Overview

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GoodFin is a YC fintech startup that allows HENRYs to invest in companies, like Anthropic & OpenAI. I designed the platform from 0-1.

The fully allocated first investment vehicle

Product

  • B2C
  • Fintech

Team

  • CEO
  • CTO
  • Engineers

Role

Founding Product Designer

The access gap: companies staying private longer, private-market returns versus public

Fig. 1 The glass ceiling

HENRYs were locked out of private markets: minimums, relationships and accredited-investor rules. My goal was to eliminate those barriers.

The regulatory map: what SEC/FINRA fixed and what design owned

Fig. 2 Navigating regulation

No payment processor could handle compliance; private markets had no Stripe. I treated SEC/FINRA and KYC as part of the design brief.

The GoodFin journey mapped from fast to slow

Fig. 3 Mapping things out

Match each step’s weight to the user’s readiness: nothing heavy early, nothing casual near finances. KYC arrived when it made sense.

The learn-versus-cost test applied to every expansion idea

Fig. 4 Sunk cost fallacies

Every expansion idea faced the same test: what would we learn and what would it cost to learn it? Some had logic; all came with trade-offs.

Early exploration of the banking direction

Fig. 5 Being ambitious

Bank-like features were discussed. I made the case that the regulatory and operational weight wasn’t worth it until the platform was proven.

Early exploration of the membership model

Fig. 6 Proving the product

Membership had clear appeal; the question was timing. An unproven product needs momentum, so I sequenced the club model for later.

The dashboard newsfeed concept: company updates and content layers

Fig. 7 Creating focus

A newsfeed rewarded the wrong behaviour. Content trains passive browsing; GoodFin needed active, intentional commitments. It didn’t survive.

HTML/CSS prototypes keeping trust-critical details intact

Fig. 8 Design and code

I designed the investment journey end to end, dashboard to funded position. Accessible HTML/CSS prototypes kept trust details intact.

Fig. 9 Noise-free

Dashboards are usually engagement machines. Ours is a ledger with a voice: what you own, what changed, what needs you.

Fig. 10 From A to B

A multi-figure commitment is the most important click. A/B tests tuned the smaller steps; that step never moved.

Fig. 11 Verifying users

I questioned KYC/KYB vendors about error states: rejected documents, verification time. Their answers shaped the flow I designed.

0

paid marketing

200

new investors

100%

full allocation

Our first investment vehicle was fully allocated before a dollar went to marketing, and GoodFin has since become an agentic wealth platform with AI agents guiding investors. Yet the design I’m proudest of came from usability testing catching a $50,000 keystroke error. Now I test the highest-consequence step first and design outward from it.

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