” imported reviews say “imported.”

Rivers Edge example site
Rivers Edge example: years, license and insurance in the hero strip

05 / Audit

Auditing my own output

I generated 8 example sites and audited them side by side. They were one design with color swaps: the same skeleton, type, grid, stock photos, and fill-in-the-blank copy. I benchmarked against Squarespace's template library, which varies hero structure, grid, type pairing, and section order, not just color.

06 / Key decision

Variation is the product

I replaced color swaps with distinct theme families, each with its own hero structure, type pairing, and section order. Trade-specific details sit on top, like drawn pipe icons, brick bond patterns, and a garden-year calendar.

Okafor Brick & Stone example: drawn brick bond patterns
Masonry theme: drawn brick bond patterns
Peña Landscape example: garden-year calendar
Landscaping theme: the garden-year calendar

07 / Pricing

Two doors, one product

Contractors can do it themselves (Basic or Pro, no setup fee) or have us build it (Done-for-you). Both use the same generator and dashboard, so done-for-you is just us doing the onboarding.

Solobilt homepage: Do it yourself or Have us build it
The two doors on the homepage
Solobilt pricing tiers: Basic, Pro, Done-for-you
Pricing: Basic and Pro, or Done-for-you

08 / Outcome

In pilot

Live in pilot at solobilt.vercel.app, with a dashboard where contractors update copy and photos when a job wraps.

What I'd do next: test the preview-to-claim step with real contractors, measure which theme families convert, and find which entry point brings them in: pasting their current site, the CTA buttons, or the pricing section.

Outcome

  • 12 example sites across 11 trades, labeled on the site as fictional demos: plumbing, electrical, HVAC, landscaping, masonry, painting, roofing, general contracting, bath and kitchen remodeling, windows and doors, and handyman.
  • Pilot test: I ran a paid ad that drove 200 clicks to the Home page
Example sites built with Solobilt
Example sites, labeled as fictional demos

Next project

Prototype Handoff

A concept where CAD filenames fill in prototype specs, so designers stop re-keying data. Concept, never built.