Financial Roadmap
Increased web trial start rate by 10%—a gain of $120K in annual revenue.
The financial roadmap as it's being filled out from start to finish.
Designed a forward-looking financial planning experience to help users connect daily budgeting decisions to long-term goals.
Impact
+10% increase in web trial starts
$120K increase in annual revenue
Role
Led concept development, validation, and end-to-end design in collaboration with product and engineering
Some of the various data points gathered throughout the flow to make the calculations.
Problem
Users couldn’t see how their monthly budget connected to long-term financial goals. The experience lacked a “big picture” view, making it difficult to understand progress or stay motivated beyond short-term budgeting.
Insight
After paying off debt, users shifted focus to longer-term goals like retirement, college savings, and personal milestones.
They wanted a way to visualize their full financial journey—and understand how today’s decisions impacted future outcomes.
Solution
Introduced a forward-looking “financial roadmap” that shifted users from static budgeting to scenario-based planning.
Enabled users to:
– Create projected financial plans
– Visualize progress over time
– See key milestones across their financial journey
Designed a step-based input flow to make complex financial data easier to enter, allowing users to proceed with estimates rather than perfect inputs.
Incorporated milestone-based feedback tied to the Baby Steps framework to reinforce progress and maintain motivation.
Goal
Increase long-term retention and renewals, using trial start rate as an early indicator of success.
Results
+10% increase in web trial starts
$120K increase in annual revenue
The peak end of the flow: the projected net worth, retirement year, millionaire year, and a place to run 'what if…' scenarios.
Deep Dive↴
Research & Validation
Started with a lightweight spreadsheet prototype to test the concept of scenario planning.
Users responded positively to the ability to model financial outcomes, validating demand before investing in a full product experience.
Design Decisions
Prioritized scenario planning as a way to make long-term financial outcomes tangible and interactive.
Translated a spreadsheet-based concept into a visual journey to increase engagement and comprehension.
Broke complex data entry into smaller steps to reduce friction and allow users to move forward with partial or estimated inputs.
Introduced milestone-based progress indicators to create a sense of momentum and reinforce behavior over time.
Constraints
Needed to align with the 7 Baby Steps financial philosophy and guide users through that framework.
Worked within limitations of an older database structure, which constrained available data and experience flexibility.
Some projections required estimation due to incomplete user data, requiring careful handling of accuracy and expectations.
Tradeoffs
The shipped experience differed from early prototypes due to technical constraints, particularly around data structure and integration.
Despite this, the core value—providing a “big picture” view of finances—remained intact and resonated strongly with users.
Outcome
Users responded positively to seeing a holistic view of their financial journey and being able to create future scenarios.
The feature helped bridge the gap between short-term actions and long-term goals, increasing engagement and contributing to higher trial conversion.
Hindsight
Would have prioritized starting with scenario planning and gradually integrating it into budgeting to reduce duplicate data entry.
Initial integration began with debt (Baby Step 2), which introduced more complexity due to database constraints. Starting with a simpler step would have reduced development overhead.
Future improvements would include saving multiple scenarios, allowing users to convert a plan into an active budget, and expanding the experience to mobile.
Components of the financial roadmap.