OUInvest wealth access for communities left out of the conversation.

OUInvest is an AI-powered investment learning platform built for immigrants, Black Americans, LGBTQ+ individuals, and anyone historically excluded from financial systems.

Project Overview

Challenge

Most investing platforms assume users already know how to invest. Products like Robinhood, Fidelity, and E-Trade are built around financial literacy that many users don't yet have. The experience begins with investing, even though many people are still figuring out budgeting, debt management, and financial stability.

The Opportunity

Instead of teaching investing first, could we help users build financial confidence first? This question became the foundation for the product.

ROLE

Founding Product Designer

PLATFORM

Web + Mobile

TOOLS

Figma,

Adobe Photoshop,

Claude

TIMELINE

2025 – Present

STATUS

Active MVP Development

What I Owned

As the founding product designer, I worked directly with the CEO and engineering team to shape both the product vision and MVP execution. I defined the core experience, structured information architecture, and established dashboard and navigation patterns from scratch. I designed onboarding flows, investor identity systems, gamification mechanics, and community experiences, while also building the initial design system. Throughout, I balanced long-term vision with short-term constraints to prioritize what mattered most for MVP delivery.

PRODUCT VISION & STRATEGY

Product Decisions

Throughout development, I wasn't only designing screens. I was helping define what the product should become. Several decisions fundamentally changed the direction of the platform.

1# DECISION

Financial Readiness Before Investing

Early product discussions focused on investment education. I proposed shifting the starting point entirely. Rather than teaching users what to invest in, we should first help them understand whether they are financially prepared to invest at all. Emergency savings, debt management, budgeting, and financial stability became the foundation of the experience. The idea eventually evolved into Financial Roadmap, one of the product's most differentiated features.

"Most people don't need to learn what an ETF is. They need to know if they can afford to lose $100 first."

Early conversations with users at community events and informal surveys consistently echoed this: many were more concerned with whether they could afford to invest than with how to invest. This direction was later validated in conversations with prospective investors, who independently identified financial readiness, not investment knowledge, as the product's key differentiator.

2# DECISION

Practice Before Real Investing

A lack of knowledge doesn't block many first-time investors. They're blocked by fear. To reduce that friction, I designed two distinct paths: Practice Investing and Real Portfolio. Users can experiment, learn, and build confidence before committing real money.

3# DECISION

Gamification as Access

Most fintech products use rewards to increase engagement. I used rewards to increase accessibility. Users earn points through learning, community participation, and referrals. Those points unlock premium content and product benefits that would otherwise require a subscription. The goal wasn't retention. The goal was access.

Strategic MVP Decisions

Designing the MVP required constant tradeoffs, and several planned features were intentionally postponed or simplified to accelerate delivery. Bank linking was removed from the initial release in favor of paper trading, which was prioritized to validate the core experience before introducing live investing. Community Pods were simplified to their core interactions, and AI features were narrowed to recommendation and guidance use cases. These decisions let the team focus on validating the core experience before expanding functionally.

Bank linking

Removed from the initial release

Community pods

Simplified to core interactions

Live investing

Postponed past MVP

AI features

Narrowed to recommendation and guidance

MVP TRADEOFFS

AI Features → Focused on Guidance First

Original vision: A fully personalized AI investing coach capable of adapting to each user's goals, behavior, and investing journey.

Why I narrowed the scope: Personalized AI becomes significantly more valuable once users have established investing habits and generated behavioral data. At launch, we simply wouldn't have enough signals to create meaningful personalization.

MVP decision: The first version focuses on conversational Q&A and investment guidance, helping users ask questions while learning.

Future vision: As more usage data becomes available, AI will evolve into a personalized coach capable of identifying learning gaps, understanding user behavior, and providing tailored recommendations based on individual investing progress.

Live Investing → Delayed until users are ready

Original vision: Enable users to buy and manage real investments directly within the platform.

Why we postponed it: Because our primary audience consists of beginner investors, jumping directly into real investing wasn't aligned with our educational approach. Users first learn through guided lessons and Paper Trading before transitioning into real investing with greater confidence.

MVP decision: Learning first. Real investing later.

Future vision: Live Investing will launch together with Bank Linking once users have completed the learning journey.

Community Pods → Simplified into Events

Original vision: Pods were originally designed as dedicated spaces where members could share ideas, discuss investing, and interact with each other.

Why I simplified: Launching a social platform from day one introduces moderation, content management, and community quality challenges. As a new product, we wanted to avoid turning the experience into another social network before establishing healthy user engagement.

MVP decision: Instead, we introduced a lightweight Events page where users can join live lessons, webinars, and community events while keeping interactions focused and manageable.

Future vision: As the community grows, Pods can gradually expand into richer discussion spaces.

Bank Linking → Deferred for MVP

Original vision: Allow users to securely connect their bank account and begin investing directly through the platform.

Why we postponed it: Since OUInvest targets first time investors, our immediate goal wasn't helping users invest as quickly as possible. We first wanted to build confidence and teach investing fundamentals through hands on practice. Launching with Paper Trading lets users learn, experiment, and build trust before connecting real financial accounts. It also keeps the initial product technically simpler while validating the core experience.

MVP decision: We launched with Paper Trading and Simulation instead of live bank connections.

Future vision: The Bank Linking flow has already been designed and will be introduced alongside Live Investing in future releases.

From Mobile Concept to Full Platform

I intentionally limited the first release to the core user journey instead of designing the entire product upfront. This let me validate the product foundation, establish navigation patterns, and build a scalable design system before expanding further. As founding product designer, I owned the end to end experience across mobile and desktop: onboarding, investor profiling, dashboards, investing, learning, community, AI guidance, gamification, and portfolio management. What started as a focused mobile MVP grew into a complete investment ecosystem, with the design system scaling alongside it.

Reflection

This project reinforced that good product design isn't about adding more features, it's about reducing uncertainty. Every decision, from onboarding to learning and AI guidance, was driven by one goal: helping first-time investors feel confident enough to take their first step.