BriefMarket ResearchBehavior ResearchSystematic SolutionsDesign

Product Research & Design

Bridging Investors & Entrepreneurs
The goal of this research was to help Crowdfund Main Street create a website from scratch in response to the new market of equity crowdfunding.

Project Brief

Start from Zero
The market for equity crowdfunding appeared in mid-2016, when the public was first allowed to crowdfund companies. Crowdfund Main Street (CFMS) had never previously conducted market or user research in this industry. We started completely from scratch.

My Role

Lead Product Researcher

Market & behavioral research
Information architecture
Product testing

Product Designer

Landing page
Campaign engagement pages

Research Method:

  • How did we frame the product direction?

    I led a team that conducted market research to identify the main problems, opportunities, and direction of the project. Within this round of research, we explored possible structures for our website by studying the operation strategies and platforms of CFMS' competitors. In this process, we also discovered potential business opportunities for CFMS that needed to be focused on in the product as well as problems that CFMS' current clients faced.

  • How did I determined which factors would bring the most investments?
    ‍
    I conducted further behavioral research and created information architecture to build the framework of the website and define the keys to its success. By interviewing advanced investors with VC or financial backgrounds, I learned about the relationships between investors and founders and what key factors in those relationships result in the most investments during deals. I framed the website structure based on these factors.

  • How did I build the website's pages?

    I also designed, prototyped, and tested the website's workflows and pages to create pages based on the project's scope. Within this round of design and research, we found out the workflows that efficiently attract founders and investors to learn, browse, and sigh up on the website.

Summary of Findings

Given CFMS' focus on crowd-funding for social impact, communication between investors and founders is key to the success of the website.

The more trust, the more investment.

The complexity of due diligence and high risks make trust more difficult to achieve between investors and founders.

Communication bridges the gap between trust and investment.

Trust is created by more than just what is verbalized between professionals. Non-verbal and behavioral communications are also key factors in cultivating trust.

Solutions Summary

The communication and trust that is developed in the relationship between the investor and the entrepreneur significantly influences the amount of financial support an investor will give to a company. I determined the most important interactions between investors and entrepreneurs, from both a human and business perspective, that focused the direction of the MVP:
Accordingly, the information architecture goes as follows:

Design Summary

The focus of this project was to promote engagement between investors and founders and fulfill the basic needs of investors.

Welcoming

Attract new investors and founders

Supportive

Assist new investors and founders in learning investment knowledge

Community

Promote investor-founder interactions over a long term

Kickoff

Understanding the Market

The potential of the equity crowdfunding market is huge.

0.26%

of potential investors have invested.

60%

growth since September (2016 vs. 2017)

California

investors are heavily investing in Reg CF offerings.
Data Source: Based on the U.S. Census Bureau, 2011-2015 ACS 5-Year Estimates, 27,477,682 households’ annual incomes are above $100,000. Crowdfund Capital Advisors reveals that there are only 72,299 backers of Regulation CF from 06/16 to 11/2017.

SWOT analysis revealed a market opening:

- CFMS had an advantage in its mission-driven business and potential for local impact. 
- CFMS can increase its impact by educating current investors and cultivating new investors.
SWOT analysis of the entire market

Competitive feature analysis revealed strategies of direct and indirect competitors:

  • Attracting investors in a balance of quantity vs. quality.
    Some competitors aim to attract the highest quality of investors whereas other companies strategize by attracting as many investors as they can.
  • Cultivating investors and founders in a dependent vs. independent environments.
    While some companies provide their investors with learning resources to invest confidently, others are more hands-off and leave their investors to be independent.
  • Shared strategies:
    All companies promote investor-founder communication and provide comprehensive campaign information.
I set up the framework of this competitive feature analysis and analyzed 4 out of the 7 competitors included. The above represents the results of my work.

User interviews revealed pain points for potential users, founders and investors:

Founders:
Investors:
I led the discussion of our team to analyze the insights and findings from our interviews. Together, our team interviewed 15 users, 9 of which I interviewed.

Direction for Building the Website

Communication between investors and founders is the key to the success of the website.
This discovery shed light on the direction of our project that would lead to a successful website.

To understand behavioral patterns that promote effective communication for large investment deals, I conducted secondary research and additional user interviews with advanced investors with vc or financial backgrounds.

The more trust, the more investment. Communication is the bridge.

Current communication Gaps

1) Complex legal context makes it harder to build the trust between new investors and founders. Communication between new investors and experienced investors can help.
2) Different personas and their personalized communication needs:
These personas aggregate the insights from the 1st round of user interviews by the entire team and the 2nd round of user interviews by me.

Trust includes more than just what is verbalized.  Non-verbal and behavioral communications are key factors in cultivating trust.

1) Trust is built from rich, deep communication over a long-term relationship.

When asked for the key to making investments above $1,000, experienced investors expressed that observing founders' behaviors was most important in influencing their decisions. Face to face or at least live video interaction is necessary for them before making an investment decision.
Website features that could promote each communication type:

2) The context of communications influences investors’ decision making:

Systematic Solutions

Frame the Solutions for the Big Picture
The focus of this project is to create lo-fi and hi-fi mockups to create campaign and on boarding pages. The below primary questions informed my design strategy are:

1. What’s a favorable investing experience?
2. What is the suggested framework for product solutions?
3. How can the tasks of product building be prioritized to help business grow?

Three rounds of validation were conducted from lo-fi to hi-fi mockups to understand investors’ answers.
I determined the most important interactions from this research, from both a human and business perspective, which focused the direction of the MVP:

Form the Website Structure

Content was developed based on the above research. I hosted a card sorting studio to figure out people’s understanding of the content categories.
With the studio results and the earlier research findings, I created a site map for the entire website. As the feedback from this validation added more context about how users interacted with selected pages, the site map evolved to the following:

Set up Development Priority

Based on the project scope, the project manager and I selected certain pages to design from lo-fi to hi-fi mockups. The green and pink pages are our design scope.

Task Flow after Being Tested

Based on the feedback from this validation process on the pages selected to design, the following task flows of “a favorable investing experience” for investors and founders are preferred:

Designs

From Landing to Trust Building
After the research phase of this project,  I set up the project's design mission. As a designer, I designed the landing pages, partial campaign pages, and the engagement pages.
The design mission of the project was to build a welcoming and supportive online community for equity crowdfunding investments.

Welcoming

Attract new investors and founders

Supportive

Assist new investors and founders in learning investment knowledge

Community

Promote investor-founder interactions over a long term

1. Attract New Investors and Founders

The home page is the landing page for investors since the majority of visitors will be investors. It highlights the introduction of the website, campaigns and events, and it informs visitors about the general structure of the website.

2. Support Communication While Investing

Along with providing investors with technical campaign information, the website needs to encourage dynamic communication to help investors feel supported by other investors as well as founders when making investment decisions.

3. Community Building for Behavior Changing

To help investors get used to this new form of investment, community supports is needed for each individual investor so that they can learn together with other investors and ultimately, generate trust in the investment process.
The Prototype
The landing page. Design: me. Content strategy: me, Mallory Watkins, and Linda Hsu. Style tile: Jeff Nissen.
The campaign page. I was in charge of the comment section, updates section, and FAQ section.
The updates page.
The Link to the Entire Prototype
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