As a co-founder and Head of design, I created Selma – a multi-million-valued financial advisor
Finnish-Swiss FinTech service │ Web, iOS, Android
Exec summary
About
Selma combines robo-advisory and private banking for everyone – an effortless way to get quality investment management for a monthly fee. The regulated service is offered to 18yo+ Swiss residents.
I worked with Selma between 2016–2022.
My role
Co-founder, shareholder
Exec, Head of design
Earlier
Design lead
Service designer (CX, UX, UI)
Art director (AD)
Graphic designer
Product owner (shared role)
Business impact
At the moment of writing (Q2/22), Selma had
10k+ paying clients
Three-digit Mio AuM
4.8/5 ⭐️ Google rating (250+ reviews)
20 employees
Closed a 10 Mio round in Q3
Highlighted achievements
Selected metrics 2018–2022 │Directional numbers upon request
0 → 10'000+
paying clients in 2022
Since starting with public beta in 2017.
4 → 20+
talented employees in 2022
Since starting with co-founders in 2016.
LTV : CAC
Industry standard – 4:1
Selma – Significantly better
Lifetime value / Customer acquisition cost -ratio
Conversion
Industry standard – 10%
Selma – Considerably better
Average onboarding chat conversion rate
Retention
Industry standard – 75%
Selma – Much better
% of users staying with the service after a year
Mini case studies
Highlighted challenges & solutions
Asking that question
Selma began with a test product, an index search. After we launched a quick pilot I designed, I confessed: "I don't get this. Why would anyone search for ETFs? 🤔"
This led to pivotal strategic discussion, my research from scratch, and, eventually, to a successful service.
Building design culture
Based on my master's thesis and earlier work, back in 2016, I realised that UX/UI design had a reputation as "a thing to sprinkle on top".
To ensure people knew about and could participate in service design, I developed a design onboarding program for all new team members, alongside a "client contributor community" for beta testers.
Figuring out how we work
Selma’s marketing and product designers used different project management apps, standards and meeting schedules. We were “siloing” away.
To support and unite our 3-person design team, I facilitated a 4-hour “Playbook” workshop – to align on values, apps and collaboration wishes.
Clearer goals
While we were looking for a (C)PO, the product team struggled with overly idealistic business expectations.
I stepped into a temp product owner role to "do something" and get our app shipped. Together with the team, we grounded the expectations, set priorities and hosted "result-oriented" weeklies.
Walk in their shoes
Seeing what others are doing day-to-day in a busy startup can be tricky. This might lead to stress and misunderstandings.
To increase compassion, I compiled and facilitated an empathy workshop for the 5 people working in the extended marketing team.
Stressless agency co-op
Our marketing team was running low on resources. Outsourcing helped to patch the lack of visual designers but added creative management tasks.
To reduce pressure and extra communication, I developed a “campaign kit”, shared simple collaboration guides and hosted “process retros”.
Learnings
Our scale-up team got thru all kinds of rocky roads – from technical delays and the market drops to full-on-remote and growing pains.
People matter the most. Communicating, making educated decisions, and driving design keep things moving forward.
