Transforming How Businesses-of-one Do Business

ABOUT LETTUCE FINANCIAL

Lettuce is a comprehensive and automated financial services platform designed specifically for freelancers that streamlines tax strategy, banking, accounting, and taxes. This AI based B2C software delivers real-time financial insights, enabling freelancers to make better business decisions and save money on taxes.
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THE CHALLENGE

Freelancers often leave traditional work environments to gain more freedom and focus on their craft. However, they frequently find themselves bogged down by the complexities of managing their business finances and taxes, leading to stress and anxiety. I joined Lettuce at the ideation stage, helping take the company from concept to generating $500K ARR within just nine months leading to an $7M Series A.

My involvement in Lettuce Financial was broken down into three critical phases: Launch Phase, where I spearheaded the definition, design, and  launch of this feature rich platform within three months. Growth Phase, played a central role in rapidly growing the company through conversion funnel optimization, test/learn cycles, and growth hacks. Lastly a Intelligence Phase where I defined the most valuable user cases to drive use and created a roadmap for how AI will be used to enhance the UX and solve unique problems.

ROLE

Principal Product Designer (Launch)
Head of Experience (Launch + Growth)
Product Owner/Manager - Activation/Onboarding (Growth)
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AUG 2023 - SEP 2024 Fractional

THE SOLUTION

Say hello to Lettuce, a system that sets up your business as an S Corp and works 24/7 to reduce your taxes. With Lettuce, freelancers can stop stressing out about managing your taxes and accounting because we’re doing all that for you, all year long.


2023 Launch Video

WHAT IS IT?

A intelligent financial system

Solopreuneurs no longer need to sweat managing their finances and taxes. No more fearing the tax man, counting your pile of receipts, or praying you got the most out of deductions.
Features include:
Business Structure Creation(LLC, S Corp)
Business Banking
Invoicing
Automated Accounting
Tax Optimization & Estimation
Any-time advice &  analysis using AI

THE RESULTS

LAUNCH

Zero to One
in three months

GROWTH

$500K ARR in 6 months leading to a $7M Series A

OPTIMIZATION

50% Increase conversion in Activation

HOW WE GOT THERE

Going from idea to product, started with deeply understanding solopreneurs' needs, behaviors, and mindset.

In Q4 of 2023, after securing a seed round, Lettuce’s founder brought me on board to lead the ideation, definition, and delivery of a comprehensive MVP by the beginning of the fiscal year. Working closely with a small, agile team, we moved quickly to deeply understand the needs of freelancers, allowing us to craft a feature set that was both differentiated and highly valuable. With a clear strategy in place, we rapidly built the core infrastructure for the platform, including banking, accounting, and tax functionalities.

Tradeoffs and prioritization was essential to ensure a swift launch.  To move swiftly we created a unique and differentiated experience that combined both native features with third-party solutions. I focused on optimizing high-impact user experience elements—specifically the dashboard and the activation/setup process—which allowed us to maintain development efficiency without compromising the user experience.

METHODOLOGY

Uncovering mindset, behaviors, and beliefs of target by conducting a series of human-centered design (HCD) research sessions

20+ test and learn cycle to identify what features were most desirable 

Usability testing on onboarding flow and core features

Value Proposition and feature set testing

USER BELIEFS

The unicorn effect
Freelancers across the board believe that their business was unique and "abnormal" . They tend to be skeptical of one-size-fits-all solutions.

Implication: The experience must feel tailored to their needs and prove that it tailored to their specific challenges and the uncertain nature of their business. Therefore confidence and trust-building became paramount.

TARGET USER PERSONAS

Users see managing their finances and taxes as a “necessary” evil and had varying behavior of when and how often they would address it. Yet unanimously users were piecing together a series of 4 - 8 different  tools, software, and services.

UPlanners
This group actively and regularly monitors their finances and taxes, using spreadsheets and rough calculations on a monthly/quarterly basis. However, despite their diligence, they remain uncertain about their actual profits and feel they are missing opportunities to optimize their business finances and taxes.
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Avoidant Savers
This group focuses their energy on generating as much business as possible and spending cautiously. Reluctant to dive into the details, they often rely on mental estimates for saving and spending decisions. Finances and taxes tend to cause significant anxiety, and they prefer to avoid these topics altogether.”
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COLLABORATION & CO-CREATION

We conducted collaborative working sessions to map the integration of third-party applications with our system, determining optimal data and logic storage locations. This process was crucial for the user activation/setup phase, which involved users establishing legal entities (LLC/S Corp), opening business bank accounts, and initiating bookkeeping. These steps presented significant UX challenges in information gathering and trust-building—issues we tackled through thoughtful design and clear communication.

Throughout the launch, I collaborated closely with the engineering team to ensure smooth and efficient development. Our approach was both streamlined and impactful, enabling us to meet our launch goals while crafting a unique, user-friendly experience.

DESIGNING A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE

We invest early create a brand and design system that felt distinct within the fintech space. To sprint toward launch design collaborated with engineer to use Material UI as base components and then customize them further post-launch. This helped expedite the build process while still creating a distinct and cohesive look and feel that stood out in the fintech space.

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