Bracket / Fintech
Information wasn’t the missing piece.
A financial decision product that attracted 100+ early users—and made retention the next real problem to solve.
01 / The tension
Students already had YouTube, ChatGPT, and financial websites. Another place to read about money would have been easy to build and difficult to justify.
I interviewed 20+ students about their habits and how they made financial decisions. The product opportunity was the gap between finding an answer and knowing what to do next. That changed the brief from financial education to decision support.
02 / The decisions
Build around a decision, rather than a library.
I prioritised guided financial questions and a practical next step. The experience could cover fewer topics, but each interaction had a clearer job.
A broad content library offered easier coverage. A focused decision experience offered a stronger reason to use the product alongside existing information sources.
Earn the right to automate.
I kept account aggregation and automated financial transactions outside the initial scope. Wireframes and a Lovable prototype let me put the core idea in front of real users sooner.
That limited the depth of automation, while avoiding substantial integration and trust complexity before the engagement assumption had been tested.
03 / What I built
I owned discovery, alternative-product research, prioritisation, wireframes, and the initial build. I launched publicly and used early behaviour to test the proposition beyond the interview group.
04 / What changed
student interviews
Discovery shaped the initial proposition and the choice to focus on decisions.
early users
The launch generated real usage, but higher-than-desired churn challenged the assumption that initial interest meant durable value.
The lesson I’m taking forward.
The most useful result was the uncomfortable one: acquisition was easier to demonstrate than continued value. My next question became why people stopped returning, rather than which feature to add. A focused launch made that weakness visible early.