My Journey
in Social Investing startup

From conceptualizing
user-centric designs to leading
innovative solutions, this project showcases
my pivotal role in transforming
‘The Rich’ into a leading social investing platform.

At a glance

Investing has often been viewed as a challenging endeavor to embark upon for the typical individual retail investor. Moreover, stock investment has been regarded as something one must learn and figure out on their own.

'The Rich' is a social investing platform that enables individual investors to share their investment strategies and portfolios, and easily apply others' investment methods to their own. By adding a social element to investment services, The Rich aims to lower the entry barrier into the stock market for novice investors who are not traditional investors.

Since its launch in June 2020, The Rich has garnered over 550,000 members and achieved a company valuation of 15 million dollars.

my role

I am one of the early members of this startup. Over the past two years, I have spearheaded the overall planning and design for ‘The Rich’ service. I successfully led a team that included a fellow designer, 10 developers, and a CS manager, driving the service’s vision from concept to execution.

Market Change 

A Perfect Storm for New Investors

With smartphone adoption in South Korea reaching 97% since the early 2010s, mobile technology has made stock trading more accessible than ever, allowing people to easily invest directly from their phones.

The cryptocurrency boom of 2017-2018 further accelerated this trend, particularly among younger generations who became increasingly comfortable with digital trading platforms.

The most significant shift occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought a surge in market liquidity and a booming stock market. This period saw a dramatic rise in new and inexperienced investors, eager to enter the market despite their limited experience.

The Challenge

Uncovering Investor Pain Points

We set out to understand the specific challenges individual investors face and the gaps that existing services were not addressing through a combination of competitor analysis, user interviews, and market research.

The main issues we identified were:

Information Asymmetry

Investors often struggle to access reliable market data, causing confusion over trustworthy sources.

Gaps in Financial Knowledge

Many lack basic understanding of financial products, leading to poor decisions.

Isolated Decision-Making

Solo investment choices increase the risk of mistakes and anxiety, with no community support.

Psychological Stress

Market volatility heightens anxiety, leading to emotional, irrational decisions.

Our Strategy

Investing Meets Social

To address these issues, we developed a social investing platform that combines the power of social networks with investing.

This platform is designed to provide reliable information and educational resources, while enabling interaction and psychological support through a community.
Additionally, it features an intuitive interface for managing portfolios and monitoring investment performance, helping investors make better decisions.

“We decided to create a community-centered
social investing platform.”

approach 1

How Should
Social Investing Service Be?

Pain Points in Existing Stock Communities

As the demand for investment discussions grew, activity surged on platforms like DC Inside, with 12,000 new posts daily, and Naver’s stock community, where posts increased by 174% compared to the previous year.
However, research revealed several major issues within these communities:

• Credibility Issues and Anonymity: Anonymous posts and unverified information often spread baseless rumors and abusive language, causing fatigue and potential harm for users seeking reliable data.

• Challenges in Finding Valuable Information: Impulsive and inappropriate posts clutter the space, making it difficult for investors to access and retain important resources.

soltuion

Creating First
Verified Investment Community

I aimed to build a platform where users could share their portfolios and investment strategies, refining their approaches through collective wisdom.
However, I recognized that trust must be the foundation of such open information sharing. To address this, we introduced the Real Investment Verification Mark and the Shareholder Verification System. These tools ensured that shared data was accurate and based on verified, real investments, not speculation. This was crucial in building and maintaining trust within the community.

Introducing the Real Investment
Verification Mark

Users can link their brokerage accounts to verify their actual investment performance, enhancing the credibility of their statements.

Implementing the Shareholder
Verification System

In stock-specific chat rooms, such as those for Tesla, we implemented a system where users with larger Tesla holdings earn higher credibility, further enhancing the trustworthiness of their messages.

Visualizing Trust with Badge Levels

We introduced a badge system to visually represent the credibility of community members. With intuitive levels like Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond, it provides clear visual cues to easily understand a user’s trustworthiness.​

Personalized Content and Tailored Experience

We focused on providing users with personalized content, allowing them to follow their favorite investors and stocks. This feature ensures they receive real-time updates tailored to their interests, making their investment decisions quicker and more informed. By prioritizing content relevant to each user, The Rich significantly increased user engagement and time spent on the platform.

Following favorite investors enables their posts to appear directly in the community feed,
providing updates on their latest insights.​

approach 2

How Should
Social Investing Service Be?

Pain Points in Existing Stock Communities

In Korea, there are many large brokerage firms, and it’s common for investors to trade stocks across multiple firms. However, there hasn’t been a service to manage assets from different brokers in one place.
As a result, investors have had to switch between apps or manually track their assets in Excel, which is both inconvenient and inefficient.

Major securities firms and cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea

Additionally, we discovered that users wanted to reduce uncertainty in the stock market and establish predictable financial plans. However, existing brokerage services were primarily focused on stock trading, failing to meet these broader financial planning needs.

soltuion

Innovating Comprehensive
Financial Management

To address these challenges, we developed a service designed to help customers efficiently manage their assets and create more predictable financial plans through the following features:

Manage All Investments

Users can link their brokerage accounts to verify their actual investment performance, enhancing the credibility of their statements.

Backtesting for
Better Future Planning

Using our proprietary backtesting engine, users can simulate their portfolios by entering specific periods, amounts, stocks, or cryptocurrencies. The engine then analyzes the results, helping users identify hidden risks in their portfolios.

Track Monthly Dividends

​This feature enables users to view their expected monthly dividends, allowing for more precise financial planning.

Unified Design Approach

Design System Implementation

I implemented a design system to ensure consistency and efficiency. By standardizing UI elements, typography, and color schemes, we maintained a cohesive user experience and enhanced collaboration between designers and developers. This approach simplified platform maintenance and updates, ensuring all visual elements aligned with the brand identity.

how we work

Crafting User-Centered Solutions

1. Identifying User Needs
We analyzed CS and review lists to pinpoint recurring user issues and defined user events to measure relevant data. By combining these two processes, we confidently identified user pain points and necessary improvements.

2. Incorporating Insights into the Product
Once user needs were identified, we researched and planned how best to integrate them into the product, ensuring solutions were both practical and effective.

3. Design and Validation
We developed hypotheses based on user needs and validated them through repeated MVP testing, refining the design to achieve optimal results.

User-centered solutions are explored and refined through various processes

Takeaways

From Vision to Valuation

As an early member, I led the product design,
shaping and evolving a platform now used by over 550,000 people,
which is the leading social investing service in Korea.
This success contributed to the service achieving a valuationof 10 million dollars.
The experience of building the service from the ground up in a dynamic startup environment was invaluable.

gained 550,000 users with no marketing spend
200,000 participants in over 20,000 chat rooms
$15.8 billion in assets managed via The Rich
Over 800,000 accounts managed
Surpassed 250,000 MAU

Peer Reviews on My Collaboration

“With a background in development, collaboration during the design process was incredibly smooth. The technical requirements were clearly understood, and practical solutions were provided, making problem-solving much more efficient. The ability to work through structural challenges was especially impressive.”

- Developer Team Member

“The ability to align business goals with user experience in the design was remarkable. A deep understanding of business requirements was effectively incorporated into the product, significantly contributing to the project’s success.”

- Business Team Member

“As a design leader, consistent feedback and guidance were essential in nurturing a junior designer’s growth. The focus on user-centered thinking, combined with a collaborative approach, demonstrated strong leadership. Dedication and effort were key to achieving the team’s objectives.”

- Designer Team Member