.png)
.png)
SPEEDCHAIN
Fintech Platform
CASE STUDY
Speedchain: Designing a Fintech Platform from the Ground Up
A brand-new app, a ticking clock, and a design system that helped launch a fintech platform while unlocking critical investor funding.
My Role
Founding Product Designer
Timeline
3 years
Collaborators
Engineering and Leadership
Outcome
Scalable product, multi-million dollar investment, billions in processed transactions
The challenge
When I joined Speedchain, there was no product yet, just backend logic for moving money between accounts. The founders had a big vision: a modern corporate card platform with real-time controls, clean interfaces, and seamless integration into existing finance workflows.
We had less than six months to build and ship a credible MVP to meet a promised investor demo. No visual design existed. No workflows. Just urgency.
My job was to take us from prototype to polished platform, fast.
Ask a question
Change the text to include your own content. Adjust the font, size or scale to customize the style.
Framing the Challenge
Traditional corporate card tools are clunky and opaque. Finance teams struggle with limited visibility, cumbersome reconciliation, and poor policy enforcement. Employees either overspend or avoid company cards entirely, resorting to personal reimbursements.
We wanted to fix that — but we had to build everything:
-
A multi-role permissions system
-
Card assignment and tracking flows
-
Real-time policy controls
-
Third-party integrations
-
A mobile-first experience that felt trustworthy and clear
To make things harder, engineering timelines were fixed: features had to be ready for demo dates. I would need to balance speed with quality, negotiate scope tradeoffs, and bring clarity to a chaotic, high-stakes buildout.
My Approach
I led all aspects of product design, from UX research to high-fidelity handoff.
My strategy:
-
Map the landscape: I ran interviews and workflow audits with finance admins, group managers, and cardholders to identify the real pain points behind spend management.
-
Define clear personas: Admins wanted control and visibility. Cardholders needed simplicity and speed. Group Admins bridged the two — approving expenses and enforcing compliance.
-
Design for action, not just data: The app prioritized key tasks (assigning cards, setting limits, uploading receipts) and reduced friction wherever possible.
-
Build for scale: I created a clean, minimal, mobile-ready design system that could expand with the product — not just visually, but structurally.
.png)
Product Design Decisions
To meet investor deadlines without sacrificing usability, I focused on lean, high-leverage design:
-
Role-specific dashboards: Each user type had a home screen tailored to their responsibilities. No clutter, just quick actions and urgent items.
-
Real-time policy engine: I designed flexible controls to enforce spend limits, receipt rules, and merchant restrictions, adjustable by group, card, or user.
-
Embedded finance tools: I integrated APIs like Plaid, Dwolla, and Vista to connect banking and accounting systems without overwhelming users. My flows surfaced just enough detail to instill trust without clutter.
-
Friendly, fast onboarding: We reduced average time from account creation to first card transaction from 11 to 7 days, in part by designing a helpful, guided onboarding flow. A stepper UI, inline validation, and abstract illustrations made the setup feel approachable and safe.
-
Tactile card mailer UX: Even the physical card experience was intentional: I designed a mailer with a photo of a hand “holding” the card, QR links to digital wallets, and app screenshots to close the loop between hardware and software.
Navigating Tradeoffs
Startups move fast, and not always with perfect clarity. Some examples of how I managed competing priorities:
-
Investor deadlines vs. UX polish: I broke up complex features into MVP and “fast-follow” quarterly releases, focusing first on key flows like card creation and approval routing.
-
Keep it simple: I decided we would launch with only debit cards, having credit as a fast follow. I successfully advocated for our MVP limiting users to a single card, with the commitment to remove that limitation within the year. I already had the UI, but both decisions reduced the complexity of building and testing dramatically.
-
One designer, many asks: I declined non-critical branding requests in order to focus on system-level consistency and high-risk UX flows.
-
Engineering constraints: Some reversal or “preview” features weren’t technically feasible on day one. Instead, I introduced soft warning states, inline summaries, and confirmation steps to reduce user anxiety.
-
Stakeholder alignment: I routinely pitched UX ideas directly to founders, using prototypes and educating about how good design could reduce churn, support, and spend errors.
Business Impact
The launch succeeded. So did the product.
-
Launched on time, meeting investor demo deadline
-
Secured key funding rounds based on our live product
-
Processed billions in transactions within 2 years
-
Cut onboarding support calls in half with new setup flow
-
40% reduction in reimbursements for large clients
-
$10M+ in duplicate payment prevention through automated spend controls
-
Invited into Mastercard’s World Elite Program for product excellence
PRAISE
“The Speedchain platform differentiates itself with enhanced data, visibility, spend controls, and insights. We have an extreme level of confidence that Speedchain is delivering the best commercial card solution in the marketplace.”
Director of Business Development at Mastercard
Lasting Impact
I’m proud of the platform I helped build, but even more proud of the foundation it rests on. The design system I created continues to guide new features. The product principles — clarity, speed, and control — still shape customer experience.
This wasn’t just a sprint to launch. It was an intentional build for scale, trust, and long-term growth.
PRAISE
“Tucker is a top-notch designer with a strong grasp of how to put an entire product experience together and make it make sense.”
Director Of Engineering at Speedchain
Fast follow
Enhancing user onboarding with friendly setup states
Financial tools often feel intimidating to new users, particularly when they involve complex processes like setting up card controls or managing integrations. To ease adoption, I designed a guided onboarding experience with a clean, approachable interface that welcomed users and simplified initial setup tasks.
This included friendly, conversational prompts, interactive tutorials, and empty states that provided clear instructions for connecting accounts, assigning roles, and configuring policies. By focusing on reducing first-use friction, the onboarding flow helped users quickly familiarize themselves with Speedchain’s capabilities, building confidence and encouraging engagement from the start.
A. Stepper
When we tested the stepper, it absolutely did its job. Users felt less overwhelmed by the onboarding process when they could see their progress.
B. Flexability
Users were more comfortable deciding on settings when we assured them they could change them at any point in the future.
C. Abstract, friendly images
After surveying a lot of other apps, we went with abstract, friendly figures to accompany the onboarding process.
D. Status at a glance
We wanted to make it highly scannable for users to review what settings they had turned on and what setting they had turned off.
E. More flexability
We wanted to speed up the time it took users to get to their first purchase. But we made sure to allow flexibility for users who were setting up their account in a different order or with unique priorities.
.jpg)
This video that I scripted, animated, and provided creative direction for does a nice job laying out how the product works.