TAI
PROJECT NAME
TAI APP
YEAR
2022
ROLE
PRODUCT DESIGN CONSULTANT
Overview
TAI is a mutual funds and ETF education app that offers breaks down investment opportunities into key themes along with educational content (100+ primers and visual lessons). This consulting gig turned into a YCombinator opportunity (YC W22) to partner with another YC startup to enable users to manage their brokerage accounts in one place. TAI was acquired after Demo Day.
YCombinator is a startup accelerator that provides early-stage funding, mentorship, and a supportive network to help founders build successful businesses. Twice a year, Y Combinator hosts "Demo Day," where participating startups pitch their ideas to investors and industry leaders. This event allows startups to showcase their progress, attract investment, and connect with potential partners or customers, offering a platform to gain traction and scale quickly.
TL;DR
Introduced investment account linking and ETF trading within the platform
Client's Brief
Client Goals
Launch a new feature in time for Demo Day and showcase it to potential investors
Elevate the overall user interface for a more refined and cohesive product experience
Team
Founder
Co-Founder
Three Engineers
Project Scope & Deliverables
Refine and update the existing design system
Deliver a final, handoff-ready design specification
Design Process
Introducing Realize API
Before founding TAI, both founders worked at unicorn startups: Alex as Head of Finance and Operations at Relativity Space (2nd employee); and, Anh-Tuan as a Senior Product Manager at Scopely. Combined 15 years of professional investing experience across PE, hedge funds, and asset management.
TAI was assigned to partner with another YC startup called Realize. Realize is an API that helps users link all their brokerage accounts all in one place. Users can view near real time data and make trades from their existing accounts. Realize’s API automatically pulls a user’s portfolio positions, order history, transactions, and historical performance at per-minute frequency along with sending orders to their brokerages. Existing third-party platforms like Plaid and Yodlee data updates are capped on a daily frequency making them unreliable to execute trades.
Design Process
Design Explorations
As part of the Y Combinator program, I embedded with the team through regular product ceremonies and cross-team check-ins. These sessions aligned stakeholders on where the Realize flow fit within the product experience and defined the additional screens needed to support it.
Design Process
New Features
Feature Discovery Modal
Introduced the new feature to existing users, guiding them through linking their investment accounts to TAI.Linked Brokers
Added a dedicated dashboard view that allows users to link, view, and manage their investment accounts in one place.Trade
Enabled users to execute trades directly within the product and track their trade activity end to end.
Project Handoff
TAI successfully delivered a strong presentation to investors on Demo Day*, showcasing the team's vision, progress, and potential. The presentation resonated well, culminating in TAI’s acquired by Machina Labs**. Through my time with TAI, I gained hands-on insights into startup dynamics, rapid iteration, and product strategy that would shape my future contributions. Building on these learnings, I accepted an offer to join NerdWallet, eager to bring this experience into a new role and contribute to the growth of a larger organization.
