TickerPerks

TickerPerks connects retail shareholders with exclusive perks and community from the brands they invest in. Under new leadership, the ambition was significant: premium membership, mobile-first, community-driven, targeting a younger and increasingly female audience. The existing product was web-first, built for a different era. Onboarding had high drop-off. The rewards model was narrow. And the brand was quietly working against them. When we got into inception, the strategy was less defined than anticipated. Before a single screen was drawn, we slowed down to properly define the value proposition, resolve the product architecture, and make deliberate scope decisions.

The “TiiCKER” brand was working against them on multiple fronts. The double-i created near-unsolvable logo problems at small sizes, hurt search discoverability, and was widely misunderstood. Most people had no idea what the name referred to. I ran a brand audit and competitive mapping exercise, then raised the rename directly with the client. A name that included “Perks” would immediately communicate what the product does. They agreed, and TickerPerks was adopted. From there I led the full brand identity process: brand personality workshops, tone definition, and a visual direction built to feel modern, rewards-forward, and genuinely gender-balanced.

The previous onboarding flow asked for too much, too soon, a conversion killer in fintech, where users won't connect brokerage accounts until they trust you. But before redesigning the flow, I worked with the product team to properly resolve the underlying value proposition: what does TickerPerks offer, in what order does it matter, and how does the rewards and membership model actually work? Onboarding can only communicate what's been clearly defined. The rebuilt journey uses progressive disclosure: value and credibility first, sensitive data last. User testing confirmed it: participants completed the flow smoothly and felt confident connecting their accounts when asked.

Community grew in importance throughout the project, but the original architecture buried it inside individual brand sub-pages, Reddit-style. Most users would never find it. I proposed aggregating all community content (threads, posts, social updates) onto a primary feed, surfacing highlights directly on the home screen, and introducing follow mechanics for brands and investors. This turned community from a hidden feature into a reason to open the app every day, and gave brands a direct channel to their shareholders, something no other platform offers.

Because our team wouldn't be involved in the build phase, the quality of the handoff was critical. A partial or ambiguous delivery at this stage means delays, misinterpretation, and a final product that doesn't match the vision. I led final delivery of 80+ screens with full interaction annotations and a component-based design system covering every major flow. We also built the new TickerPerks marketing site in Framer. That was my recommendation, and it let us deliver a premium, brand-consistent site quickly without pulling engineering resource from the app.

TickerPerks launches Q1 2026 with a validated product direction, a new brand, and a design system ready to scale. For me the project comes down to three things: knowing when to slow down, resolving the strategy before picking up a tool, and delivering something the team can actually build from.