The Spark Behind Ricardo Lens: When Observation Meets Opportunity

For months, I’d been watching our primary business KPI closely—keeping the conversation rate above 62%. It was the metric that mattered most at the time, and monitoring it became almost ritualistic. During this period, I inherited a project from a departing designer: find a way to reduce listing time by suggesting reasonable prices for user items.

The research painted a clear picture. Most users spent 10-30 minutes just trying to figure out the right price for their items. Regular sellers invested 20-45 minutes to list a single item. If someone had ten items to post? They’d lose an entire day to the process.Through countless user interviews and research sessions, a pattern emerged that I couldn’t ignore: nobody enjoyed listing items on Ricardo. The word “procrastination” came up repeatedly. Users would delay listing because they dreaded the time commitment. I started experiencing this friction myself, going through the listing process again and again, feeling the weight of those minutes add up.

One evening, while sitting in my living room, an idea popped into my head: what if listing an item was as easy as pointing a camera at it? Imagine using augmented reality to scan an object and instantly get an estimated value. It sounded almost too simple—just open your camera, scan the item, and get a rough price. Picture a future where searching for or posting digital goods doesn’t require typing. Instead, you use your camera. See something you like in a store, a friend’s bag, or a magazine? Just snap a picture to find a similar item online. In the same way, you could switch to “sell mode” to quickly list unused items gathering dust in your living room for cash. This would make the whole process faster, more interactive, and, most importantly, effortless.

Finding Momentum at the Hackathon

I initially attempted to pitch my idea to Ricardo’s head of tech, head of design, and head of data. Since the head of design was my direct manager, he supported my idea and encouraged me to pursue it further. However, it was challenging to convince myself that the idea would work. I also had my doubts, so I let the project sink for about a year until late 2023 when I learned that the Swiss Marketplace Group was hosting a hackathon. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to test whether Ricardo Lens could be implemented in practice.

To pull off the project, I needed to find talented engineers who shared my curiosity and had a lot of technical skills. I was fortunate to have two very talented engineers, Jonas and Sergiu, who shared a common vision. We spent a week brainstorming ideas, vision, and goals. Just a few days before the hackathon, we had a good sense of progress. It was incredible to witness how we, as an independent team without a manager, organized ourselves to accomplish something we all felt was right. We had to support our regular cross-functional teams with daily tasks while working on the Ricardo Lens project in the evenings. After a grueling week with almost no weekends, we were confident to present the project.

Julia, with her exceptional presentation skills, delivered a passionate presentation of Ricardo Lens at the hackathon. The enthusiastic reaction from the audience and the jury indicated that our project had the highest potential to win the hackathon. Despite this, it felt surreal when the jury announced Ricardo Lens as the winner of the hackathon, with the “Most Impact on Business” title. The immediate positive response from both the audience and management suggested that we might be onto something meaningful. However, I was still processing whether the idea would translate beyond a proof of concept.

The attention that followed was unexpected. I had the opportunity to present Ricardo Lens to the board of directors at Swiss Marketplace Group. The project gained traction and eventually evolved into Ricardo AI, which focuses on AI-driven automation for the buying and selling journey. 

Ricardo AI in production

I’ve discovered that Ricardo AI has achieved remarkable success in the production process with users. The positive feedback from users is evident in the statistics. One of the leading product managers stated that it’s evident that article posts created by Ricardo AI perform better than other article postings. Moreover, 45% of the postings in 2024 were made through Ricardo AI. This impressive adaptation was achieved in a surprisingly short amount of time, without any significant marketing campaigns. This experience has reinforced my belief that the fundamental aspect of every business and design lies in solving genuine user problems. By patiently and thoroughly addressing these issues, we can achieve a mutually rewarding outcome for both users and businesses. 

What I’m Taking Away

Acknowledgments

I want to express my sincere gratitude for whole hackathon team especially to Jonas and Sergiu for their dedication and hard work. Without their commitment, Ricardo Lens would have remained just a dream. Thank you for believing in the project and helping to make it a reality. To the rest of the hackathon team, thank you for your support and energy. This success belongs to all of us.

SMG Blog Post on Ricardo AI

SMG published a blog post about this innovation.

Read the full SMG article here