Overview

We started Ratio to empower individuals to get paid in cryptocurrency. However, user concerns about trust led us to a game-changing pivot. This case study dives into how we adapted and innovated to meet these unexpected challenges.

My Role

User research
Value proposition discovery
Interface design
Interaction design

My team

Myself
Founder
Front-end engineer
3 x Backend engineers

Timeline

2022 -> 2023

Stack

When we started, we had to refrain from investing in a concept that wouldn't resonate. To prevent this, we prioritized validating our ideas with users early and often. However, before we could even begin the validation process, it was crucial to identify who our ideal customer was.

Unlike traditional personas, which can be overly specific, we aimed to develop customer archetypes. These served as flexible, foundational models that could adapt to evolving market conditions.

Through qualitative and quantitative inputs we developed 5 archetype vectors to inform our thinking:

These vectors were designed to elicit assumptions about our user archetypes. The intention is to make the assumptions without the connotation of prejudice or judgment concerning gender, socioeconomic status, or physical ability. However, they are imperfect and must be considered with multi-variant political, cultural, and economic viewpoints.

Perception vectors

Aimed to provide us an insight into a users intention for investing in cryptocurrencies.

Perception:

It's a Ponzi scheme

It's a means to an end

The future of banking

Fix the money—fix the world

Intention:

Ignore

ROI and sell back to fiat

ROI and keep in crypto

HODL forever (inheritance)

Conviction vectors

Aimed to provide us an insight into a users conviction and potential fiat:crypto ratio.ion for investing in cryptocurrencies.

Conviction:

Skeptical

Moderate

Confident

All-in

Allocation:

0%

1+%

10+%

90%+

Community involvement vectors

Aimed to provide us an insight into the level at which they’re learning or evangelizing.

Participation:

Zero

Asking Questions

Answering Questions

Creating Content

Learning/Evangelizing:‍

Neither

Learning

Passively Evangelizing

Actively Evangelizing

Technical proficiency vectors

Aimed to provide us an insight into their custody strategy

Technical proficiency:

Zero

Conceptual

Fundamental

Comprehensive

Custody solution:‍

N/A

Exchange/software wallet

Software/hardware wallet combo

Hardware wallet

Open-mindedness vectors

Aimed to provide us an insight into how likely they are to change their opinion on cryptocurrencies

Openness to ideas:

Inexorable

Stubborn

Flexible

Amenable

‍

Outcome:‍

Weak opinions, strongly held

Strong opinions, strongly held

Weak opinions, weakly held

Strong opinions, weakly held

Using these vectors we identified four potential customer archetypes

The advanced beginner

Behaviours:

Curious: always wanting to know things
Ambitious: strongly wants to succeed
Cautious: being very careful
Impatient: quickly irritated and easily provoked
Pleasant: polite
Sensitive: quick to detect or respond to slight changes, signals, or influences.
Reserved: keeps thoughts and feelings to themself

Objectives:

Maximize ROI
Explore new tech

The creator

Behaviours:

Ambitious: strongly wants to succeed.
Conscientious: taking time to do things right
Creative: someone who can make up things easily or think of new things
Curious: always wanting to know things
Scatterbrained: inattentive and forgetful
Compassionate: feels or shows sympathy or concern for others
Maverick: unorthodox or independent

Objectives:

Maximize ROI
Compensation
Personal Brand

The idealist

Behaviours:

Authoritative: commanding and self-confident
Curious: always wanting to know things
Reflective: engaged in deep thought
Caring: desires to help people
Sincere: being totally honest
Logical: using clear and sound reasoning
Cautious: being very careful
Self-aware: possessing in-depth knowledge of one's thoughts and feelings
Maverick: unorthodox or independent

Objectives:

Economic sovereignty
Community building
Evangelizing

The enthusiast

Behaviours:

Curious: always wanting to know things
Charismatic: shows a compelling charm that inspires devotion in others
Enthusiastic: showing intense excitement, interest, or approval
Caring: desires to help people
Active: always busy with something

Objectives:

Maximize ROI
Status
Personal brand
Community building

We spoke to people who represented these archetypes to identify pain points in their crypto journey

Customer Journey map showing pain points

Our research revealed numerous valuable insights, enabling us to create a holistic journey. The key themes were:

Investors in the cryptocurrency space were primarily driven by the allure of financial gains, seeking to capitalize on the market's potential for high returns.
The appeal of cryptocurrency investments spanned both immediate and long-term financial objectives. Typically, investors turned their attention to crypto assets only after securing more conventional investment avenues.
A common grievance among investors was the lengthy wait times for transaction confirmations. Additionally, many were irked by banking institutions that obstructed their crypto transactions. Navigating complex trades for lesser-known cryptocurrencies also proved to be a significant hurdle.

We hypothesized that Ratio's Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is an individual with 'skin in the game,' who aims to replace the frictions of traditional on-ramps with the convenience of getting paid in cryptocurrencies

Ideal customer profile

Behaviours:

Invested: already has skin in the game
Curious: always wanting to try new things
Ambitious: strongly wants to succeed
Impatient: quickly irritated by experience friction
Pleasant: polite

Objectives:

Maximize ROI
Reduce complexity
Explore new technology

Pains:

Bank blocked my card
Waiting for transfers
Waiting for funding
Planning purchases

Armed this context we split our approach to validate our idea into two parallel work streams:

Validate the user experience

Validate the value proposition

Our approach to validate the user experience was to conduct a series of design, test, and iterate sprints focused on the following core user flows of the application:

Our problem space was informed by the market's desire for greater convenience and we wanted to model our experience with that in mind. Our objective was not just ease of use; we aimed to align the interaction model with how users naturally think about asset allocation.

The design needed to be intuitive, adaptable to different user preferences, and scalable for future functionalities.

Option A: Sliders for percentage-based allocations

Advantages:

Quick and visual
No need for upfront payroll information

Disadvantages:

Less intuitive for absolute thinkers
Percentages can be abstract
Difficult to allocate small percentages (sub 1%)

Option B: Dollar based inputs

Advantages:

Concrete
Aligns with absolute thinkers

Disadvantages:

Users could potential allocate amounts above 100% of their paycheque
Can be fabricated by bad actors looking to attack the system

After testing these concepts user feedback favoured dollar-based inputs.

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Unfortunatly, dollar-based inputs impacted our integration and potentially incentivized bad actors to attack the system.

If users enter an amount that exceeded their paycheque, it resulted in an additional API call and as a result an additional expense for Ratio. This created a honey pot for bad actors to attack the system, we implemented a risk assessment based on user's KYC data on the backend and needed to find a way to communicate that limitation the front end.

Option A: Ask users to provide their salary and tax jurisdiction upfront allowing us to infer a calculated maxim for their total allocation and communicate the limit in that context.

Advantages:

Quick and computationally cheap
Transparency into limits

Disadvantages:

Additional steps during account creation

Option B: Allow users to allocate any amount with an invisible maxim in our backend and communicate the limit via inline input error states

Advantages:

Quick and computationally cheap
No need for additional steps

Disadvantages:

No transparency into limits

User feedback revealed that most participants where entering allocation amounts well below our imposed maxim

At this stage, we deemed the user experience to be validated. Participants in our user testing were able to complete tasks with minimal errors, and further testing yielded diminishing returns.

<--

Back

Back

Reliably moving cash to crypto—globally

Overview

We started Ratio to empower individuals to get paid in cryptocurrency. However, user concerns about trust led us to a game-changing pivot. This case study dives into how we adapted and innovated to meet these unexpected challenges.

My Role

My team

Timeline

Stack

When we started, we had to refrain from investing in a concept that wouldn't resonate. To prevent this, we prioritized validating our ideas with users early and often. However, before we could even begin the validation process, it was crucial to identify who our ideal customer was.

Through qualitative and quantitative inputs we developed 5 archetype vectors to inform our thinking:

Perception vectors

Conviction vectors

Community involvement vectors

Technical proficiency vectors

Open-mindedness vectors

Using these vectors we identified four potential customer archetypes

The advanced beginner

The creator

The idealist

The enthusiast

We spoke to people who represented these archetypes to identify pain points in their crypto journey

Our research revealed numerous valuable insights, enabling us to create a holistic journey. The key themes were:

We hypothesized that Ratio's Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is an individual with 'skin in the game,' who aims to replace the frictions of traditional on-ramps with the convenience of getting paid in cryptocurrencies

Ideal customer profile

Armed this context we split our approach to validate our idea into two parallel work streams:

Validate the user experience

Validate the value proposition

Our approach to validate the user experience was to conduct a series of design, test, and iterate sprints focused on the following core user flows of the application:

Our problem space was informed by the market's desire for greater convenience and we wanted to model our experience with that in mind. Our objective was not just ease of use; we aimed to align the interaction model with how users naturally think about asset allocation.

Option A: Sliders for percentage-based allocations

Option B: Dollar based inputs

After testing these concepts user feedback favoured dollar-based inputs.

Unfortunatly, dollar-based inputs impacted our integration and potentially incentivized bad actors to attack the system.

Option A: Ask users to provide their salary and tax jurisdiction upfront allowing us to infer a calculated maxim for their total allocation and communicate the limit in that context.

Option B: Allow users to allocate any amount with an invisible maxim in our backend and communicate the limit via inline input error states

User feedback revealed that most participants where entering allocation amounts well below our imposed maxim

Ratio v1.0:

Even though we had a validated user experience, the value proposition testing revealed some other realities...

!Disclaimer! Apologies for the abrupt ending—I'm currently working on this case study. Building in public and all. Some things to come:

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