Open house lead capture for real estate agents. Product strategy, UX, visual design and copy for a web app that runs on desktop, tablet and phone. 2026.
Role: founder, product and design, copy, front end
Platform: web software for desktop and tablet, with a phone version that installs as an app
Status: live at openvesta.com, looking for the first agents
The same sign-in screen on a laptop or tablet propped by the door. Visitors scan the code with their own phone or tap the button on the device.
The problem
An open house in my neighborhood handed me a clipboard. Later I asked the agent what happened to that list. Not many of those names became clients. That clipboard is why OpenVesta exists.
Here is what happens today. The paper sheet gets left on the counter. Some of the emails are illegible or missing. The agent gets home late, the weekend fills up, and by Monday morning the follow-ups that should have happened never do. The leads were captured. They were just never used.
Research
I am not an agent, so I talked with agents and read what they say online. It showed me the need is real. Not a study, and I say that plainly. Three things kept coming up:
The sheet is a hassle
Handwriting is hard to read, emails bounce, and some visitors leave made up details. Then someone has to type it all in.
The follow-up slips
Everyone means to write on Sunday night. After a full weekend it often does not happen, and the visitor forgets the house by Wednesday.
The CRM is a graveyard
Agents already own a CRM. Leads go in and nothing comes out, because nothing runs on its own.
The insight
So the product is not a form. It is a promise that the first email leaves within half an hour, in the agent’s own name, without anyone remembering to send it.
Framing and scope
Half the first plan got cut in one week. Lead scoring, automated texts, pipeline views: all gone, because the follow-up was the one thing that had to work. What stayed is the smallest thing that keeps that promise: sign-in, three emails, a list of leads with notes, and a report for the seller.
Pricing was a product decision too. Agents do not host an open house every fourteen days, so a trial would often expire unused. Instead the free plan covers the first 40 leads with everything switched on, and Pro is $29 a month, or $24 billed yearly, for unlimited leads and editable emails. An agent pays when the product has already worked for her.
Design work
The agent taps Begin on an open house and props up a phone or tablet. The visitor sees the house, a Touch To Sign In button and a QR code. No app, no account. The form asks one question per screen, three by default: name and email, phone, and whether they already work with an agent. A thank you, then the property page with the agent’s card.
Everything on this screen is for the visitor, not for me. There is no OpenVesta logo, the button is gold instead of the brand orange, and it works without Wi-Fi, syncing when the signal comes back. Later the sign-in gained a privacy notice and consent line after a compliance review.
The dashboard answers one question: what happened, and who do I need to call? Four numbers on top, then leads, upcoming open houses and listings. Every lead carries the property, the visit date, notes, and whether the follow-up went out and got a reply.
It is two products in one account. At the door, a phone or tablet runs the sign-in screen. Back at the desk, a laptop runs the dashboard, the leads table, the email settings and the seller reports, with room for sixty leads on one screen and a CSV export a click away. The phone gets the same dashboard in a single column and installs to the home screen, so an agent can check who signed in while she is still locking up.
The three default questions are the minimum that makes a lead usable. Six more wait switched off: pre-approval, timeline, a home to sell, feedback for the seller. Turning them on is a Pro feature, which keeps free sign-ins short and gives Pro agents a reason to upgrade that is about their market, not a paywall.
The follow-up email
Three emails over five days, sent from the agent’s own name, reply-to and signature. The first leaves thirty minutes after sign-in, long enough to feel human, short enough that the visitor is still thinking about the house. The second goes two days after the first actually sends, the third three days after that. If the visitor replies, the rest of the sequence stops.
The delays count from the real send time, so a burst of sign-ins can never turn into a burst of emails. The tone stays low pressure on purpose: If the timing is not right yet, that is completely fine.
Email 1, 30 minutes
About your visit to 555 Howland Street. A thank you, who the agent is, and an invitation to reply.
Email 2, day 2
Any questions from your visit? A brief personal check in.
Email 3, day 5
Checking in. Suggests similar properties, then goes quiet.
Visual system
Olive green and cream, with one terracotta button for the action that matters. Comfortaa for the interface, Cormorant only in the wordmark. The name comes from Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth. In August the scattered colors were consolidated into a single set of tokens so the whole app changes from one file.
The mark
The icon went through nineteen versions in terracotta before it settled: a single leaf shaped ellipse, tilted like a flame, on a rounded square. Then came the color. Three oranges, three greens and a navy were each tried next to the wordmark, and the green gradient won. That keeps the orange for the one button that matters. The final mark was checked at six sizes, down to a favicon.
Logo iterations in Figma
Nineteen versions in terracotta, with the final pair marked
The final mark in green, checked at six sizes
Where it stands
OpenVesta is live on a free plan with beta Pro access. I am now looking for the first agents to try it, so there are no numbers on this page yet. I would rather say that than invent a metric.
What has already changed: a legal review in June found that visitors were never told what happened to their data, so the sign-in now carries a privacy notice and a consent line. And a design pass in August replaced hundreds of one-off colors with a single token set.
What I would do next
Make the seller report real
Today it is a promise in the Pro plan and a stat card. It should be one page an agent can send to a seller on Sunday night: visitors, questions asked, follow-ups sent.
Let visitors see and delete their data
The compliance review asked for it. A link in every email that shows a visitor what the agent holds, and lets them remove it.
Measure the thirty minutes
Reply rate on email one, and time from sign-in to first human reply, against the paper baseline agents described. That number decides whether the insight was right.
