I was responsible for shaping Vest from its earliest days—building the first version of the platform, leading the product team, and defining the features that would make investing in the U.S. stock market accessible to Latin Americans.
This case includes an in-depth feature study of Smart Vest ->
Vest is an investment platform that allows Latin Americans to invest in the U.S. stock market, offering direct trading, robo-investing, and, for a time, crypto. The challenge was not just to design a trading app but to create an experience that made investing feel intuitive, transparent, and accessible for a market that had historically low participation in stock investing.
Investing should be as simple as possible, avoiding unnecessary friction.
Users should always know what they’re investing in, without feeling overwhelmed.
The platform should build confidence in investing rather than just providing raw data.
I successfully launched the first version of the app, offering an intuitive stock buy and sell experience and got around 2000 signups in the first months.
Most of Latin Americans are not Investing in the U.S. stock market, losing an opportunity in wealth-building. While we believed that lack of tools and information were the main barriers, deeper research revealed that fear, low financial literacy, and lack of saving habits played a bigger role.
Besides from only studying competitors like Robinhood and local platforms we conducted user interviews to uncover misconceptions about investing. Many users equated investing with gambling or scams and struggled with the idea of long-term wealth-building.
We prioritized ease of use and transparency by simplifying trading flows and embedding in-app content under the premise that it will increase people’s familiarity with investments hence reducing their fears and lack of confidence.
Balancing compliance requirements with an intuitive experience was a major challenge. We also struggled with driving engagement beyond trading tools, as education could have required a more standalone and different strategy to be effective.
Product Designer: Cynderela Pazarán
Looking back, I’d take a more focused approach. Instead of offering a broad suite of features, we might have been better off doubling down on one high-impact solution.
On my last days at Vest, we introduced Smart Vest, a feature that allowed users to invest in pre-made portfolios. In hindsight, this could have been the entire product for the Mexican market. A laser-focused product like that might have resonated more with first-time investors.
Lowering barriers to investing isn’t just about access to tools—it’s about reducing decision fatigue, building trust, and creating familiar, intuitive entry points.
A pre-made portfolios platform (like our Smart Vest feature) could have been the entire product for the Mexican market—a much more tailored, approachable alternative to “buying stocks on the NYSE.”.
Users praised the usability of the Buy and Sell feature, indicating a smooth and intuitive experience.
There are several ways to buy and sell stocks (types of orders) and while powerful, they can result intimidating for entry-level users, who were the market we wanted to address.
Conducted user interviews and performed internal dogfooding to refine the experience, aiming to keep at least the two main types of orders without making it overwhelming.
Focused on transparency—showing users their available balance, estimated trade costs, and potential earnings for both market and limit orders upfront.
A switch component allowing users to toggle between selling in USD or shares required multiple iterations. The challenge was ensuring clarity, particularly when certain stocks did not support fractional trading.
Increased KYC conversion rate from 5%~ to 20%~ through iteration.
Compliance with U.S. investment regulations required extensive user data collection, creating a potential barrier to onboarding. The challenge was to simplify the process while maintaining regulatory integrity.
Benchmarked financial apps and conducted user interviews to minimize friction in the process. Iterated to streamline steps and reduce drop-off.
Consolidated all required documents into a single screen and proposed a summarized version of agreements for transparency. Designed a radio button selection that auto-advanced after a few seconds to speed up the flow.
Compliance limitations required asking certain questions, but optimizations like extracting address data from user IDs (with confirmation) helped reduce redundancy.
The portfolio was a core feature of the platform. User feedback highlighted its ease of use and clarity.
Users needed a clear, structured view of their investments, showing only essential information while progressively revealing details.
Leveraged previous research from Vest’s origins as a stock market game and conducted interviews to determine which data points mattered most to users.
Prioritized list view over visual-heavy charts (e.g., pie or donut charts) for better clarity in decision-making. Allowed users to customize which details were shown to cater to different levels of expertise.
Balancing different user needs required flexibility, so a settings feature was introduced, allowing users to toggle between a minimal or detailed view.
The feature had minimal impact, but the key learning was that financial education needed a clearer strategy, better discoverability, and possibly a dedicated content team.
Mexican users lean away from investing because it feels unfamiliar and they lack information to feel confident. The goal was to educate users, making investing feel more approachable.
Conducted interviews to uncover user assumptions and fears. Some believed sports betting was a form of investing, while others were wary due to past financial scams.
Instead of a separate blog, financial education was embedded within the app through a feed of content designed to provide useful, relatable knowledge alongside financial decision-making.
Without push notifications, content discoverability suffered, limiting its impact. Additionally, the tone and cadence of the content were inconsistent—sometimes too technical, sometimes too basic—making it difficult to engage users effectively. Regulatory constraints further complicated content creation, restricting how financial information could be presented.
Increased engagement and contributed to increasing the Assets Under Management.
While Vest originally provided a full-featured trading platform, many users still struggled with choosing what to invest in because of fear of losing money, and lack of financial confidence. They needed a simpler, lower-risk way to start growing their wealth.
Through user interviews and analyzing engagement patterns, we found that:
- Abandonment because users weren’t sure which stocks to buy.
- Many expected a guided approach rather than self-directed trading.
- Pre-made portfolios appealed to users looking for a “set-and-forget” strategy.
Instead of presenting a blank slate for investing, Smart Vest offered pre-built, diversified portfolios that users could invest in with a single click after answering a simple questionnaire.
We had to carefully frame portfolio recommendations within regulatory constraints. Smart Vest was introduced later in Vest’s development, meaning its full potential wasn’t realized before I left.
Want to go deeper? Check the in-depth breakdown of Smart Vest ->
