As Head of Design at Fold, I defined the brand, product and design practice at the company.

Starting as a design team of one, I built the Fold App from prototype to the full service banking app it is today. I hired and managed a team of designers, across product, brand, and growth.

I led Fold's brand vision and strategy, fostering a design-led culture across disciplines. I collaborated with engineering to define our product development process, and with our growth team to build out a product-led growth strategy that helped us grow to half a million users and process tens of millions of dollars a day.

Fold set out to be the easiest and most loved onramp to bitcoin for newcomers and bitcoin maximalists alike. We knew if we wanted people to feel comfortable getting into this new asset class, it had to feel safe and easy.

The Fold brand evolved over the years as our product found its market fit, but the vision has always remained the same: To bring financial freedom within reach of everyone, and to have fun doing it. We positioned Fold as "your funniest, smartest friend" and built a brand that felt approachable, trustworthy, playful, and honest.

Like Xzibit at the beginning of every episode of Pimp My Ride, we start every design by learning about who we're building for, their passions and pain points, then we work with them to build a solution tailored to their needs, starting with an MLP (minimum lovable product), with a healthy dose of whimsy.

When I first joined Fold, the only product that existed was a webapp that allowed you to purchase Starbucks gift cards with Bitcoin. The mission was always about getting people to transition into a bitcoin future, so we spent the first few months just learning from people both within the bitcoin space and around it. And within a few months, a new native mobile app was born.

We were lucky to have some of the most involved, passionate users out there, so we continued our evolution out in the open with our community. And our users loved it.

From our research and testing, we learned that people new to bitcoin feel uneasy about or resistant to purchasing something like bitcoin without previous experience. We thought: what better way to get people to experience the ease and magic of bitcoin, then to give it to them for free? We tried it out and watched the aha! moment happen in real time.

The idea for the debit card was born. Users could earn "free" bitcoin instead of cash back, points or miles. And it worked: within the first year, we converted over 50,000 paying cardholders.

Our design team looks to games as a primary source of inspiration. We believe that games are powerful tools for change and if deployed correctly can guide people towards a healthier and more enjoyable relationship with their personal finances.

The Spin Wheel started as a growth experiment, and ended up becoming the backbone of the Fold experience and integral to Fold's product-led growth.

Users earn spins through a variety of behaviors: using their Fold card, buying bitcoin, shopping at certain brands or stores or even just opening the app every day. They can then win bitcoin or other prizes on the spin wheel.

The Spin Wheel is spun over 300,000 times a day, and has led to 2-3x revenue growth year over year. It also introduced new revenue streams, allowing opportunities for brands to "sponsor" the wheel, and IRL event opportunities, where we bring the Spin Wheel on the road.