Experience
M1 Finance
Founding Product Designer · 2015 – 2018
Investing, mobile product, product foundations, and design systems
Building the design foundation for a growing investing platform
I joined M1 as its founding product designer, working alongside the early team to shape the product across web, iOS, and Android as the company moved from early concept to public launch and growth.
My role spanned product design, interaction patterns, visual language, brand, and the systems that helped the experience stay coherent as the product expanded.
The work wasn’t confined to a single feature area. I was helping define how the product communicated, how interactions behaved across platforms, and how design decisions could become reusable foundations for future work.
Designing the product while defining the system
Early on, there was no existing product language or established design practice. I worked directly with the founders and engineers to turn the company thesis into the first product experience, define the core interaction model, and establish the visual and brand foundation.
- 01
Product architecture
Shaping the workflows and interaction models that made a new investing experience understandable.
- 02
Cross-platform experience
Keeping the core product coherent across web, iOS, and Android while adapting to each platform.
- 03
Design language
Establishing reusable visual and interaction patterns as the product and engineering surface expanded.
- 04
Design practice
Working directly with founders and engineers while introducing enough structure to support faster, more consistent product development.
The interface wasn't simply displaying financial information; it had to teach people how the system worked while helping them feel confident using it.
Designing M1 meant translating an unfamiliar investment model into decisions people could understand and act on.
From product to platform
As M1 grew, my focus shifted from defining individual experiences to creating enough consistency that the product could evolve without re-solving the fundamentals each time. That meant establishing shared patterns, introducing a design language system, and creating a closer working model between design and engineering.
I learned that a system isn't successful because the library exists; it succeeds when the team understands it, maintains it, and uses it to make decisions.
By the time I left, M1 had grown from an early-stage investing product into a multi-platform experience with a product language and design foundation other designers and teams could build on.
What the role taught me
Evidence has to compete with momentum
Early-stage teams move quickly, and analytics, support tickets, intuition, and vocal customers can easily become substitutes for deeper evidence. M1 taught me to make the gaps in what we knew explicit and push for better ways to bring customer understanding into product decisions.
Systems need stewardship
Creating reusable components was only the beginning. I learned that systems need ownership, documentation, and advocacy if they're going to meaningfully change how a team works.
Design belongs upstream
As the only designer, I couldn't wait for fully formed requirements. The strongest work happened when design, engineering, and the business shaped the problem and scope together.