At Ratio, I was brought in as the Product Design Lead with a mandate that went beyond UI: bring clarity, structure, and user-centred decision-making to a company still searching for product-market fit.

Ratio began as a crypto payroll concept, but the company had no product, no market clarity, and no established process for learning. I introduced a research-driven discovery approach that quickly surfaced the real opportunity: users didn’t want payroll—they wanted control, optionality, and trust in how they moved money.

This insight reframed our direction. I defined the product architecture, mapped system dependencies, and designed a clear, minimal interface optimized for engineering velocity by aligning it to Tailwind CSS.

After launch fell short of adoption, I led follow-up research that identified the deeper blocker: a trust gap. Users defaulted to established wallets, and banks were frequently blocking crypto transactions—signals that the problem wasn’t feature depth, but credibility and distribution.

We reframed the challenge as a strategic pivot: instead of earning trust ourselves, Ratio could embed directly into trusted wallets as an invisible ACH payments layer. I redesigned the product for native, low-brand-visibility integration and repositioned the offering. This generated traction with wallet partners, validating the direction even though the market ultimately proved too small to sustain the business.

I brought clarity to an ambiguous space, shaped strategic decisions with evidence, and delivered a product experience—and process—that enabled Ratio to pivot quickly and intelligently.