Challenge
Constraints
When I joined the Finfare team as Product Manager and Lead UI/UX Designer, the project already had strong pressure from the client’s side—a cold deadline and limited budget tied to their upcoming fundraising round. They needed an MVP ready fast, something good enough to demo to investors but stable enough to run real users through.
With tight engineering bandwidth, we couldn’t rebuild from scratch. Every new flow had to work seamlessly across web and mobile without disrupting existing systems. Meanwhile, I was also handling brand identity, marketing visuals, and product interface designs, so the only path forward was to prioritize high-impact, low-effort improvements that made the experience clear and usable.
We worked in 2-week sprints—sketching early in the week, prototyping midweek, and testing by the 2nd week of Friday. That rhythm helped us ship a focused MVP: a refined onboarding, a simplified expense dashboard, and a solid design system built to get Finfare to their first raise on time.
Research
In the early stages of developing Finfare, our main challenge was finding unique features that would distinguish our product from other financial management solutions, e.g., Ramp, Brex, and Mercury.
As a product manager and lead designer, I led research and convinced stakeholders of the importance of conducting thorough market and user research. With the UX team, we tested multiple products, documenting strengths and weaknesses, and analyzed their design patterns, color systems, and UI components. This research revealed major issues: cluttered visuals, confusing onboarding, repetitive expense workflows, and limited mobile access.
These insights shaped our priorities—clarity, speed, and mobility—and became the foundation for the redesign of Finfare’s visual identity, onboarding flow, and dashboard experience
Key Features
Seamless Onboarding
Onboarding needed to be far more approachable, especially for small-business CEOs who often handle setup themselves. The process was cluttered and unclear, and it asked for information they didn’t always have (as required fields / couldn't skip), causing delays and mistakes.
We redesigned the flow around people, not paperwork. A new step-by-step onboarding journey focuses on one action per screen with clear progress and guidance so that anyone can start quickly and consistently. Visual cues match the target audience, language is easy to understand, and only essential fields appear when needed (they can also skip and come back later). A strong hierarchy and clear primary actions help users stay oriented and know exactly what to do next.
The result is a faster, more intuitive onboarding experience with far less confusion and fewer errors. Users were able to complete account setup and activation confidently, regardless of their financial background.
All Cards — one place to see spend
Before this, managers chased card activity across exports and emails. Simple questions—Who’s spending right now? Which cards are close to their limit?—took too long to answer.
The All Cards dashboard brings every card into one view. The manager can see all cardholders, recent activity, and what’s left on the limit at a glance. Filters and search make it easy to find a person or team. Subtle alerts flag low balances or unusual activity. When something needs action, you can open details, adjust a limit, or freeze a card without leaving the page.
The result: fewer surprises at month-end and less time digging through spreadsheets—managers get a clear picture in seconds and act before small issues become big ones.
Real-Time Expense Reports
We designed a flow for uploading receipts, eliminating the need to save and upload each one manually. Cardholders can easily add virtual cards to their Apple Wallet and upload receipts and memos via mobile, desktop, email, or SMS without logging into the platform. Finfare will automatically notify cardholders to submit receipts promptly, empowering them with better control over their expenses and budgets.
This functionality has also a great impact in use cases like reducing the finance team's time for reviewing and approving expenses, issuing virtual cards, and controlling spending limits.
Final Deliverable
After many rounds of iterations and reviews, we ran a Maze test with 42 participants to validate the new onboarding and dashboard. Results were largely positive—confirming clearer paths and reduced confusion—and surfaced targeted refinements for the next release.
Responsive Designs
Also, all mobile screens were designed side-by-side with the web experience to ensure both platforms remained consistent, clear, and equally easy to use.
Takeaway & Reflection
Working on Finfare showed me how much clarity and consistency matter in products that can feel intimidating. By simplifying flows, leaning on familiar patterns, and guiding users step by step, we made a complex process feel approachable. It also underscored the value of early validation and scalable foundations: simplify first, test often, and build a system that can grow with the product. The outcome was faster onboarding, less manual work, and stronger user trust.
If I were to revisit this, I’d go deeper into analytics and usability testing to quantify improvements, track confidence after launch, and guide iterations with more precision.
* This work was completed in 2022, and my design solutions has been improved significantly since then.