The setting
Canyon’s business runs on direct customer contact. Their customers, by virtue of buying online, are digitally fluent. That made the app a natural surface for deepening the relationship after the sale.
The app gives riders comfortable access to everything around their bike, and a path back to Canyon for service and parts:
- interactive geometry diagrams for the exact frame they own
- the list of installed components
- reminders to check for wear on components
- direct links to reorder wearing parts
My role
On the project from the kickoff. I laid the technical groundwork: the architecture, the patterns, the release setup. Every choice was made with the long-term product roadmap (both digital and physical) in mind.
The calls that mattered
- Architecting for the roadmap, not the launch. The app was planned as a standing customer touch point, so the foundations had to carry features that would be relevant only in several year’s time.
- Keeping the codebase deliberately unsurprising: clear patterns, no clever indirection, so the permanent team could feel at home in any corner from week one.
- Designing the hand-over from day one. Structure and documentation were written for the lead who would inherit the app, not for me.
How it ended
After nine months I handed the codebase to the permanent lead Canyon had hired, together with the patterns and the reasoning behind them. The roadmap continued without me.
Why it matters here
Premium consumer brands choose carefully who they hand their customer relationship to.
