Founders are the heart of the early stage investment ecosystem, yet Gust had not improved their founder-facing product since its initial launch 3 years prior. We began this track by conducting extensive user research to fully understand founder’s pain points in raising funds for their business, both within Gust’s platform and in the real world.
Gust’s original sign up form required each new user to complete 8 fields, without explaining why any of the information was necessary. I redesigned this experience by breaking up the 8 fields into 4 contextual sections. These sections provide the user with more explanation behind why we are collecting each piece of data and how we can provide them with greater value as a result.
Founders represent their companies on Gust by creating a company profile, which they can then share with potential investors. The original design of the company profile had a cluttered layout, was not responsive, and caused founders confusion in understanding what parts of their profile were public, and which were private.
I redesigned the company profile to improve the visual design and the user experience. A vertical navigation pattern acts as one continuous scroll, allowing a seamless experience on web or mobile.
In order to increase founder engagement, I redesigned the founder’s dashboard to surface dynamic content that was directly relevant to their company. To encourage founders to complete their company profile, I introduced a mechanism to measure their profile progress as well as an easy way to complete sections of their profile in small bite-size pieces, right from their dashboard. I also introduced an activity feed for founders so that they can see who has viewed their profile in the past few days.
One big take-aways from our user research was that founders struggle to accurately answer common questions from investors, especially in the areas of financial projections, business plans, and pre-money valuations. To support the founder in providing accurate information about their company, we developed a Pre-Money Valuation calculator, where founders answer a series of questions which then go into an algorithm that determines an accurate pre-money valuation range for their company. Upon submitting their answers to the pre-money valuation calculator, founders receive a report immediately with feedback specific to their inputs.