Taking a financial planning tool from a basic Excel sheet to fully fledged SaaS web app.

Since the founders were inexperienced with software development, I conducted a workshop to gain a deeper understanding of their market, users, and overall project vision. We also established a simple research process to help them analyse potential competitors effectively.

The workshop, desktop research, and feedback from showing other IFAs their basic Excel tool confirmed there was a market opportunity we could pursue. The next step was to begin project specifications with one of my offshore development partners.

The app processed large amounts of data by pulling financial performance from multiple fund APIs, each containing thousands of funds. Our key challenge was twofold: creating detailed specifications for developers while designing an interface that was both clean and intuitive—allowing users to easily access the data they needed to offer sound financial advice.

Our solution was to break down the process into steps which were clearly understood by the advisers who were the main target audience. The majority of the data needed to be presented in tables so I designed a UI that was clean and elegant but flexible enough to accommodate the complex investment process and hundreds of rows of information.

Fintegrate had a limited budget to build its MVP. As we moved through the discovery and specification journey, it became clear that the app's complexity and end-to-end process requirements would demand substantial development costs alongside expensive licences for access to market data.

I created a successful pitch deck to secure funding to complete the MVP, giving us a clear runway to market. It was a challenging process to digest the information and transform the client's complex vision and business processes into a clear, compelling story that would appeal to friends, family, and angel investors.