The first step was a customer-centred discovery phase. We wanted to road test the value proposition with real people and challenge assumptions about the product. We helped the founders build empathy with the people who would use their product and learn what benefits they really wanted. We applied the principles of lean product development and human-centred design and conducted over 50 hours of primary research. Our team observed behavioural patterns around investing and wealth creation and documented the ways people told stories about the future, which helped the founders understand and tap into the underlying values and purpose driving decision-making. To frame these insights, we incorporated research into adjacent and industry social patterns in the sector, creating the context to construct overviews and evaluate opportunities.

We also took the time to unpack the knowledge and intentions of the founders and build a deep understanding of the proprietary technology they had developed, their underlying values, and their motivations for starting the business. These insights were fundamental for the brand purpose and vision of the business.

The process assisted the founders in defining a target customer who were lifelong learners with long-term financial goals. They don't like to dabble or engage in "get rich quick" concepts and understand that spending time researching and doing due diligence in the early days can pay dividends in the long run.

The discovery phase increased Flint Wealths' awareness in six critical areas for success when bringing a new product to market: (1) a technical awareness; (2) an understanding of why innovation needs to occur, addressing short- and long-term goals and risk versus profit; (3) the financial costs of innovation; (4) an understanding of who wants this innovation, at what price, and how to achieve it; (5) its allure to investors; and finally (6) the trust, competence, and motivation of the individuals involved.

We used customer data to define exactly what benefits we needed to deliver and the metrics for success, then overlaid a framework to prioritise each benefit that balanced the importance of customer need with user satisfaction with their current solution. This enabled us to identify the benefits that would have the biggest customer impact. We articulated and organised the value proposition around the signature benefits (one-of-a-kind, wow features), performance benefits, and brilliant basics (essential, box must be checked customer requirements).

The use of video customer verbatims and stakeholder engagement with the board built confidence in the executive and supported decisions to invest in the design and build. We transitioned into the product design phase and started to create prototypes for testing. Lean product development encourages rapid iterations, so we set up a series of sprints where different features or designs could be tested with users in short bursts. Feedback from users was integrated into future versions of the prototype until the desired outcome had been achieved.

In 8 weeks, we designed multiple prototypes of the product and fine-tuned the customer experience with usability testing, interviews with users, and field studies (observing how users interact with the service). These techniques help ensure that any changes made throughout the iterative process keep customers’ needs at heart by making sure they understand how they interact with different parts of the app's interface.

It was essential to evaluate the final version of the app before moving into a development phase. To achieve this, we used both qualitative (user interviews) and quantitative methods (benchmarking performance against industry standards). This helped reduce the likelihood that features that were not valued by customers would be built and that all customer requirements had been met or exceeded in terms of ease-of-use and functionality.