CASE STUDY · FINTECH · 2022–2024
CapSync — A financial operating system that replaces spreadsheets for individuals and advisors
I joined as the founding designer and spent 20 months turning a manual, document-heavy wealth-tracking workflow into a live, automated, institution-grade product for individuals and financial advisors in the U.S.
“In fintech, trust is visual. An inconsistent product feels unreliable.”
01 · CONTEXT
Wealth management in 2022 still ran on spreadsheets and PDF attachments.
CapSync's founders — both from wealth management — watched advisors waste 8–12 hours a week rebuilding Personal Financial Statements in Excel. Every time a client applied for a loan, refinanced, or opened a new account, the advisor started over. Meanwhile, high-net-worth individuals were juggling spreadsheets, document vaults, and CPA emails.
The ask was deceptively simple: 'make generating a PFS automatic.' The real problem was harder — we were building infrastructure, not an app. Every decision had to hold up under banking-grade scrutiny.
I came in as the first designer. No design system. No brand. A Figma file with two login screens.
8–12 hrs
Advisor time lost per week to manual PFS generation
From our discovery calls with 14 advisors
02 · CONSTRAINTS
Four constraints that shaped every design decision.
Two distinct user types
Individuals (monthly usage, light) vs. Advisors (daily, power users managing 50+ clients). Same product, wildly different mental models.
Banking-grade trust, startup-speed shipping
We had to feel as trustworthy as Fidelity but ship weekly.
Data density without chaos
A PFS has ~80 line items. Tables everywhere. We couldn't hide behind whitespace.
Regulatory + document-heavy workflows
Digital signatures, audit trails, encrypted vaults. Every 'nice UX touch' had to survive a compliance review.
03 · DISCOVERY
What I learned in 14 advisor interviews and 6 client shadowing sessions.
- Advisors didn't want 'another dashboard' — they wanted a document that updated itself
- Individuals feared making data-entry mistakes more than they valued automation
- Both groups distrusted any UI that 'looked like a startup' — they wanted something closer to a bank portal in feel, but a modern SaaS in speed
- The #1 unblocker wasn't features — it was direct bank connectivity (Plaid integration)
04 · THE DECISION
Document-first, not dashboard-first.
The obvious path was a classic fintech dashboard — big net-worth number on top, account cards, charts. We explored this for three weeks. It tested poorly with advisors: 'This is fine for a consumer app, but I can't send this to a lender.'
The insight: the output of the product wasn't a dashboard — it was a PFS document. Everything else was just input collection.
We pivoted the entire information architecture. The main view became a live document — the PFS itself — that the user could edit, filter, and export. The 'dashboard' became a secondary summary layer.
This was the single most important decision in the project. It added 6 weeks of rework. It also became the product's core differentiator.
05 · THE SYSTEM
200+ components, token-driven, shipped in parallel with features.
To keep velocity high and consistency absolute, I built the CapSync Design System in parallel with product work. Every feature shipped had to be buildable from existing tokens and components. By month 6, the engineering team was assembling new screens without design specs for ~40% of features.
06 · SELECTED FLOWS
Three flows that defined the product.
Bank connection → live PFS generation — the 90-second moment that sold the product.
07 · REFLECTION
What I got wrong.
- I over-invested in the amortization engine UI early. It was elegant, but only ~12% of users touched it in month one.
- The first design system wasn't themeable. Two years in, we rebuilt the token layer. Starting token-first would have saved weeks.
- I should have pushed harder for usability testing with real advisors earlier — we had the access, I was just intimidated by the time cost.
08 · OUTCOME
Twenty months. One founding role. Lasting system.
Shipped to production with active users across the US market. The product I designed from zero is now the main workflow for individuals and advisors using the platform.
Shipped to production
Active users across US market
Design system lives on
Extended by the team after my departure
Promoted during tenure
Founding designer → design lead
Foundational project
Informs how I approach every 0→1 since