Who are Qredo?

An enterprise-level digital asset storage and deployment platform which utilises multi-party computation (MPC) technology to remove the need for a traditional private key. This allows trading firms and institutions to easily manage and collaborate across multiple investment funds and wallets in ways not previously possible in the blockchain/crypto space.

In March 2020, as the world entered lockdown, I joined Qredo as their Lead Product Designer.

Over the following months I helped to bring their extremely complex product offering to life, through multiple rounds of design and testing. The aim of this process was to make sense of a completely new way for customers to store their digital assets.

Before starting at Qredo, the team had already done a fair amount of work to identify a proposed market fit, and they'd secured the required funding to commence the design and build of their MVP, which would demonstrate the groundbreaking technology which formed the crux of their USP.

Initial wireframes were already created, detailing the basic structure and flows required to achieve an MVP, and an (aggressive) deadline (linked to funding schedules) was set.So far, so good.

However, it was during my first stand-up that I knew this project wouldn't be anything like I had experienced before.

First and foremost, the reality of working completely remotely was sinking in (worldwide lockdowns), which meant we were embarking on a (very ambitious) project with a group of people who hadn't all met in person and (spoiler alert) wouldn't do for at least the next 12 - 18 months.

Secondly, in addition to the usual product manager, frontend, backend, and mobile development partners, we also had blockchain engineers and cryptographers. Professions that I hadn't even considered as being a "thing", let alone having worked with.

And finally, the initial deadline for MVP was just 3 months away.