How Side Unified Notifications and
Empowered Product Teams to Move Faster
The Challenge
Side Was Scaling Fast But Notifications Were A Drag
“Our core competency is empowering real estate agents to run and grow their own businesses — not building and maintaining notification infrastructure.”
Adriano Castro — Director of Product, Side
Side powers many of the nation’s top-producing real estate agents. As one of the top 10 largest brokerages in the U.S. by sales volume, it helps market-leading agents and boutique companies build and grow their own brands — without the burden of running a traditional brokerage.
Through its white-label platform, Side handles everything behind the scenes — from transaction management and compliance to marketing and CRM — so agents can stay focused on serving clients and scaling their businesses. Trusted by the industry’s best, Side has become essential to agents’ daily work.
As the Side App expanded to support more agent workflows, delivering timely transaction updates became increasingly difficult. Disconnected backend systems made real-time notifications unreliable, exposing gaps in how critical updates were communicated — adding friction for both users and developers.
Introducing new channels like SMS, push, and in-app messaging felt daunting. Without a unified system, important updates were easily missed, product teams moved slowly, and the agent experience took a hit.
The Solution
A reset, not a rebuild
Side didn’t need to start over. They needed a solution that integrated easily, supported every channel, and let product teams manage notifications themselves.
Courier fit perfectly.
“Courier was the most mature platform we saw, and the only one that empowered our product managers to own messaging and make improvements without engineering.”
Nathan Lee — Senior Director of Engineering, Side
Courier gave product teams full ownership. Templates moved out of code and into a visual editor. Engineers connected event data, and notifications became self-serve.
The rollout was fast and incremental. Side started by centralizing email, which brought immediate consistency. Expanding to SMS, push, and in-app followed naturally. Courier’s team worked closely throughout — guiding setup, answering questions, and helping make the transition smooth.
The Outcome
Product teams now move fast — no engineering required
“It’s set it and forget it now. Engineers don’t have to be involved once it’s wired up.”
Nathan Lee — Senior Director of Engineering, Side
Courier’s logs and Datadog integration gave teams real-time visibility into delivery and engagement. Issues that once went unnoticed now surface early — no need to pull logs or dig through code.
At the same time, adding new channels became simple. What once felt complex — SMS, push, and in-app notifications — turned into straightforward configuration.
“What felt complex before — adding SMS, push, and in-app — became simple with Courier. Now we can weave notifications across every customer interaction and reach users how they prefer.”
Adriano Castro — Director of Product, Side
As more teams saw the value, adoption spread. Support gained visibility into delivery. Marketing and growth teams explored new use cases. Courier became Side’s standard messaging layer — scalable, flexible, and owned across the company.
The Conclusion
One system. Zero bottlenecks.
Notifications used to be a source of friction at Side — fragmented, inconsistent, and hard to manage. Today, they’re unified, reliable, and invisible.
Product managers launch updates on their own. Engineers stay focused on core product work. Support and growth teams get answers without pulling in development. And agents receive the right messages through the channels they prefer.
Courier didn’t just replace old systems. It gave Side something entirely new — a single, scalable foundation for messaging across the company.
Now, notifications simply work. And that’s exactly the point.
Side
side.com
Industry
Real Estate, SaaS
Pain point
Fragmented notifications systems
About the company
Side is one of the top 10 brokerages in the U.S. by sales volume. Its white-label platform empowers top agents and boutique firms to build their own brands without the burden of running a traditional brokerage. By managing everything behind the scenes, from transactions to CRM, Side lets agents focus on what matters most: serving clients and growing their business.
Other use cases
Every message, every channel. One platform
Stop building messaging infrastructure. Start shipping.
Multichannel Notifications Platform for developers
Products
All Systems Operational
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