Melt Studio designed and launched xpand-us.com for Xpand — a shared assembly hub for defense and frontier-tech companies — in five weeks, including its design system, as part of its pro-bono collaboration with the Q-Branch accelerator.

Xpand: a shared manufacturing and assembly hub for defense startups

Xpand is the first co-sharing assembly hub where defense and frontier-tech companies get their own dedicated space, production and testing infrastructure, and a community of experts and decision-makers under one roof. It also gives foreign companies a compliant U.S. production presence, so they can compete for U.S. government contracts.

The challenge: explaining a new category to the buyers who need it

Xpand solves a real, expensive problem: setting up a facility takes defense startups years and millions in capital they'd rather spend on product and contracts. But a shared assembly hub is a new idea, and the people who need it had to understand it fast — what it is, who it's for, and why it beats building their own. Xpand needed its front door live before it could start those conversations.

The solution: a design system and one focused landing page, live on Xpand's own domain

• A design system so every page, and every page added later, shares one look and one voice.

• One focused landing page instead of the usual two (commercial and government) — Xpand's call, to keep the message sharp for launch.

• Copy built around the outcome: walk in, plug in, and you're operational, compliant, and connected from day one.

• Launched on xpand-us.com, built on Wix so Xpand's team can edit it without a developer.

FAQs, a hub-tour request flow, and a custom graphic component library went to the next-phase roadmap, so the site could launch on time.

How the site went from brief to live domain in five weeks

A lead designer and a project manager worked with Xpand's founder in a fixed cycle — intake, Figma design, one feedback round, then build and launch — with Q-Branch in the loop throughout.

Results: a live site on xpand-us.com and a roadmap for what's next

• xpand-us.com live on Xpand's own domain, five weeks after kickoff.

• A design system and 8 user stories delivered.

• A next-phase roadmap: FAQs, a hub-tour request, and new sections.

Have something real to sell, and need the page that explains it to the people who'll buy it? That's the gap we fill.

Schedule a call today!

Thx for reading. With Love, MS.