Role
Lead Product Designer @ Repool
Core Team
Engineers (4), Client Success (1), Business (4)
Area of Impact
Product Design, Design Strategy, UXR Methods
Duration
Ongoing
Background
While the venture space has evolved significantly with platforms like AngelList and Carta, the hedge fund industry remains largely undisrupted and antiquated, relying heavily on extensive paperwork and manual processes. Repool's goal is to enable the next generation of hedge funds through modern launch and back-office solutions.
My contributions so far helped the business grow to achieve a $1.5M ARR milestone, enable the company’s first set of >$25M funds, and attract >$1B AUM up-market clients as an early stage startup. This is a higher-level case study of how I created and improved disruptive back-office software solutions in tight turnaround times:
Repool's value proposition as an all-in-one platform for funds.
Problem Space
When I joined the team, much of the product had been built by engineers or designed in fragments by contractors with out much consideration for good UX. The platform urgently needed a visual refresh and significant improvements to the information architecture and user flows.
Info architecture didn't map well to true hedge fund structure.
This caused a lot of user confusion when navigating through the portals because the hierarchy and nesting of things weren't as expected.
Visual design lacks consistency and mature identity.
The portals were built with randomly grabbed components and styles, which made the experience amateur and unfinished.
Manager and investor-facing experiences were disjoint.
The two user experiences are meant to work seamlessly with each other, but they felt more like standalone platforms.
Orienting my design projects in these three high-level categories.
Guiding Design Principles
Feedback Driven Innovation
Disrupting a new space requires thoughtful collaboration with stakeholders at every stage. It's crucial to innovate in the right areas rather than simply assuming that the most "streamlined" solution will always be the best approach.
Clarity through Industry Research
Since I don’t have an extensive finance background, it’s my responsibility to conduct thorough research on standard industry practices and deepen my understanding of complex hedge fund operations.
Speed through Humble Iteration
To deliver the best solutions within tight turnaround times, I have to embrace the utmost humility – willing to scrap iterations, refine quickly based on feedback, and plan out several versions of feature enhancements to work towards "ideal" product states across multiple releases.
Three principles to set myself up for success in this role.
Initial Audits
to identify issues & opportunities
I kicked off each project by auditing the existing systems within the product to clearly define priorities for my design work and also to help set up scope. This allowed for productive discussions with engineers about what could realistically be rebuilt within efficient timelines, while still aligning with upcoming business goals.
Example audits I did zooming on specific manager portal interfaces.
These audits were essential for product planning with the team on a smaller scale as well as for strategizing each quarter. When priorities were unclear or continuously shifting, it was my responsibility to refocus the team by conducting in-depth analysis of key pain points and advocating for the most important issues to address first.
Problem Discovery
user types, and example solution.
Validating Design Direction
To follow my design principles, I was committed to involving existing users as well as prospective users / clients throughout the design process. The objective of these sessions varied on the project, but usually consisted of 1) open discussions around outstanding pain points, 2) visual / interaction design testing, 3) concept testing for potential UX solutions.
User testing call to gain insights on the fundraising page & process with current fund managers on Repool's platform.
The biggest challenge in these calls was structuring the sessions to effectively discuss the product with individuals who weren’t naturally product-minded. In my early UT sessions, fund managers often veered off-topic, focusing on unrelated bugs or fund administration issues. The key solution was to maintain a structured conversation with a stricter A/B testing format while facilitating exercises that allowed me to observe behavior patterns as users navigated and talked through clickable prototypes.
Two different user types
Throughout UT sessions, I observed stark differences between emerging managers—our original target users—and more traditional institutional fund managers, our upmarket audience. Institutional managers disliked "modern solutions" that concealed details for the sake of cleaner interfaces, whereas emerging managers preferred this streamlined approach.
User persona comparison - shared with business team for priority discussion.
Designing solutions for two distinct user types required striking a balance between a modern, streamlined interface and one rich in detail. The key was to center the experience around what traditional managers prioritize most – documents and downloadable reports – while maintaining a visually clean and intuitive design.
Project Example
catering to the two user personas
The Subscription Approval Flow
The subscription approval process requires fund managers to carefully review prospective investors' application responses and then either (1) countersign the application or (2) reject it. During initial research, emerging managers expressed a preference for simple overviews, whereas institutional and upmarket managers preferred to review the full legal document before making a decision.
Emerging managers (User A) preferred a simple overview of subscription answers. I tested some variations in the form of a slide out panel.
Institutional managers (User B) expressed they would rather have a PDF of the legal document to manually review and then digitally sign afterwards.
The final solution for the subscription approval flow integrates both user preferences with the PDF previewer on the right while offering a modern approach to accelerate countersignatures and acceptance of new investors into the fund.
Reworking the broader
Info Architecture
The information architecture was both confusing and highly unscalable, as it was built on the assumption that Repool would only support asset managers with single funds and user logins. This issue was even more pronounced on the investor side, where the system didn’t allow users to subscribe to multiple funds under different LP entities. As a result, users often had to manage multiple logins, profiles, and accounts just to handle common edge cases.
The existing system requires separate logins for managers and investors, despite many users fulfilling both roles.
While it was not possible for the engineers to completely rip apart the data models and revamp it in one go, it was my task to map out the "ideal" site architecture so we could make progress towards these goals.
This information hierarchy was based on a real client (with names changed in this diagram) who was both a fund manager and an investor across multiple funds. I created this diagram to show the team why consolidating all investor profiles and their associated funds into a single portal—rather than requiring separate portals and logins for each fund—would create a more seamless and scalable experience.
Standardizing & refreshing the
Visual Design
The visual refresh involved me creating a new design system. I initially explored a variety of visual design routes, but ultimately the ask was for something bright, clean, and modern - something that didn't look too legacy but wasn't too playful at the same time.
I decided that since we are still maturing as a product, a simple and clean white background with pops of a primary brand color and brighter accents would be the way to go for our core interfaces.
I am adding custom components to the design system as needed for quicker sprints.
As a startup in its early stages, our design system is constantly evolving, with styles and components being iterated frequently. Given the need for speed, accurate visual and interaction design are sometimes the first areas to be compromised in implementation. Our main priority right now is functionality and user intuition, especially since fund managers have made it clear that visual design isn’t a top concern for them. That said, I try to keep designs simple and avoid overly ambitious feature interactions.
Final Screens
A high-level glimpse at some of the stuff we reworked in tight timelines.
I’ve redesigned several aspects of both the manager portal and the investor experience, with many users sharing that the updates have made their lives easier or encouraged them to log into their Repool portals more frequently. Some of the key improvements in the redesign include, but are not limited to:
Manager Portal
Quick reskin of home page.
Manager Portal
Fundraising page redesign.
WARP Subscription Stepper
New Investor Profile Modal
Manager Portal
NAV & Track Record tab.
Manager Portal
Subscription Approval Flow
Manager Portal
Capital Goals & Forecasts CRM
Investor / Prospect Experience
Fund Invitation Page
Investor Portal - V1.5
Investments Tab - Multi Investor Example
Next Steps
Stay tuned for more!
The next set of projects I am working on primarily involve enhancement's for Repool's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features – Including the data room, secure document sharing, contact management, and more.
Sample of some lower-fidelity data room concepts I have been exploring and sharing during my recent design reviews.
Additionally, the engineers are continuing to implement all the things I have designed so far. A large part of my job is working with them to quickly iterate on things I have already handed off when they run into unforeseen technical or time constraints.
Thanks for stopping by! For more detailed info on my experience at this role, contact me :)