Client / sector
Confidential client / Fintech
Project goal
Test the creator-banking hypothesis and determine which creator banking needs were worth building around before product, positioning and go-to-market decisions were finalized.
Services
Foundational discovery · Research design · Sampling strategy · Research questions · Analysis framework
Outcome
A stronger evidence base for deciding which creator problems to build around and which needs should shape first-year product, positioning and go-to-market priorities.
/challenge
A fintech group was developing a new banking and financial platform for creators whose income streams, platforms and ways of working often sit outside the assumptions of traditional banking.
Before launch, they needed to move beyond assumptions and understand how creators actually manage money: where existing financial services create friction, what shapes trust and adoption, and which unmet needs were significant enough to build around.
How do you build a banking product for financial lives that traditional banking wasn’t designed around?
The goal was to test the team’s assumptions and give first-year product, brand and go-to-market decisions a stronger evidence base.
/process
I was brought into the project to design key parts of the foundational discovery study, including the methodology, research questions, sampling approach and analysis framework.
The study focused on creators’ real financial workflows: how they get paid, manage income across platforms, currencies and markets, save, navigate uncertainty, and work around the limitations of existing financial services.
We explored jobs-to-be-done, payment and FX friction, trust in financial institutions, financial behaviors, and the expectations shaped by creators’ existing banking experiences.
Rather than simply validating a predefined friction hypothesis, the study was designed to separate functional, emotional and structural needs and identify which problems a new banking product needed to solve.
/result
From market assumptions to product priorities
The study gave the team a more detailed view of how creators manage money and where existing financial services were falling short. It helped clarify:
- Which problems were significant enough to build around.
- Where existing banking experiences were creating friction, and where the initial hypothesis did not hold.
- Which needs should shape first-year product, positioning and go-to-market priorities.
The team received a stronger foundation for refining its product and launch decisions around the financial realities creators were already navigating, rather than assumptions about what they might need.
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