Reinventing "Wall Street investing" for the millennial generation - from zero to a million accounts.
74% of millennials don't invest. The idea of Investments traditionally were associated with high profile jargon, the need for a lot of money, and/or confusing words like ETF's and Vanguard, that most people did not understand.
We assisted Stash in breaking those notions and invented something that changed the way American millennials looked at investments.
THE CHALLENGE
74% of millennials didn't invest. Not because they lacked interest — but because the entire language of investing had been built for people who already understood it. ETFs, portfolios, risk profiles, minimum balances of thousands of dollars. The system assumed knowledge that most people didn't have and couldn't easily acquire.
Stash's hypothesis was simple and radical: what if investing started at $5, in things you already cared about, explained in language you already spoke?
My job was to make that hypothesis feel inevitable.
Quick thoughts and discussions
Our Approach
Categorization of the project experience
MY ROLE
I was the lead UX designer across the full Stash product from launch — working directly with the UX Director on strategy and vision, then owning the execution across onboarding, investment selection, Auto-Stash (recurring investment), and educational content.
I was also involved in every major design decision from the iOS launch in October 2015 through the product's growth to over one million accounts.
Sketches of card explorations for what users can invest in.
WHAT WE DESIGNED
The core design challenge wasn't aesthetic — it was cognitive. How do you make someone who has never invested feel confident enough to put real money into something they don't fully understand, in under two minutes, on a phone?
The answer was progressive disclosure: ask only what's needed, when it's needed. Income, net worth, risk profile — surfaced at the right moment in the journey, never all at once. The onboarding model we designed took users from signup to first investment in approximately two minutes, with a $5 entry point that removed the psychological barrier of "I don't have enough to start."
Investment selection was reframed entirely — from a list of financial instruments to a set of themes and beliefs. Instead of choosing between ETFs, users chose between categories like "Clean & Green," "American Innovators," or "Defending America." The design decision to lead with identity and values rather than financial logic was the single most important call we made. It's what made investing feel personal rather than transactional.
Auto-Stash — the recurring investment feature — was designed to turn a one-time decision into a habit. Set an amount, set a frequency, and investing becomes something that happens automatically, like a direct debit. The design had to make that setup feel light and trustworthy, not alarming.
THE IMPACT
By summer 2017 — less than two years after launch — Stash had grown to approximately one million accounts. 86% of users were first-time investors. The product had achieved what it set out to do: make investing genuinely accessible to people the financial industry had never designed for.
Auto-Stash users consistently saved 9x more than non-users — evidence that the habit-formation design worked. Account values doubled by month two and quadrupled by month six for users on recurring investment plans.
App store ratings held at 4.0+ stars on both iOS and Google Play from early release — with user reviews consistently citing ease of use, low barrier to entry, and educational content as the reasons they stayed.
NOTE: Full case study and process detail available on request.
