Client: (Client name changed for privacy.)
Role: Project Lead / System Developer
Industry: Mindfulness and Wellness
Timeline: Ongoing
Team Size: Facilitators, Practitioners, Admins
Tools: Airtable, Softr, Zapier, Google Calendar (GCal), Google Docs, Stripe, Squarespace
Outcome: Scaled the platform from 15 to 50+ active practitioners, reduced manual administrative work by 60%, and improved operational visibility.
Project Self Overview
As the organization prepared to scale its wellness and mentorship programs, its leadership faced a growing operational challenge: how to support rapid growth without compromising the quality of care. I partnered with the team to design and deliver a custom client portal that helped the team scale from 15 to over 50 practitioners without compromising care quality. This would replace manual workflows with a system for scheduling, payments, and resource management, enabling practitioners to focus on delivering high-quality care.
“For me, how our clients experience (_) at every level is sacred. The work is meaningful and sacred; every intersection with our client should be, too.” Kevin
This business specializes in designing and running retreat programs. They also offer one-to-one mentorship experiences that help people develop deeper self-awareness, emotional clarity, and an intentional way of living.
An overview of every service delivered.
Creating Solutions to an Unsustainable Pattern in a Mental Health Setting
One of the major pressures around growing organizations in this industry is the tension between maintaining operational efficiency and emotional integrity. Most companies face the hurdle of prioritizing rapid scaling or productivity metrics without compromising compassion.
In a place where facilitators are driven by administrative quotas, it’s necessary to adopt a better system that improves how clients handle payments, sessions, and resources without causing moral injuries.
To create a system that reduces both financial and operational risks, the Operations Manager and Founder reached out to me. Our objective was to design and deliver a centralized client and practitioner portal that replaces these processes with a single, integrated system. The result was an operational foundation that enabled and operated with minimal staff intervention.
“I want to confirm the level of customizability of the client experience, as maintaining the quality of our brand is one of our most significant concerns (branding, UI, personalized dashboards). Can we create a UI that is on par with the look and feel of (_),” Kevin
With their plans to scale, using spreadsheets, email, and manual checks to handle their workflows, such as payments, scheduling, practitioner coordination, and resource sharing, was no longer going to work. They have struggled in the past with extensive manual administrative work, including payment issues, payment dates, invoice issuance, and schedule creation based on payment plans.
To create a functional platform for a personal development and mindfulness company, clients’ experiences and visibility into operations were priorities. Working with a small team, we focused heavily on helping the client adopt the new portal. Each aspect had to be kept as simple as possible without compromising the core features.
My Role and Responsibilities
I served as the sole Project Lead and Systems Designer, guiding the team through discovery, system design, and implementation. My goal was to translate operational pain points into a system that the team could confidently manage independently without ongoing technical support.
To support this transition, I had to take up the responsibility of:
- Leading discovery and requirements gathering
- Conducting user research across practitioners, facilitators, and administrators
- Mapping user journeys to identify friction points and operational gaps
- Designing the system architecture, workflows, and data structure
- Overseeing implementation and integrations
- Delivering team training and documentation to ensure long-term adoption
Discovery and Planning
My first approach to this project was to conduct comprehensive research into their existing workflows, tools, and technical comfort level, as well as the tools they had previously used. The goal was to recreate the essential functionality of their manual processes without omitting necessary features or carrying over the complexity or fragility. I had to consider all the features, pages, user groups, automations, and integrations before creating the project roadmap.
Persona-driven focus
We grounded our approach to building a system based on the three main user segments:
- Practitioners: They can access their upcoming sessions, the practitioners assigned to them, and available resources, and manage and monitor their payments independently.
Who the practitioner is, their goals, pain points, technical comfort level, and what they need the system to do.
How a practitioner moves through the platform.
- Facilitators: These personnel can log in to get an overview of the sessions, view all assigned practitioners and payments, and allocate and manage shared resources.
Who the facilitator is, their responsibilities, what they need to see, and what the system was designed to keep out of their view.
The facilitator’s workflow.
- Administration: They can view practitioner activities and engagement, monitor all payments, including pending payments, and provide practitioners with the necessary resources when required.
The admin has full visibility across the platform and is responsible for inputs that the system then manages automatically.
The admin’s end-to-end workflow shows how a single data input triggers the payment automation, scheduling, and resource management.
As the organization expanded, the different user groups required clarity without unnecessary exposure to operational data. Each group often needed different interfaces, pages, or information based on relevance. Therefore, designing role-based access became essential to maintaining trust, focus, and accountability across teams. For instance, Practitioners can view only their upcoming sessions, not the full itineraries of other Practitioners. On the other hand, the Facilitators can only see the Practitioners assigned to them.
System Implementation
To support growth without additional staff, the system was designed as a centralized operations backbone. Airtable was our go-to for the backend database, Softr for the frontend, and we configured custom dashboards and role-based access controls, with Zapier as the third-party integration tool. We used Stripe for payment integrations and implemented automated workflows for appointment reminders, payment confirmations, and resource notifications.
In addition, we used Squarespace to create contact forms on the website so inquiries are captured in Airtable and displayed on the frontend, where operations can track and reach out to these Leads.
Eliminating Their Payment Friction With A Self-Managing Billing System
One of the biggest operational bottlenecks limiting growth was mentorship billing. Until now, payment verification required manual checks and founder involvement, creating friction and slowing decision-making.
The automated billing system marked a turning point in managing the entire payment process for mentorship programs and in reducing a critical dependency. Practitioners can pay in full or spread payments over 2 to 6 monthly installments. Once the first payment is received, the system automatically calculates installment dates, tracks amounts paid, and determines the outstanding balance.
The admin team only needs to input the mentorship plan, number of installments, payment amounts, and start date. As each monthly installment is confirmed, the automation updates the records, deducts the payment, and reflects the remaining balance almost immediately. This new setup improved the team’s workflow, particularly communication between the founder and operations.
Turning Operational Complexity into Scalable Care
As a growing organization, their operations would easily strain under the weight of manual processes, and supporting more practitioners would mean more scheduling coordination, payment tracking, and administrative oversight. This project focused on simplifying those operations through a unified system that reduced manual effort, empowered practitioners with self-service tools, and gave leadership clear visibility into performance.
Where operations once required constant manual oversight, the business now runs on a self-managing system that supports growth, transparency, and practitioner autonomy. This allowed leadership to scale with confidence, without losing sight of the care at the center of their work.
“I truly appreciate the work you’ve put in, and I hope we can build on that without losing momentum. Navigating Airtable and the technical details has been a learning curve for both of us. I realize that’s part of the process, and I certainly take responsibility for the gaps in understanding how to navigate us through this along the way from the get-go.” Kevin
Here are some of the outcomes and solutions of the product we built.
Centralized Client Portal
The portal gave the organization a single, reliable source of truth for facilitators’ and practitioners’ activities. Replacing scattered data reduced day-to-day administrative effort and enabled rapid growth without adding operational staff.
Integrated Scheduling
Scheduling was transformed from a manual coordination task into a self-service experience. The system automatically handled availability, session bookings, and conflicts, reducing errors and back-and-forth communication.
Automated Payments
Payment automation eliminated manual tracking and follow-ups, improving reliability and cash flow. Transactions were processed seamlessly in the background, reducing administrative workload and minimizing payment-related issues for both clients and the operations team.
Resource Management Tools
Practitioners gained on-demand access to shared resources without needing admin support, enabling them to work more independently. For leadership, this created visibility into facilitators’ engagement and utilization, supporting better planning, accountability, and informed decision-making as the organization scaled.
