Sherpa

Creating a financial investment app for Millennials

Challenge

Millennials are missing out on opportunities to invest their savings due to deep-seeded skepticism about financial markets and perceived complexities of investing.

Sherpa is an early-stage startup looking to offer a new way for Millenials to invest in the stock market via a mobile investment app.

Solution

The Sherpa app will help guide members to successful financial futures through diversified investments and social connections.

TEAM: Kari Anderson, Matt Even, Sho Iwahama, CJ Marxer, Traci Shellum

Understanding Goals

A stakeholder interview with Jack Schneeman revealed the business goal of the Sherpa investment app:

“To help early-career individuals navigate the complexities and risks of the stock market.”

Differentiation would be key

A competitive analysis revealed many similar product offerings already existed within the market space.

To ensure Sherpa would stand out among the competition, our next step was to define the Sherpa user and what they valued in an investment app.

Identifying Users & Values

Through a combination of surveys, interviews, and story-telling sessions the Sherpa user & values started to emerge.

The Sherpa user is:

willing to share financial losses and gains IF they felt part of a community where learning was the goal
all about learning the landscape with their new virtual “peers” before extending an invitation to their close friends to join

With this information, I constructed a “happy path” flow for a first-time user, to serve as a blueprint for the application flow.

Concept Validation

To ensure alignment between the Sherpa concept and the values of users, we tested the idea with users. 70% of respondents provided emails to learn more about a beta launch.

Sherpa was created with the intention to guide millennials through the complexities of investing while catering to their values of community and learning.

By connecting to a familiar social community in an environment built around learning, Sherpa sets itself apart from the competition.