Invest Confidently with Thurston

Thurston investment app empowers modern and new investors with a personalized experience, offering transparency and an intuitive investment platform. With Thurston, new investors gain transparent access to financial markets, explore curated investment options aligned with their interests, and receive friendly guidance based on their goals and risk tolerance. Thurston's commitment to financial empowerment goes beyond providing tools; it's about equipping novice investors with the knowledge and resources needed to take control of their financial future.

Problem Context

Several financial institutions i.e. Etrade grapple with effectively engaging and retaining millennial customers. Data analytics reveal low conversion rates and high levels of inactivity post-account creation. This suggests a disconnect with this demographic, as the perceived complexity and lack of user-friendly guidance hinder growth potential for both investors and the institutions' business goals. Addressing these issues while maintaining loyalty among existing customers necessitates modernization efforts within the industry.

Feedback from the marketing survey:

“Feels like you already have to know finance in order to start using your website.”
— Antonio M., New customer, inactive five months after opening an account

“I preferred the Robinhood app… it’s pretty straightforward when I started investing and uncomplicated right from the start.”
— Alex G., Signed up with a competitor

Constraints

1. Established financial institutions face resistance to change from long-time customers who are accustomed to the current platform experience and may threaten to leave in response to significant disruptions.

2. Aging and singular code base present challenges in implementing site-wide changes, compromising overall system stability during modernization efforts.

3. The lack of new and modern stock offerings, such as cryptocurrency, limits the original platform's appeal and relevance to a segment of investors interested in digital assets.

4. We were unclear in terms of why new-generation investors were not encouraged to invest early since they are missing out on the benefit from long-term gains.

Goals

Without disrupting the current platform and current loyal customers who hate change:

• Improve brand perception to appeal to modern audiences

• Encourage the new generation of investors and increase conversion rates among millennials

• Maintain loyalty of existing customers without disrupting their current workflows

Team & Structure

Process

Research & Discovery:
• Understand our users
• Competitive analysis
• Reference data
• Prioritize with PM

Concept & User Test:
• Design Strategy
• Explore solutions
• Three concepts options
• User test and validate

Dev Handoff:
• Finalize visualize design
• Scope with PM and Devs
• Prep for development
• Provide design support

About Our Users

I designed high-level persona cards from customer interviews I’ve conducted and merged them with helpful data in the form of stats from our marketing research team to focus on key items about our users.

This method helped us understand our target users, their pain points, and what they value.

Millennials are aware of saving, but hesitate to invest due to a lack of knowledge, trust issues with hidden fees, and saddled with larger financial priorities.

Key takeaways from this research:

1. Very tech savvy and comfortable managing financial matters like banking on their mobile phone.

2. Millennials are open to financial advice services.

3. Rising costs of debt and job insecurity make it harder for millennials to save and invest.

4. A lack of knowledge and being overwhelmed by financial jargon about investing leads many millennials to delay investing.

Surprises:
• They do care about the future, where they would like to save for a house, a car, and emergencies.

Competitive analysis

After the research synthesis, the Product manager and I narrowed down key problems that we felt were important to focus on, because there were numerous pain points and problems.

We focused on the following, “how might we solve for…”
• Build Trust: How might we solve for trust? Would a financial advisor help?
• Affordability: For not enough money to invest, can we offer a product that accommodates small investments?
• Easy education: How should we ease their anxieties when it comes to learning?
• User-friendly design: help with education, guides step-by-step transactions and simplified options can ease anxiety.

Design Strategy

To effectively modernize the investment platform and cater to millennials, several key design strategies I have proposed the following:

• New CoBranded Offering: Consider creating a separate product for millennials with its own branding to avoid disrupting current customers. Maintain some design components and colors from ETrade while ensuring relatability to the current generation's taste level.

• Simplify guidance: for stock selection and transactions.

• Affordable to free trading: to accommodate customers who can afford $5/week

• Experiences to be considered:
  - "Guidance then Stocks": Implementing an interactive and engaging approach to stock selection, akin to the popular word game "Mad Libs," to make the process more enjoyable and intuitive for users.
  
  - "Calculator then Stocks": Introducing a calculator-based approach to investing, allowing users to input their financial goals and risk tolerance to receive tailored investment suggestions, simplifying the decision-making process.
  
  - ”Robo account”: leverage existing robo account into the app to ease the anxiety of users by offering personalized investment guidance without the need for extensive financial knowledge or decision-making.

Concepts & User Feedback

Ideation through sketches helped me understand the constraints of limited space on mobile. As I kept sketching, it was clear to keep the UI simple and prioritize key information users need to know right away.

Next, we tested three concepts in the form of wireframes in two weeks with 15 users.

Concept 1: Robo Advisor (Moderately Favored)

Great for providing personalized investment recommendations tailored to user preferences, goals, and risk tolerance, thus enhancing the user experience. Users can make informed decisions based on their financial needs, aiding in educating them about different investment styles.

User Feedback: Half of the users initially favored this feature due to its simplicity and walking them through different investing styles. The biggest education for them was i.e. “When will you need the money” which provided them with perspective on how should they manage their money. The other half expressed a preference for a method to select individual stocks to independently build a portfolio based on their preferred investment style. While half did like the ease and comfort of having the robo advisor setting a portfolio for them and not worry.

Concept 2: Guided and stocks (Less Enthusiastic)

This approach simplifies stock selection and adds enjoyment for users. Novice users may like it because it offers interactive guidance like the game "Mad Libs," making it easier to understand and more engaging.

User Feedback: This concept received lukewarm enthusiasm. Half of the users appreciated the friendly content, finding it less intimidating and avoiding complex financial terms. They liked that it catered to their interests as a starting point. There were data points that were still confusing like the percentages of days gain as affected by the market, which gave them doubts.

Concept 3: Calculator then stocks (Most Preferred)

This concept accommodates all users by enabling them to automatically invest spare change from everyday purchases, regardless of the desired amount. This allows users to gradually grow their wealth without worrying about affordability, making investing more accessible and convenient for everyone.

User Feedback: A resounding success, as this experience caters to everyone, from those who distrust big banks due to the small cost to individuals with debt priorities and those needing guidance. The affordability and user experience provided them with a starting point to build familiarity and confidence. But what the users responded to most, was the ability to enter how much they would start with and preview what that amount could look like over time.

Finalize Visualize Design

Creating a different branding for Thurston was a good idea to specifically target millennials without disrupting existing ETrade customers. This approach allowed for tailored messaging, a new codebase, and a modern appeal offering flexibility for innovation.

Impact

• Due to a lack of mobile dev resources, we had to delay certain features like the robo advisor capability which led me to redesign the experience.

• Beta release of mobile app search feature resulted in increased millennial engagement by 3.3%.

• Noticed increased interest in hard cider, gaming companies, electric vehicles, and cannabis stocks.

Conclusion

• The creation of a separate product for millennials enhances engagement without disrupting existing customers.

• Simplified guidance for stock selection streamlines the investment process and makes it more accessible.

• User feedback highlights the importance of catering to diverse user needs and preferences.

• Affordability, and transparency, with the aid of a friendly and forgiving experience, are key factors in driving user adoption and boosting confidence for first-time investors.