Product Leadership Interview

Belle Jonsson

Senior Product Manager

10+ Years D2C & Shopify
35+ Shopify Sites Launched
0→1 Product Builder

Agenda

Contents

Shopify Portfolio

One portfolio.
One framework.
Three brands.

BELLAMI mobile homepage — scroll to explore
BELLAMI
Donna Bella mobile homepage — scroll to explore
Donna Bella
Babe Hair mobile homepage — scroll to explore
Babe Hair

The Context

Same Category.
Different World.

BIG (Beauty Investment Group) is a parent company housing multiple hair extension brands — each with a distinct identity, brand, customer, and voice — even when selling to a similar customer.

The Ask

  • Rebuild and launch 3 brand sites consecutively, then relaunch one as a unified dual-audience experience
  • Deliver within a shared budget and resources allocation across all four builds

The Complexity

  • 3 distinct brands — same category, similar customer, completely different positioning
  • Builds in close succession — learnings fed into the next with minimal runway
  • Shared portfolio stakeholders + unique brand reps per brand
  1. May 2024 Project kicks off
  2. Oct 2024 Bellami D2C launches
  3. Nov 2024 Donna Bella launches
  4. Jan/Feb 2025 Babe launches
  5. Feb 2026 Bellami D2C + Pro unified experience

The Stakeholder Map

Three Layers.
One Decision Table.

Every decision touched all three layers. Portfolio stakeholders held the budget and the vision. Brand reps held the identity. The technical team held the build. Alignment between all three was non-negotiable.

Where We Started

We Started With People,
Not PRDs

The following artifacts represent the product foundation for the Bellami D2C + Pro build — the most complex and most thoroughly documented of the four.

Before we made a single Shopify decision, we needed to understand who we were building for — and how two very different customers could coexist in one experience.

Annotated site audit of Bellami D2C and Pro navigation
FigJam board from stakeholder interviews and workshops
Pro Personas quadrant chart by expertise and brand involvement
Emma Instant Refresh user journey map
Bellami Hair and Bellami Pro sitemap diagrams
Bellami homepage wireframes for logged-out customers

Shared Architecture

One Scaffold. Three Identities.

Below is an overview of the 3 brand identities and how we brought each of them to life in a unique way without having to rebuild each from scratch.

  • Badges
  • Bread crumbs
  • Product data structure
  • Short description
  • Naming convention
  • Image color swatches
  • See it in action
  • Accordions
  • 50/50 split content modules
  • Left aligned image gallery
  • You may also like
BELLAMI
BELLAMI Silk Seam Clip-In product detail page
Babe Hair
Babe Hair tape-in extensions product detail page
Donna Bella
Donna Bella Signature Tape-In product detail page

The Hard Decisions

Every Decision
Has a Trade Off.

Decision 01

One Instance or Two?

The Situation Six months into the Bellami D2C + Pro build, the incoming CMO challenged the entire architecture — proposing two separate Shopify instances based on precedent from her previous brand.

What I did Built a decision matrix mapping pros and cons across maintenance, cost, customer experience, and supporting data.

Key Unlock Customer overlap data showed D2C and Pro weren't two separate groups — users moved between the user groups and it was critical that a unified customer view was created.

Decision 02

The Full Kitchen Sink

The Situation A copied version of Babe’s Pro verification flow was derailed by Shopify’s new SSO update — and the re-scoping conversation opened the door for net-new requests to sneak in, spiraling into a 100+ hour implementation.

What I Did Paused and returned to the initial PRD, specifically focusing on the “North Star” — what was the immediate need for this feature?

Key Unlock We found an agreeable MVP that followed Shopify’s SSO requirements, captured the information needed to tag a user as a stylist, and unlocked pro-pricing gating functionality.

Impact

Four consecutive builds.
Zero resource overruns.

The Numbers Bellami D2C + Pro

+8.9% Revenue
+4.2% Revenue Per Session
+4.4% Average Order Value
+7.5% Orders

Beyond the Metrics

  • Shared framework reduced net-new build effort with each successive brand
  • Launched with a prioritised backlog ready for iteration & optimization
  • Delivered four distinct product experiences without scope creep or resource overrun

Reflection

What I'd Do
Differently

01

Deeper discovery upfront — always

Discovery was the first thing compressed under timeline pressure across the early builds. In hindsight, a more structured discovery period regardless of timeline would have reduced decision friction downstream. This is now non-negotiable in how I approach new builds.

02

Stakeholder interviews across all brands, not just the combined build

User research was most thorough on the Bellami D2C + Pro combination. Earlier builds moved quickly and that meant some decisions were harder to defend without the customer data to back them up. Deeper insight across all three brands would have made those conversations easier and the decisions cleaner.

Why This Matters

I've Built
This Before.

BIG Portfolio
Sony Music
Parent company, multiple brands
Parent company, 600+ artists
Distinct identity per brand
Distinct identity per artist
Shared Shopify scaffold
Shared Shopify framework
Shared module library
Reusable component system
Portfolio + brand + technical stakeholders
Label + artist + technical stakeholders
Scalable across a brand portfolio
Scalable across an artist roster

Close

Thank You

Belle Jonsson · Senior Product Manager