Sharone Poole · Product Design
CASE STUDY Nº 02 · PERSONAL BUILD · PRODUCT DESIGN
You make the videos. It runs the business.
One place for every pitch, contract, usage window and payment, built for creators who land brand deals. A virtual assistant and an AI run the back end while your hands stay on the camera.
ROLE
Product designer and builder, solo
TEAM
1 creator, 1 virtual assistant, 1 AI agent
STACK
Notion, Claude, Make, Wave, Telegram, Gmail, Drive
STATUS
Running on my own pipeline. Private beta, opens January 2027
DEAL PIPELINE · SAMPLE DEALS
Illustrative view. Brand names are stand ins, not clients.
PITCHED
3
Skincare brand
Follow up due day 4
$450
Follow up today
Protein snack brand
Pitched 2 days ago
$300
Follow up today
IN TALKS
2
Fitness app
Asked for 12 months usage
$900
Exclusivity: priced
BOOKED
2
Grooming brand
3 videos, due Friday
$650
Contract checked
DELIVERED
2
Wellness drink
Usage ends in 9 days
$600
Renewal ready
PAID
4
Outdoor gear brand
Paid in 6 days
$750
Paid
01 · THE PROBLEM
A creator’s business lives in five places at once.
Brand emails in the inbox, briefs inside platform apps, rates in their head, contract terms in PDFs nobody rereads, and payment status in hope. The failures are quiet and expensive. Follow ups slip and warm deals go cold. Usage rights expire unnoticed, so brands keep running a creator’s content for free while the renewal check, often the biggest money in the deal, never gets asked for.
On the big creator platforms, videos get approved and only pay on sales that may never happen. My own record there: 10 submissions, 8 approved, $0.00 earned, and 9 of the 10 approved videos never ran at all.
33%
of UK creators know how to price usage. The rest guess, or give it away.
47%
don’t charge for exclusivity at all, at any price.
$0
earned from 8 approved platform videos. Approvals are not income.
Industry figures: SevenSix Agency Influencer Pricing Report, 2026. Platform figure: my own account record.
BEFORE: THE BUSINESS, SCATTERED
37 unread brand emails
Briefs inside 4 different apps
Contract PDF, the clause is on page 9?
Rates: in my head
Sticky note: “renewal???”
Spreadsheet_v7_FINAL.xlsx
“Did they pay yet?”
AFTER: ONE PIPE, EVERY DEAL FLOWS THROUGH IT
→ To pitch
→ Pitched
→ In talks
→ Booked
→ In production
→ Delivered
→ Usage window watched
→ Invoiced
→ Paid
What comes out the other side: a renewal sent before the window closes, an invoice out the day you deliver, a ping on your phone when a deal lands, and a follow up that fires itself on day four.
ONE PIPE, EVERY DEAL FLOWS THROUGH IT
To pitch
→
Pitched
→
In talks
→
Booked
→
In production
→
Delivered
→
Usage window watched
→
Invoiced
→
Paid
Under the pipe, four layers do the carrying.
THE DESK
Notion
A brand CRM and pipeline. Every deal, contact, rate and date in one place.
THE AI
Claude
Your own AI, taught your rules once (rates, terms, voice), then drafting, checking and prompting for you.
THE AUTOMATIONS
Make
Small automations that move information so you never copy and paste your business.
THE VA
VA Command Center
Built to be run by a virtual assistant, with lanes and handoffs ready, while you approve instead of operate.
What comes out the other side: a renewal sent before the window closes, an invoice out the day you deliver, a ping on your phone when a deal lands, and a follow up that fires itself on day four.
02 · RESEARCH
What creators actually say.
I didn’t design this from a survey. I designed it from what creators complain about when nobody is selling them anything: 132 posts from my own saved UGC Business collection, read one by one, then sorted into six problems.
“My whole business is random notes everywhere.”
DESIGN RESPONSE
One desk. Every deal, contact, rate and date in a single CRM, with nothing living in your head or your notes app.
“They want exclusivity. They just don’t want to pay for it.”
DESIGN RESPONSE
Exclusivity is a priced field with an end date and named competitors only. Contract Check flags it before you sign.
“Usage in perpetuity, buried on page nine.”
DESIGN RESPONSE
Contract Check reads 12 danger clauses and returns them in plain words, each with a dollar cost and the counter line to send back.
“Some brands pay the day you invoice. Some pay on the last possible day.”
DESIGN RESPONSE
The Money recipe invoices through Wave and watches until it lands. Ownership until paid sits in the terms by default.
“I hired an editor and fired her in 24 hours. The vision was in my head.”
DESIGN RESPONSE
The VA Command Center: SOPs, a hiring checklist, defined lanes. The vision lives in the system, so help can actually help.
“Twenty pitches a day. And I’m tracking none of it.”
DESIGN RESPONSE
The Pitch Engine logs every send and every follow up, and shows your reply rate by source. Effort turns into data.
Complaints drawn from my saved UGC Business collection (132 posts, reviewed October 2026), the SevenSix Agency Influencer Pricing Report 2026, and creators now testing the system.
WHO IT’S FOR
Just starting out, grow into it
· Your first deals land inside a real structure from day one, not a notes app
· It teaches the business as you go: what to charge, what usage means, when to follow up
· No rebuilding later. The desk you start with is the desk you scale on
Booked and busy, can’t keep up
· Deals at $300 to $900 and up, with money leaking out of renewals nobody asks for
· Follow ups, invoices and dates get run by the VA and the automations
· You approve in minutes. The creating stays yours
Two ends of the same ladder, one system. Platform creators ride the Highway, brand deal creators take the Express.
03 · COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
What a creator can already use.
Some of it is good. None of it covers the whole job. The closest thing is a paid Notion template, which does track usage expiry. The apps built for creators mostly stop at a pipeline and a rate calculator. The general business tools do contracts and invoices well but know nothing about usage windows or exclusivity. The gap is the part between the deal and the money: what the contract is hiding, what’s about to expire, and who does the follow up.
Spreadsheet or notes app
Paid Notion template, ~$30
HoneyBook, $29 to $109 a month
DealKit app, free iPhone
UGC Dashboard, one time
Built for brand deals
No
Yes
No, general client work
Yes
Yes
Deal pipeline, pitch to paid
By hand
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes, 9 stages
Usage window tracked as data
No
Yes, with a renewal script
Not listed
Partly, flags perpetual clauses
Yes, with renewal copy ready
Exclusivity as a priced field
No
In the rate calculator
Not listed
Not listed
Yes, with end date and named competitors
Contract red flag check
No
Not listed
Contracts, no red flag check
Yes
12 checks, dollar cost, counter line (in design)
Follow ups, invoices and alerts run themselves
No
Not listed
Yes, automations
Templates only
4 recipes (in testing)
Made to be run by a virtual assistant
No
No
No
No
Yes, SOPs and lanes
You own it and can move it
Yes
Yes
Their platform
Export only
Yes, your own Notion
Based on public listings and pricing pages I read in October 2026. “Not listed” means I couldn’t find it on their page, not that it can’t exist. Prices change, so check each one before you decide.
WHAT IT COSTS OVER ONE YEAR
HoneyBook Essentials
$588
Dubsado Premier
$525
UGC Dashboard, one time
Paid Notion template
$30
Annual billing prices from third party pricing guides, 2026. HoneyBook and Dubsado are general client tools, so this compares cost, not the same job. After year one the dashboard costs $0 more. The tools you plug it into have their own plans.
04 · THE SYSTEM AND HOW I DESIGNED IT
Don’t build another app.
Put the system together from tools creators already trust, and give each one exactly one job.
COMES IN
Gmail
Where brand deals land
Google Drive
Contracts and deliverables, filed
RUNS THE BUSINESS
Notion
The desk. Every deal lives here
Claude
Drafts and checks in your voice
Make
Moves the information for you
GOES OUT
Wave
Invoices and payment tracking
Telegram
Deal alerts on your phone
Your VA
Runs the board, you approve
How a deal moves: a brand emails you, Make files it in Notion, Claude drafts the reply and checks the contract, you tap approve, Wave sends the invoice, Telegram pings you when it’s paid.
FIVE DESIGN DECISIONS, AND WHAT EACH ONE COST
1
Assemble, don’t build an app
Apps are where creator tools go to die: another login, another subscription, your data in somebody else’s database. This is owned, portable, and fixable by the person running it.
THE TRADEOFF: Setup is a guided build, not a download button.
2
One pipe for every deal
Platform deals and brand deals look different on the way in, so they get different doors (Highway and Express) but one board. Nothing hides in a second tool.
THE TRADEOFF: The board has 9 stages, which is more than a beginner needs on day one. A simple mode hides the extras.
3
Usage rights are data, not memory
Every usage window gets a start, an end and a renewal draft. The system watches the date so you don’t have to remember it.
THE TRADEOFF: You have to enter the terms for each deal. Contract Check fills them in once it’s live.
4
Nothing sends without a tap
The AI drafts, the VA preps, the creator approves. Pitches, renewals and invoices all wait for one tap. Trust is the whole product.
THE TRADEOFF: It’s slower than full automation. That’s on purpose.
5
Plain words first
Contract flags come back as a sentence, a dollar cost, and a counter line you can paste. Not a legal summary a creator has to decode.
THE TRADEOFF: It’s a flag, not legal advice. It tells you what to ask a lawyer.
THE TECH BEHIND IT
Eight tools, one job each.
IN
Gmail
Where brand deals land
IN
Google Drive
Contracts and deliverables, filed
CORE
Notion
The desk. Every deal lives here
CORE
Claude
Drafts and checks in your voice
CORE
Make
Moves the information for you
OUT
Wave
Invoices and payment tracking
OUT
Telegram
Deal alerts on your phone
MINE
Muse
My AI coordinator. Part of how this got made, not part of what you get
HOW A DEAL MOVES
Gmail → Make files it in Notion → Claude drafts the reply and checks the contract → you tap approve → Wave sends the invoice → Telegram pings you when it’s paid
05 · THE PRODUCT
What it does.
SIGNATURE FEATURE
The Usage Rights Engine
Every deal’s usage window is tracked as data, not memory. When one is closing, the deal surfaces here with renewal copy ready to send. The industry’s most missed check becomes a calendar event.
· Start date, end date and platforms per deal
· A renewal draft written in your voice
· Sorted by days left, soonest first
USAGE RIGHTS EXPIRING
Wellness drink
Paid social, 90 days · Renewal ready
9 days left
Grooming brand
Website and ads, 6 months · Draft it
34 days left
Outdoor gear brand
Organic only, 30 days · Watching
61 days left
Illustrative view with sample deals.
IN DESIGN · TESTED
Contract Check
Any incoming contract checked against your own playbook: 12 checks across usage, exclusivity, revisions, payment terms and AI training clauses. I tested it on an agreement with five planted problems. It caught all five.
CONTRACT CHECK · 3 FLAGS
Usage in perpetuity · Costs you $1,200+
Page 9. The brand keeps your video forever, on any channel.
“We can offer 6 months of paid usage. Longer is available at a higher rate.”
Unpaid exclusivity · Costs you $400
You can’t work with any similar brand and they aren’t paying for it.
“Exclusivity is priced separately. I can do 30 days with named competitors only.”
AI rights to face and voice · Walk away
They can train AI on your likeness.
“I don’t license my face or voice for AI training.”
Illustrative output with sample numbers. Real flags use your own rates.
The Pitch Engine
A template library of outreach that actually landed. Every pitch passes a fit check first: if you wouldn’t use the product, the pitch doesn’t send. It logs every send and shows your reply rate by source.
The Recipes
Highway rolls platform deals in. Express flags big retainers and one offs. The Ping alerts you on Telegram when something lands. Money runs the payment flow through Wave.
The Daily Layer (in testing)
A morning card: what’s overdue, which pitches need a follow up, who’s in talks. A payment watch that matches money in to deals owed. And a testimonial ask that goes out right after delivery.
06 · WHAT YOU GET
Everything below, set up in your own Notion.
✓ The Deal Pipeline
A 56 field brand CRM and a 9 stage board that carries each deal’s rate, deliverables, invoice and dates with it.
✓ The Usage Rights Engine
Every usage window tracked, with renewal copy ready before it closes.
✓ Contract Check
12 checks with plain words, a dollar cost and a counter line. Added as it goes live.
✓ The Pitch Engine
Outreach templates that landed, a fit check, and reply rate by source.
✓ 4 Recipes
Highway, Express, The Ping and Money, built in Make.
✓ VA Command Center
SOPs, a hiring checklist and defined lanes, so a VA can run the board in about an hour a day.
✓ The Daily Layer
A morning card, a payment watch and a testimonial loop.
PRICE
Announced to the waitlist first.
You own it. No monthly fee for the dashboard itself. The tools it connects to have their own plans. Opens to the public in January 2027. Testers are already inside.
Join the waitlist
Joining the waitlist doesn’t charge you anything.
07 · HOW IT RUNS
A small team, organized.
The dashboard isn’t software you operate.
1
The creator
Creates and approves. Nothing goes out in their name without their tap. Their hands stay on the camera, not the admin.
1
The virtual assistant
Runs the board: platform pitching, pipeline hygiene, follow up prep. About an hour a day covers it.
1
The AI agent
Drafts in the creator’s voice, checks contracts against their rules, and watches the payments and the dates so nobody has to.
08 · RECEIPTS
60
live deal records running through the CRM right now, on my own pipeline (counted Oct 31, 2026)
86
brands pitched, tracked and followed up in a single outreach wave, run end to end by the system
$900
brand deal tracked inside the system from first pitch to paid
5 of 5
planted contract problems caught in my Contract Check test
PASS IT ON
Know a creator who’s holding it all together with sticky notes?
Send them this. If a friend is losing track of pitches, renewals or who still owes them money, this is the page that shows them there’s a better way.
09 · THE BUILDER
“I’m a product designer and a dad of two, building this at 5 AM before the house wakes up. I didn’t design the dashboard I wished existed. I designed the one my own business was bleeding without, then I ran my business on it until it held.”
Sharone Poole, @nowobserving. Built in public across a 90 day series.
Follow the build
I post the real version: what broke, what I changed, what the first testers said. It’s how this got built, and you can watch the next parts get made. @nowobserving on Instagram.
Hiring a designer?
This is one project of mine from the first complaint to a working system. I design the system, not just the screens. Reach me at strategy.sharonepoole@gmail.com.
The dashboard opens to the public in January 2027.
Testers are already inside. The waitlist is the door.
Join the waitlist
Sharone Poole, Product Design