Building a social investment platform for Gen-Z founders and investors.
Launchparty is an investment platform that connects Gen-Z founders and investors through their university networks.
Traditional investing platforms rarely offers guidance to young entreprenurs and investors. Launchparty bridges this gap by teaching and empowering students to invest in startups from their college networks, with contributions starting as low as $50.
As the lead UI/UX designer, I worked closely with the founding team to design the platform from the ground up - crafting an experience that makes investing more accessible, community-driven, and fun.
Role
Lead Designer
Team
CEO, CTO, CFO, COO
Timeline
Aug 2022 - May 2023
Skills
User Research
UI/UX Design
Design System
Brand Identity
Motion Design
USER RESEARCH
To learn how Gen-Z approaches early-stage investing, we surveyed more than 340 students, alumni, and startup founders from across the nation. Our participants ranged in age, academic focus, investment experience, and university type, reflecting the diversity of the nation’s student body.
We explored their backgrounds, investing habits, and perceptions of startup investing, uncovering common fears and uncertainties around finance and risk. From these insights, we developed four key user personas, each capturing distinct motivations, needs, and challenges.
We synthesized our research through affinity mapping, uncovering three core insights.
Limited Exposure and Funding Access
Traditional investors and VC firms are often hesitant to fund Gen-Z founders due to their limited experience and professional networks.
Outdated and Unintegrated Platforms
Many crowdfunding platforms have cluttered, outdated interfaces that make it difficult for startups to present their information clearly. They also lack social media and external integrations, limiting investors’ access to real-time updates and context.
Few Accessible Gen-Z–Focused Educational Resources
Financial education for Gen-Z is often hidden behind paywalls or buried in long, jargon-heavy lectures. There’s a need for accessible, engaging, and relatable content that helps young investors understand how to invest with confidence.
These insights informed the development of our design-led solutions.
Empower Young Founders
Provide Gen-Z founders with mentorship, funding opportunities, and exposure, helping them build credibility and connect with investors.
An All-in-One Investment Hub
Create a platform where startups can showcase their work, engage with the community, find mentors, and participate in events - while investors can learn, invest, and interact seamlessly in one place.
Gamified, Bite-Sized Investment Education
Replace boring lectures and lengthy articles with short, engaging video lessons and interactive quizzes. By leveraging TikTok-style content and Duolingo-like gamification, we make financial literacy fun, accessible, and relevant for Gen-Z.
How can we design a platform that helps investors learn, while helping founders raise?
IDEATION
During weekly meetings, we conducted design sprints, synthesizing ideas from the CEO, CTO, COO, and CFO. I synthesized these ideas into lo-fi concepts.
User flows were developed for investors and founders to visualize every step of their journey. These flows highlighted opportunities to simplify interactions and improve clarity.
Building on our design sprint sketches and insights from user research, we refined our initial concepts. Over 100 iterations were completed, making incremental improvements to enhance the user experience and resolve key pain points.
We tested interactive prototypes with Gen-Z founders and investors over Zoom. Through these sessions, we observed their interactions, gathered feedback, and identified key pain points to inform design improvements.
DELIVERABLES
NEWS
