Web Experience
Startup investment made simple
Project overview
DealMaker is a platform that helps companies manage capital raises and investor relations, processing over $2B across 1.5M investments.
As the sole product designer on a cross-functional team, I was tasked with redesigning DealMaker’s checkout experience—a critical piece of the platform that hadn’t kept up with evolving user needs.
The new checkout increased conversion rates by 60% and AOV by 15%.
Challenge
DealMaker helped pioneer online startup investing. But by 2023, its checkout flow hadn’t aged well. As the user base expanded to include first-time investors, friction increased, conversions dropped, and clients were beginning to choose newer competitors with sleeker UIs.
Objective
Modernize the checkout so that investing in a startup felt less like tedious paperwork and more like any other online shopping experience.
Constraints
Startup investing comes with heavy compliance requirements. The experience had to adapt dynamically based on user inputs like income, nationality, marital status, and more—all without overwhelming users.
Process
I followed the double diamond methodology due to its strong focus on research and synthesis. The high-stakes nature of this project meant I needed to get this right the first time, and so proper research would be critical.
Discover
Initial research included a UX audit, stakeholder interviews, user interviews, competitor analysis, and a review of product analytics. I found that users felt overwhelmed by difficult language, mobile usage had grown over 500%, and many interactions were overly tedious.
Define
Insights from discovery pointed to the need for a checkout that balanced regulatory compliance with intuitive usability. I distilled these into clear design principles focused on user clarity, minimal friction, and mobile-first design.
Develop
I ran whiteboarding and co-design sessions with stakeholders across legal, engineering, and operations, and the product team. Together, we shaped a phased rollout plan that was fast to build and fully compliant.
Deliver
High-fidelity prototypes were tested with users and internal teams. After MVP launch, we used A/B testing and session analytics to inform further iterations.
Solution
The new experience prioritized confidence and clarity—turning what once felt like tax forms into something users could breeze through.
Results
This redesign wasn’t just cosmetic—it drove core business outcomes and helped close new deals.
Increased conversion rate
Conversion rates increase by around 60% based on A/B testing results.
Increased AOV
Average order value increased by around 15%.
Secured new clients
A number of clients that were previously on the fence about choosing DealMaker due to our poor checkout experience were closed by the sales team thanks to the updated checkout.