Whisker: From App Sprawl to $1M/Month

From clunky to category-defining—how I scaled Whisker’s design system, built a team, and shipped an app that makes nearly a million a month

🐾 The Context

In 2021, Whisker (formerly AutoPets) had just rebranded and was preparing to launch the Litter-Robot 4. They had smart pet devices in 200,000 homes—but the app ecosystem was fragmented across three platforms and offered little more than power switches and error alerts. With a $10M investment and a vision for growth, they hired their first product manager—and then me, their first UX designer.

Whisker (formerly AutoPets) had fragmented apps, growing device sales, and a $10M investment—but no UX team. I was hired as the first designer to unify the experience and scale the digital product.

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Whisker’s app is excellent. - Wired

The Whisker app is easy to use. - Forbes

You can easily navigate through the (Whisker) app. - Architectural Digest

It's an intuitive, nice-looking app. - CNET

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🎯 The Challenges

No UX foundation: No task flows, no systems, no consistency.
3 apps → 1: Consolidate AutoPets Connect, Litter-Robot Connect, and the Whisker app into a unified platform.
Grow revenue and adoption: Make users want to come back—and spend more.

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🧠 What I Did

1. Built the Whisker UX Foundation

Created a full design system and visual language aligned with the new brand
Introduced product roadmapping, design operations, and stakeholder alignment
Organized hundreds of screens and artifacts across Figma, dev tools, and org teams
Mentored and scaled the design team—hiring 2 junior designers and leading an intern-to-hire who won company-wide awards

2. Designed the All-New Whisker App

Ran audits on legacy apps, mapped all features, and led full consolidation strategy
Partnered with hardware, cloud, and software teams to integrate SmartScale for Litter-Robot 4
Conducted usability testing with Maze and TestFlight, iterating on onboarding, iconography, and interaction clarity
Released the new Whisker app + SmartScale V1 on June 21, 2022

3. Launched Whisker Pets + SmartScale V2

Led user research to uncover unmet needs around pet personalization and data
Spearheaded IA, task flows, and UI for “Whisker Pets”—a gamified profile feature powered by device data
Refined SmartScale UX to identify cats by weight and integrate seamlessly into the pet profile
Released Pets V1 + SmartScale V2 on April 28, 2023

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🧪 UX That Shipped (and Scaled)

Whisker App (2022)
SmartScale V1 & V2
Pet Profiles (Whisker Pets)
Message Center
Whisker Lens (internal ops tool for firmware and fleet updates)

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💡 Takeaways

The app became more than a remote—it became a companion for pet care.
We didn’t just improve usability. We made the app delightful, useful, and profitable.
A strong design system + real research + caring leadership = scale that sustains.

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📈 The Results

🚀 App Store rating grew from ~2.0 to 4.8 stars, featured in Wired and Forbes
📲 Grew from ~1,000 downloads to hundreds of thousands of users
🐈 Over 70,000 pets added—creating the largest known dataset of cat weight and litter habits
📈 Reached nearly $1 million/month in app revenue by the time I left
👩‍💻 Grew the team from 1 designer to 20+ engineers, PMs, and designers

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