Growing a start-up with a new product
Role
Product Design Lead at Sharesies
Responsibilities
Research • Facilitation • UX/UI design • Information Architecture
Tools
Figma • Jira • Miro • Askable • Dovetail
The background
Sharesies is an investment start-up that launched in 2016. It is based in New Zealand and Australia, and offers customers the ability to invest in the NZ, AU, and US stock exchanges themselves through its mobile app and web platform.
Sharesies manages over 3 billion in funds and started with the mission to 'give someone with $5 the same money opportunities as someone with $5 million'.
The problem
Although we had been steadily and successfully releasing new and iterated investment features based on customer research, data, and competitor analysis, there was still something we couldn’t control.
The investment markets themselves.
When they were performing well we were truly seeing our mission in action, but when the markets took a downturn, in turn we saw the customer activity and their fund balance follow as expected.
Could we identify a new opportunity for customers and the business that could rebalance Sharesies, allowing it to perform more consistently regardless of market activity?
A board paper was submitted by my Product Manager which explored expanding the Sharesies platform.
Through this paper it was identified that an interest bearing Savings product would align with the mission, fill a market gap for the customer, and provide a consistent revenue stream for the business.
The challenge
Could a savings product strategically rebalance Sharesies to perform more consistently, regardless of market performance?
A timeframe of 6 months was set for launch of the MVP in April 2023.
The team
As Product Design Lead for the Investing Team I collaborated in an agile framework with my Product and Engineering leads to define the teams roadmap, research/identify opportunities, ideate/wireframe, and work with developers in the team to move my final designs into delivery.
The core team was made up of a Product Manager, Product Lead, Engineering Lead, Product Design Lead, Business Analyst, Tax Specialist, Marketing Lead, and 3 full-stack developers.
The wider team included a UX Researcher, Content Writer, and Legal Counsel.
Initial research
I began by conducting a round of desk research and competitor analysis, looking at what similar savings offerings were out there.
Particular focus was paid to interest rates and rules or restrictions that may be in place for the account.
Initial customer interviews
I then moved to an initial set of 8 existing customer and non-customer interviews. These were conducted through Askable and organized in Dovetail.
Facilitation and note-taking of the interviews was shared between myself, our UX Researcher, and Product Lead.
The 1 hour interviews focussed on the persons attitude to money, experiences with saving and investing, financial products, saving techniques they used, and the perceived differences between investing and saving.
Some key learnings:
People have strategies when saving, like ‘paying themselves’ and saving in their non-main bank.
Investment customers need quick access to money.
Some people only trust big banks when saving large sums of money.
Personas
From the interviews I created 2 personas to help identify the product and customer needs.
John
Doesn’t save or invest, a savings product could be an entry to Sharesies for John.
Linda
Rather than transferring money out, a savings product could help keep Linda’s money on the platform.
Ideal product features and collaborative agreement
Based on the research and personas I created a list of the ideal features the product should have:
This impacted discussions on how we would technically deliver a Savings product.
After weighing options Sharesies made an agreement with a major New Zealand bank.
The bank would facilitate the holding of the interest-bearing funds and the benefits of this agreement meant:
The target
The executive team set the target for the first quarter of release.
Information Architecture
By introducing a second product to an existing single product investment platform, the information architecture needed to be explored as part of the design process.
The savings product needed to fit within the overall existing navigation and structure of the platform, and there had to be a way to navigate to and from the Save and Investment products.
Initial sketches
I sketched a range of rough concepts exploring and where and how the Savings product could exist within the platform.
First round of usability testing
I created a wireframe prototype and organized an initial round of usability testing to explore the navigation and discoverability of the Savings product.
The remote sessions were with 8 existing customer and non-customer. These were conducted through Askable and organized in Dovetail.
Facilitation and note-taking of the sessions was shared between myself, our UX Researcher, and Product Lead.
Key findings:
6 of 8 people went to find the Savings account in the ‘Explore’ section first.
7 of 8 people wanted to know the interest rate as early as possible.
7 of 8 people felt the bank partnership increased trust.
Refined information architecture
By adding a new home screen and nesting the products, I was able to give customers an overview of their overall position and a simple way to navigate between their products. This new structure supported the usability findings while also providing a clear path for scaling.
I designed a new home screen that supported the new product along with the overall platform objectives.
Working with the developers to build out this new structure involved a lot of cross-domain collaboration and stakeholder management within the mobile and web domains.
This new information architecture also gave the Brand designers the opportunity to explore a new visual language for our products.
MVP design
Off the back of the Information Architecture and the initial Usability findings I was able to start refining down concepts based on feasibility and product requirements.
For it to be a viable initial product the experience needed to include:
The ability to open and close a savings account
The ability to add and withdraw money
The ability to view transactions
Utilizing the existing design system components and patterns, I created the onboarding flow and the experience of an open Savings product.
I refined and documented the MVP designs and flows. I then began to scope and prioritize the front end development with the team.
Delivery
MVP development and release
I led the delivery of the MVP experience with the developers and in April 2023 we released to mobile and web.
This release of the initial Savings product, also included the new Overview screen and the existing Investment product uplift as well.
There were some technical challenges during the release.
Releasing a new product that required large IA changes presented multiple engineering dependencies across domains.
I tackled this by meeting with the engineering leads and presented a clear iterative plan on how we could slice the build across multiple teams with ownership areas.
Gaining a shared collective agreement ensured we could build MVP on time and opened a communication channel for future scaling.
The Brand and Marketing team developed a page on the marketing site to promote the new product, along with email and social channels.
Further iterations
Following release I was able to prioritize the data and feedback, and in collaboration with Product and Engineering we agreed on key design iterations to focus on for the next quarter.
These included:
Results
These rounded numbers were captured on 25 Oct 2023 after the initial quarter of the MVP release and further design iterations.
$146,000,000
Money added to accounts
$1,500,000
Net interest paid to customers
1,500
Recurring transfers set up by customers
Reflections
Customer-centric
Investing the time into customers from the start, drove the product decisions and ultimately resulted in great success.
Collaborative
Involving developers and testers early in discovery and engaging across Engineering during sprints set the foundation of trust in the design direction.
Designed and built for scale
Early thinking and testing on the experience across the platform made sure we were set up for scale into the future.
