An eSIM marketplace & virtual numbers for travelers.
Role · Product Designer — plan selection, payment, activation
eSIM Plus lets travelers buy a data plan and activate an eSIM without a physical SIM, and also offers virtual phone numbers for SMS, calls, and verifications. It has been on the market since 2019 (iOS) and 2020 (Android), covering 200+ countries.
I designed across the product's core flows as part of the team: onboarding and registration, plan and country selection, payment, the eSIM activation flow, virtual numbers, and the monetization / top-up surfaces. The defining challenge here is utility, not novelty — people use this app at a stressful moment (landing in a new country, needing connectivity now), so every step that fails costs the user real money or a missed connection.
Buying mobile data abroad is genuinely confusing: which country, how much data, will it work on my phone, how do I install it? eSIM activation is a technically heavy task — install a profile via QR code, then configure APN settings — dropped on a non-technical traveler who may be roaming with bad connectivity. The design problem was to compress a multi-step technical task into something a tired traveler can finish on the first try, and to keep payment and pricing trustworthy enough that people complete the purchase.
Activation is a 6-step QR flow plus APN setup. This is where the product is won or lost. I designed it to be linear and recoverable: one clear action per step, explicit confirmation that the eSIM is active, and guidance for the APN settings that usually trip people up. A failed activation is a refund request and a one-star review.
If I were iterating again, I'd focus on the post-purchase moment — the friction users name most is support responsiveness, price transparency, and SMS delivery to critical services. I'd invest in clearer pricing up front and stronger account-restore so a reinstall never loses a purchase. In a utility product, trust after the sale is the whole game.