Rob Nastos – Product Design Leader

The Project

Local bussinesses deserve better than racing to the bottom.

Every local business has a version of the same problem. Empty slots on slow mornings. Quiet mid-week periods they can't fill. A loyal regular base and a neighbourhood full of people who've never walked through the door. Dibs is a digital offer-and-redemption platform that brings local businesses and their communities together in one place. One app for customers to discover, save, and redeem offers from every type of business around them. One simple tool for merchants to reach new customers, fill quiet periods, and see exactly what's working.

Product

Dibs App

Project

AI Assisted Product Design

Year

2026 (ongoing)

Focus

Design Lead, Product Vision & Design, Builder, Architecture

The Project

Local bussinesses deserve better than racing to the bottom.

Every local business has a version of the same problem. Empty slots on slow mornings. Quiet mid-week periods they can't fill. A loyal regular base and a neighbourhood full of people who've never walked through the door. Dibs is a digital offer-and-redemption platform that brings local businesses and their communities together in one place. One app for customers to discover, save, and redeem offers from every type of business around them. One simple tool for merchants to reach new customers, fill quiet periods, and see exactly what's working.

Product

Dibs App

Project

AI Assisted Product Design

Year

2026 (ongoing)

Focus

Design Lead, Product Vision & Design, Builder, Architecture

The Problem

A broken market on both sides of the counter

Existing platforms have tried to solve this and mostly made it worse. The platforms that do serve broader categories take a cut of every transaction and punishing the merchants they're supposed to help. Others are so cluttered that good local businesses disappear into the noise.

The customer side is just as broken. People walk past great local businesses every day without knowing what's available, what's on offer, or why they should try something new. There's no single destination for local deals that isn't dominated by restaurant listings.

That's the gap Dibs was built to close. A curated, community-first platform where every type of local business can reach new customers affordably and where customers can actually discover what's right around the corner.

The Problem

A broken market on both sides of the counter

Existing platforms have tried to solve this and mostly made it worse. The platforms that do serve broader categories take a cut of every transaction and punishing the merchants they're supposed to help. Others are so cluttered that good local businesses disappear into the noise.

The customer side is just as broken. People walk past great local businesses every day without knowing what's available, what's on offer, or why they should try something new. There's no single destination for local deals that isn't dominated by restaurant listings.

That's the gap Dibs was built to close. A curated, community-first platform where every type of local business can reach new customers affordably and where customers can actually discover what's right around the corner.

The Process

A real product built to answer a real question

Dibs solves two problems at once and every build decision maps back to one of them.

Merchants need a way to turn quiet periods into revenue without paying commission on every transaction. Dibs gives them offer creation in minutes, real-time redemption data, and visibility into exactly when they need more coverage.

Customers need a single place to discover what's worth trying around them, not a feed dominated by restaurant deals, but a genuinely curated local experience with a redemption flow that takes seconds in store.

The backend is production-complete across eight independently deployable microservices. The design system is in final refinement. Every decision is documented for engineering handoff. The product isn't finished but the problem it's solving is clear, and the architecture is built to scale with it.

About

Contact

A new way to shop local deals

A new way to shop local deals

Local bussinesses deserve better than racing to the bottom.

Local bussinesses deserve better than racing to the bottom.

The impact in numbers.

A broken market on both sides of the counter

A broken market on both sides of the counter

A real product built to answer a real question

Still a work in progress. More to come.