Renalto

Making an AI quoting tool feel simple for renovation pros.

Role

Founding Engineer

Team

6 people

Timeline

Apr 2025 – Jul 2026

Platforms

Web, iOS, Android

The product

Renalto helps French renovation pros (plumbers, electricians, masons) turn a voice note, a message or a client's documents into a professional quote in minutes. Its AI assistant, Rita, drafts the quote. The pro reviews it, adjusts it and sends it from their laptop, their phone or WhatsApp.

I joined the team inside the Station F ecosystem to design and build the product's interface, working directly in the codebase.

The flow

The three demos above follow one path: start → describe → quote.

• Start. New users land on a guided tour instead of an empty dashboard. Steps are pre-filled where Renalto already knows the answer, and the phone number needed for WhatsApp quoting is asked up front, so the tour ends ready to write a first quote.
• Describe. A pro describes the job the way they'd tell a colleague: typed, dictated or from documents. Dictation streams in as they speak, and Rita tidies the transcript before they send it. She then asks only what she couldn't work out herself, and writes the quote.
• Quote. The quote reads cleanly on a phone, trade by trade. To change it, the pro tells Rita what they want, in the same three modes, and the lines she added or changed are marked when the quote updates.

Giving Rita a character

Rita used to be a static illustration. I rebuilt her in Rive as one state machine. She breathes, blinks and follows your cursor. She waves hello, and while idle she cycles through trade poses. In the quote editor she reacts to what's happening: a chat icon while you type an instruction, working while the AI updates the quote, and a check when it's done. Short messages appear in a speech bubble. She shipped behind a feature flag, along with an animated Renalto logo for loading states.

Decisions that shaped it

One way to talk to Rita, everywhere

Writing, dictating and sending documents share one switcher and one input, whether the pro is starting a project, answering Rita's questions or changing a finished quote. It's learned once. The switcher remembers the pro's preferred mode and only offers what fits the moment: a question can't be answered with a document, so there it has two modes, not three.

Ask only what's missing

Rita reads the description first and asks only what she can't infer. The pro answers by voice or text and sees a short summary of what she understood before she writes anything.

Show the work, then show what changed

While Rita works, the interface says so, in her button and on the screen. When she's done, the changed lines are marked in the quote, so the pro reviews her edit rather than rereading the whole document.

Also shipped

• Workspace. A redesigned project page, a single action bar shared by the editor and the preview on desktop and mobile, new navigation for desktop and phone, and a new home screen.
• Tenders. A dedicated flow for tender documents (DPGF).
• Getting quotes out the door. An Excel export with live formulas and a signature block for client approval, a PDF preview on mobile, one-click connection to the accounting tools Tolteck and Batigest, and VAT rules for Belgium, Luxembourg and France's overseas departments.
• Growth. A referral program with tracking, automatic rewards and a personalized sign-up banner for invited pros, Stripe subscriptions inside the app, and analytics on every onboarding step so the team can see where people drop off.

Built with

Next.js, React, TypeScript, HeroUI, Tailwind CSS, Rive, Supabase and Stripe.