Trove

A 0→1 investment platform for Australian early-stage investors and the startups they back

Trove is an investment tracking platform for Australian early-stage investors and the startups they back. The client had spotted a gap: everyday investors couldn't track unlisted portfolio values or hold startups accountable for updates, and the global platforms in this space (Carta, Seedblink, Visible.vc) didn't fit Australian tax structures or the local investor-founder dynamic. I led this project end-to-end as the sole product designer over five months at StartxLabs, working directly with the founder and dev team. The work covered user research, MVP scoping, the full web and mobile experience for both investor and startup sides, branding, design documentation for engineering handoff, and design QA through to handoff

Worked on:

End-to-end Product Design, Product Management

In details:

Challenge

Two problems sat on top of each other. The structural one: Australian startup investing carries specific tax mechanics (ESIC offsets, capital gains rules) and a strong local-preference dynamic that global platforms ignored. The behavioural one: startups deprioritise investor updates because they're time-consuming, which leaves investors in the dark, which erodes trust on both sides. Any platform that solved one without the other would lose adoption on the side it neglected. The hard scoping decision was deciding what not to build for the MVP. The client had a broad vision. With a target of 200 pre-launch signups and a fixed engineering runway, I had to push back on scope and keep the build to what actually unlocked the first usable loop: data collection complete enough to value the portfolio, and an update flow startups would actually use.

Challenge

Two problems sat on top of each other. The structural one: Australian startup investing carries specific tax mechanics (ESIC offsets, capital gains rules) and a strong local-preference dynamic that global platforms ignored. The behavioural one: startups deprioritise investor updates because they're time-consuming, which leaves investors in the dark, which erodes trust on both sides. Any platform that solved one without the other would lose adoption on the side it neglected. The hard scoping decision was deciding what not to build for the MVP. The client had a broad vision. With a target of 200 pre-launch signups and a fixed engineering runway, I had to push back on scope and keep the build to what actually unlocked the first usable loop: data collection complete enough to value the portfolio, and an update flow startups would actually use.

Solution

Solution

Results

Results

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