Designing a flexible data system that helped expand Vagaro into 30+ new business verticals, with $3.8M in projected ARR.
Each business defines the customer data its industry actually needs, with access controls for the ones handling sensitive records.
Vagaro's rigid data model locked out specialized industries that needed to capture unique customer information, limiting platform growth to beauty, wellness, and fitness.
A flexible custom fields system with industry-specific templates, deep platform integration across forms and profiles, and layered permissions for compliance and multi-location businesses.
12% increase in new vertical adoption, $3.8M in estimated new ARR, and 10,000 businesses using custom fields within six months of launch.
The Business Opportunity
Vagaro's growth was capped by its own data model
Vagaro served beauty, wellness, and fitness businesses well. But specialized industries like medical spas, pet groomers, martial arts studios, and automotive shops couldn't adopt the platform because it had no way to capture the data their businesses depend on.
- A hair salon needs: hair porosity, hair density, scalp condition, texture, length
- A pet grooming salon needs: pet breed, vaccination dates, health vitals, behavioral notes
- A medical spa needs: health history, medications, allergies, HIPAA-protected clinical fields
- A martial arts studio needs: belt rank, injury history, fitness level
No two verticals overlap completely. A one-size-fits-all data model would fail all of them.
Goal
Make every business feel like Vagaro was built for them
I had to make one system serve any vertical while still feeling tailored on day one. That meant:
- Pre-populated field templates matched to each industry
- Full flexibility for businesses to create their own fields
- Deep integration across the platform, not an isolated feature
Research & Taxonomy
Mapping what 30+ industries need to capture about their customers
Before designing anything, I catalogued what 30+ industry verticals actually need to capture about their customers. The goal was to find enough common ground to build useful templates, and enough variation to make full customization worth building.
This taxonomy work also surfaced the compliance constraints early. Medical fields, health histories, and certain client data require access controls that a simple field builder wouldn't cover. That pulled permissions into the core design before any UI work began.
Design Solutions
Creating fields, collecting the data, and surfacing it where staff work
Management, creation, collection, and display.
Field Management: Where all custom data lives
I grouped fields by category rather than listing them flat, because businesses think about their data in clusters, not as one long list.
- Fields grouped by category with clear type indicators (text, select, number, formula)
- Quick actions to add, edit, duplicate, delete, and filter
Field Builder: Industry templates and full custom control
Industry templates, live preview, and advanced options like formulas and date reminders.
I led with templates rather than a blank builder. Most businesses don't want to design a schema, they want the one their industry already uses, with the option to change it.
- Multiple field types: short text, long text, single select, multi-select, number, formula
- Live preview showing the field as customers will see it
- Formula builder for calculated fields (e.g., BMI from height and weight)
- Date reminders for time-sensitive fields like vaccine expiry
Form Integration: From field to customer record
Closing the gap between creating a field and having the data land where staff need it.
I pushed for fields to reach the form builder automatically rather than as a second setup step. Otherwise every business would have built the same field twice, and most would have stopped after the first. Responses map straight onto the customer profile, with no manual entry.
Customer Profile: Making collected data actionable
Staff see the information that matters to their industry at a glance.
I organized profile data by field group rather than collection order, so a medical spa opens to health history and a pet groomer to vaccination dates. The same screen reads differently depending on the business.
- Data organized by field group
- Permission controls restricting sensitive data to authorized staff
- Trend tracking so staff can see how data changes over time
The Permission Model
Designing access control for compliance-heavy businesses
A medical spa needs to restrict clinical data to licensed practitioners. That meant separating two kinds of access:
- Field management access: Who can create, edit, or delete fields
- Field data access: Who can view the data collected for a customer
A medical spa admin can create a “Medical History” field without being able to read what is in it.
Impact
+12% vertical adoption and $3.8M in projected ARR
Measured over the first six months after launch. Custom fields shipped alongside other platform work in that window, so the revenue figure is a projection rather than an isolated result.
Business types new to the platform
Specialized verticals like medical spas, pet groomers, and automotive shops that Vagaro previously had no way to support began signing up.
Businesses using custom fields
Adoption across both new signups and businesses already on the platform.
Custom fields created and in active use
Fields built by businesses and actively collecting data through forms, stored against each customer profile.
Projected ARR Growth from New Verticals
Custom fields enabled pet grooming chains, medical spas, and automotive shops to adopt the platform. Projected from six months of post-launch data at approximately $3.8M in additional ARR.
Reflection
Permissions started as an afterthought
I scoped this as a field builder and treated permissions as something to handle later. They only came into focus when I mapped the medical and health-related fields, which was later than it should have been.
On anything that stores customer data now, I work out who is allowed to see it in the first design pass.
Templates made Vagaro feel purpose-built. Permissions made it safe for industries handling sensitive data.