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Startupsphere.ai

Empowering Startups with a platform to get investments. 

Design Challenge

Design a Marketplace &  Dashboard for Startups to publish their Businesses and get Investments

Challenge 1 :  To create a marketplace for investors, allowing them to pledge money towards innovative businesses. 

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Challenge 2 : To design a real time dashboard for startups to monitor and publish their business initiatives with privacy controls.

Solution

Innovative Marketplace & Real-Time Dashboard Solution

To address these design challenges, I created a user-friendly marketplace that allows investors to easily fund their favorite ideas while providing startups with a platform to showcase and manage their business initiatives.

Increase Revenue

0.9%

Every time a startup raised funds on the platform, Startupspshere earned 0.9% of the transaction.

Engagement Score

Boosted due to market place

20%

Driving more activity and interactions on the platform.

Estimated Revenue

Due to Pay Wall

$15K

Per Year

Revenue Impact from Paywalled Business Plans

User Engagement: 2,500 monthly users → 5% interact with paywalled plans (125 users)
Investor Conversion: 20% proceed with payment (25 users)
Paywall Earnings: 25 × $10 = $250/month → $3,000/year

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Future Growth Potential

Premium Plan Feature: 20 startups pay $50 to feature plans
Additional Revenue: 20 × $50 = $1,000/month → $12,000/year

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Metrics Justification:
✔ 20% Conversion Rate – Aligned with paywall industry standards
✔ 5% Click-Through Rate – Reflects strong interest in top business plans
✔ Scalability – Higher engagement or pricing optimization can boost revenue further

Revenue impact: The marketplace helped the company make money by

Competitive Analysis  

Learning's from our Competitors

To gain insight into the visual designs of marketplaces, I conducted research on multiple web apps  to explore the most effective approaches to marketplace designs.​

Insights and Client Requirement

Insight 1:

Search filters

Search filter for easy finding of business plans. 

Insight 2:

Missing Pledge Options on Product Cards

The product  lacks an upfront pledge option, which can be confusing for investors looking to support a business plan, as they have no clear way to make a pledge.

Insight 3:

Business Description

The idea of including a business description is helpful for investors to understand how the business is performing, but as per requirement subscription and pledging options are essential.

Insight 4:

Business Overview

The comprehensive business overview is required for investors to review, enabling them to understand the business performance and make informed investment decisions.

Site Map

Defining user flow for Investors

By analyzing user needs, I refined the information architecture (IA) and designed the user flow for investors.

Crafting Solutions for Client Needs

Enhancements to Product

The original homepage featured AI-generated business plans for startups and businesses. I introduced two new features to the navigation bar: 'Discover' and 'Dashboard,' which appear based on user permissions.​​​

  • Potential investors will see the new 'Discover' section to invest in business plans.

  • Startups that have published their business initiatives will have access to both 'Discover' and 'Dashboard' sections.

Brainstorming- Search Filter

Enhancing User Navigation

During this project, I noticed the need for improved user navigation. I brainstormed and categorized our business plans into specific parameters for search filters. (Example - Similar to organizing a library, this allows users to easily find what they need). Clear labels ensure a seamless browsing experience, helping users find the right business plan effortlessly.

Search Filter design

Streamlining Business Plan Discover

Enhancing the investor experience by providing efficient tools to search, filter and identify the most suitable business plans for investment.

Brainstorming-Business plan cards

Attention to Micro-Level Details

Designing the business plan card was crucial to the project, balancing informativeness with engagement to attract users. To ensure an intuitive experience for investors, I conducted user research with 6 frequent business plan investors, which guided the design to make exploring and pledging seamless.

Insights: Key Parameters

Brainstorming-Business plan cards

Crafting Engaging Business Plan Cards

We addressed the challenge of encouraging users to pledge by adding a contribution button.

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To boost engagement, I added a tracker and a 'Most Popular' tag, helping investors track total pledge amount and learn about popularity of each business plan.

Tags and Amount to view the business plan

Options to like, share & save the business plan

Basic info of the business 

Owner Name,Duration,Location

Categories,

Pledge Tracker 

Options to contribute & View business details 

Paywall Solution for Business Card Viewing

To enable paid access to select business cards, I designed a seamless payment popup that appears upon user interaction, guiding them through the process.

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Powered by StartupSphere’s popularity algorithm, the system dynamically applies a paywall based on user clicks, target amount, and investor activity, refreshing every 24 hours.

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This approach ensures a balance between monetization and user engagement.

AI-Generated Business Details

This screen allows investors to quickly access key AI-generated business details, presented as easy-to-read and navigate tiles and sections.

Innovative Payment Solutions

I designed a payment interface for pledges and subscriptions, initially proposing fixed plans.

However, users preferred a flexible option, allowing them to enter their own subscription amounts.

Option provided for selecting subscription plans

Site map - Dashboard 

Defining user flow for Startups

Created a user pathway to grasp how startup owners will use the dashboard, and also devised the dashboard content to enhance its ease of navigation and functionality.

Enhancing Startup Dashboard

I designed a user-friendly dashboard for startups to manage their plans and privacy easily. The dashboard features a privacy toggle to switch between public and private plans, allowing startups to control their visibility.

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Additionally, I added a popup modal that enables startups to set a pledge target when making their plans public. Once a plan is set to public, it becomes available for investment on the marketplace.

Color Styles

Backbone of my prototype Design system & styles  Details

Since the company was a startup, they lacked a consistent design system and established styles for their product. Recognizing this gap, I undertook the responsibility of developing a design system and defining a style. With a keen focus on the company's brand identity, my aim was to ensure uniformity and coherence across the entire product.

Components

Typography

Buttons

Client Feedback & Reviews

CEO of Univenture studio

Micheal Yap

"Vidhi is one of the most professional UX/UI Figma designers we've worked with. Clear on the task, great communication, and professional work. We loved her work and enjoyed collaborating with her. "

What I learned 

Resourcefulness: Startups may have limited resources compared to larger companies. This has taught me to be resourceful and creative in finding solutions that deliver maximum impact within constraints.

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Ensure precision in your designs: Pay attention to padding and margins. Without specific values, developers may struggle. I've learned to eliminate guesswork and create designs that are pixel-perfect.

Other Key Project

Lets Connect! 😃

Feel free to reach out for collaborations or grabbing coffee for a chat at  vidhisanghvi26@gmail.com

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