Overview
Human Interest set out to close the retirement gap for small businesses. Before it became a billion-dollar fintech company, it was an early-stage startup called Captain401, a small team trying to make financial automation feel human.
I joined as the founding UX lead, responsible for defining the design foundation, trust architecture, and compliance workflows that would carry the platform from idea to scale.
The work started with ambiguity. The goal was to design a product that handled sensitive financial data while feeling approachable, reliable, and intuitive.
Vision & Context
Retirement tech is built on trust. Users hand over personal information, payroll data, and long-term savings. The founders understood the problem technically, but they needed UX clarity that could inspire confidence and scale with regulation.
The vision was simple: make retirement planning feel less like paperwork and more like progress. That meant designing for human clarity inside a compliance-heavy product.
The early UX needed to translate financial complexity into clear, repeatable systems that could be used by first-time investors, payroll admins, and compliance teams alike.
Understanding the Problem
The original product had the right intent but no structure. Every new user type added friction. Onboarding lacked predictability. Form validation broke under complex financial inputs. The workflow was built around data, not people.
Challenges included:
Complex, multi-step compliance verification (KYC/AML)
Inconsistent form logic and validation patterns
Lack of trust signals in data submission flows
No reusable UX architecture for financial components
Fragmented visual hierarchy across app and marketing
The goal was to untangle friction at every touchpoint, turning a functional fintech product into a trustworthy, scalable experience.
Strategic Approach
I started by designing the architecture, not the interface.
Mapped every compliance and data-handling flow, identifying where user confidence dropped.
Introduced trust UX patterns, progressive disclosure, validation states, and live status indicators to reduce user uncertainty.
Simplified onboarding, cutting redundant data collection and integrating payroll provider autofill.
Established a design system to make new features consistent across compliance and marketing surfaces.
Every UX decision balanced transparency with regulation, creating a system that met financial standards without overwhelming the user.
System Architecture Thinking
The early product was structured around engineering logic. I reframed it around experience logic, user goals mapped to regulatory requirements.
Built the first component library for reusable form and state logic across the app.
Created an interaction pattern framework for sensitive data collection.
Designed feedback loops that made the invisible (verification, approval, contribution syncs) visible to users in real time.
The result was a design foundation that scaled without rework, a UX system that could grow alongside compliance and engineering.
Scaling Up
Once the foundational UX was stable, we focused on growth.
Streamlined onboarding and investment setup, cutting friction by 30% in six months.
Defined the visual system that would evolve into Human Interest’s core brand identity after rebrand.
Partnered with founders Roger Lee and Paul Sawaya on product clarity, storytelling, and investor readiness.
Created a design-to-engineering workflow to accelerate release velocity while maintaining compliance.
The design work became the connective layer between product, brand, and regulation, making it possible to grow fast without breaking trust.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
I worked directly with the founders, early PMs, and compliance officers to align design intent with business and legal constraints.
Designed UX handoff documentation for engineering clarity.
Built compliance-ready design specs to satisfy both product and legal review cycles.
Collaborated with marketing and pitch teams to visualize product value for investors.
The partnership model treated design as infrastructure, not ornamentation.
Financial Impact & Key Results
$1.33B valuation supported by UX scalability
30% reduction in onboarding workflows
6x growth in plan activations post-launch
UX systems supporting transition from seed to Series A
Reusable design foundation adopted through rebrand and expansion
The Impact
Design gave Human Interest structure, not style.
The UX foundation enabled scale, compliance, and investor confidence, three pillars that carried through rebranding and platform expansion.
What began as a startup experiment became one of the most trusted fintech products in its space.
When the system works, the experience earns trust.
Role
Founding UX Lead (Contract) reporting directly to Co-Founders.
Led end-to-end UX for onboarding, automation, and compliance flows.
Designed scalable component systems and trust frameworks.
Collaborated on brand, product narrative, and investor presentations.
Delivered the UX infrastructure that supported product growth from MVP to $1.33B valuation.
