Product Design
Blue Tip Investments
Blue Tip Investments was a DESIGNATION (now the Flatiron School) capstone project to design an equity crowdfunding platform for micro-investing in early-stage startups.
The design challenge was fundamentally one of access and trust: how do you bring non-expert investors into a space defined by complexity, jargon, and high barriers to entry — and make them feel informed enough to act? The project was fully conceptual, which meant the team could focus entirely on first-principles thinking about the problem rather than inheriting the constraints of an existing product.
The complete UX process documentation for this project lives at the direct link below.
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Daryle M. // UI Designer
Caitlin B. // UX Designer
Tom K. // UX Designer
James R. // UX Designer
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Led UI design within a four-person team spanning UX research and design. Conducted research interviews to map the specific knowledge gaps and psychological barriers preventing non-expert investors from participating in startup investing. Developed personas and opportunity frameworks, then moved through iterative prototyping and prototype-testing interviews to validate design decisions. Synthesized research into a platform concept centered on progressive disclosure of complexity — surfacing the information investors needed at each decision stage without overwhelming them at entry
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The Blue Tip concept addressed the core tension in accessible investing: reducing the barrier to entry without dumbing down the information serious investors need. The resulting platform design demonstrated high-impact potential for bringing a new class of micro-investors into the startup ecosystem. As a fully conceptual project, it represents the clearest expression of pure design thinking in this portfolio — unconstrained by legacy systems, technical debt, or stakeholder compromise.
