Mitchell Clements

From Zero to a $1.2 Billion Valuation 🦄

Leading a 4-Year Product Vision and Strategy

From Zero to a $1.2 Billion Valuation 🦄

Leading a 4-Year Product Vision and Strategy

From Zero to a $1.2 Billion Valuation 🦄

Leading a 4-Year Product Vision and Strategy

Executive Summary:

Finding myself at a 17-person, self-funded, basement startup with no clear product vision, strategy, or design system, I rallied multiple departments and company leaders together with an ambitious plan that helped lead to a 4-year product transformation, propelling us to 350 employees and a staggering $1.2 billion valuation.

Primary role:

Senior UX Lead -> UX Manager

Time frame:

2017 - 2021

Company size

17 -> 350

Business Model:

B2B2C, SaaS

Watch the full case study, or read the short version below 👇

I presented this case study on April 28, 2023 at the Front UX & Product Case Study Conference.

From Humble Beginnings

Imagine joining a scrappy, hardworking, self-funded basement startup as employee #17. That's where I found myself when I joined SimpleNexus.

Our product was simple back then: a virtual mobile business card and mortgage calculator app that lenders could share with homebuyers. But as the company grew, so did the scope and complexity of our product.

Imagine joining a scrappy, hardworking, self-funded basement startup as employee #17. That's where I found myself when I joined SimpleNexus.

With no design system or clear product vision and a minimal emphasis on UX, the SimpleNexus experience started to no longer feel simple.

The Catalyst for Change

The catalyst for change

Despite numerous attempts to communicate the importance of user research and design through presentations and ROI calculations, the complexity problem grew worst. It became clear to me that we needed to try something new if we were going to get the buy-in needed to solve it.

In order to raise awareness of the rising issues, I led the design team in performing a comprehensive audit of our product, meticulously mapping out every screen and workflow. Using this audit, I created a visually striking collage that showcased the diverse array of button styles within our product, highlighting the fragmented nature of our offering and the resulting confusion for our users.

I then presented this shocking visualization at a company-wide "show and tell".

We had 54 fragmented button styles. 🤯

There were audible gasps in the room. Some individuals even laughed. How did this happen?

No one could believe that the buttons displayed in the collage were from the product we were actively developing and selling to our customers. This sparked insightful conversations and questions such as, "Why do we keep creating new buttons?" and "What is this like for our users?"

How is this impacting the business?

People wanted to know how this was impacting the business, so we partnered with other departments to calculate the cost and discovered the following:

💼 Sales had lost multi-million revenue opportunities because the “look and feel” of our product was lacking compared to competitors.
💬 30-50% of customer support calls stemmed from usability issues.
👩🏽‍💻 20-30% of development efforts were wasted on building redundant front end components.
📢 Marketing had 0 screenshots of our product on our marketing website because our product looked dated.

As a result, there was a unanimous agreement that our current framework was not sustainable and that a change was necessary.

People wanted to know how this was impacting the business, so we partnered with other departments to calculate the cost and discovered the following:

💼 Sales had lost multi-million revenue opportunities because the “look and feel” of our product was lacking compared to competitors.
💬 30-50% of customer support calls stemmed from usability issues.
👩🏽‍💻 20-30% of development efforts were wasted on building redundant front end components.
📢 Marketing had 0 screenshots of our product on our marketing website because our product looked dated.

As a result, there was a unanimous agreement that our current framework was not sustainable and that a change was necessary.

People wanted to know how this was impacting the business, so we partnered with other departments to calculate the cost and discovered the following:

💼 Sales had lost multi-million revenue opportunities because the “look and feel” of our product was lacking compared to competitors.
💬 30-50% of customer support calls stemmed from usability issues.
👩🏽‍💻 20-30% of development efforts were wasted on building redundant front end components.
📢 Marketing had 0 screenshots of our product on our marketing website because our product looked dated.

As a result, there was a unanimous agreement that our current framework was not sustainable and that a change was necessary.

Creating a Shared Product Vision

After securing buy-in from multiple departments and leaders, the design team was empowered to solve our complexity problem.

We knew we needed to establish a design system that would streamline our platform and allow for future growth. But more importantly, it was crucial to have a clear vision for the product's direction and ultimate goals.

Taking initiative - Starting with the homebuyer
As the lead responsible for overseeing the consumer-facing domain of our product, I took the initiative in developing a comprehensive 4-year product vision for our homebuyer experience. This timeline struck the right balance between being free from existing legacy issues while remaining realistic.

I believe every good vision should be founded in research. To that end, we interviewed 117 homebuyers, and I even went as far as becoming a homebuyer myself.

After securing buy-in from multiple departments and leaders, the design team was empowered to solve our complexity problem.

I believe every good vision should be founded in research. To that end, we interviewed 117 homebuyers, and I even went as far as becoming a homebuyer myself.

After securing buy-in from multiple departments and leaders, the design team was empowered to solve our complexity problem.

I believe every good vision should be founded in research. To that end, we interviewed 117 homebuyers, and I even went as far as becoming a homebuyer myself.

My wife and I buying our first home. This really opened my eyes to how challenging the journey can be.

Mapping out the homeownership journey

Using insights from our research, we then mapped out every stage of the homeownership journey, including our user's pain points and frustrations.

Then we asked ourselves, "What would it look like if we took all of the low points in this journey and elevated them?"

I'm a big believer in sketching and white-boarding for rapid ideation.

This process enabled us to step back, see the big picture, and identify potential areas for growth and improvement.

Rethinking existing functionality

Our product had a lot of useful features, integrations, and data, but it was difficult for homebuyers to find value in the existing experience. I wanted to show the company that by focusing on the user’s needs, we could reuse our existing technology to unlock new value.

During this part of the journey, homebuyers fill out an application declaring their assets.

Refactoring flows and navigation

Most of our product experience was built based on database models instead of our homebuyer's mental models. This meant we needed to merge several different flows and refactor our information architecture to align with how homebuyers think.

If a homebuyer had 2 or more loans, it was a nightmare to navigate the app. This proposal dramatically improved our information architecture.

From homebuyer to homeowner

Preparing for future growth

Of course, simply refactoring our existing product wasn't enough. We had to push ourselves to innovate and think about the future, solving new pain points and filling in the gaps of our user's homeownership journey.

The crowning event of the vision was asking ourselves, "What if we didn't just help homebuyers purchase a home, but helped them settle into and manage their new home?"

This was a significant market opportunity, and our business was well-positioned to capture it.

Evangelizing and refining the vision

I’m a firm believer in transparency, collaboration, and repetition. Instead of waiting to share the vision when it was “finished", I chose to be as transparent and iterative as possible while creating it. For 9 weeks, I shared weekly updates, progress, and ideas in a public company Slack channel where anyone could see them. This built tremendous excitement throughout the company.

Through repeated exposure, the conversations changed from “Are we doing this?” to “When can we start doing this?”

This approach also allowed creating the vision to be a collaborative effort. Anyone at the company could contribute insights, challenge assumptions, or connect us with customers and users who could provide feedback. We spoke with at least 30 users every quarter.

Through repeated exposure, the conversations changed from “Are we doing this?” to “When can we start doing this?”

Strategy: How Do We Get There?

Everyone recognized the problems with the current experience and could see the solution in the product vision, but the challenge was clear: how do we get there?

With limited resources, we couldn’t build a new app from scratch. We had to prioritize, releasing changes gradually to support our existing users while evolving the product.

Through close collaboration with leadership, I broke down the homeownership vision into a 9-step actionable plan, with each step mapping to a major opportunity space in the homeownership journey.

Execution: Making the Vision a Reality

Being at SimpleNexus for over four years, I had the privilege of watching our vision come to life. This journey required close collaboration with leadership and changes across the organization, from mindsets to processes.

Though one lesson stands out: the future is unpredictable. My 9-step plan couldn’t foresee events like the Covid-19 pandemic, skyrocketing home prices, or the challenges of social distancing.

Over the years, pivots were made, releases were reordered, and predicted features changed. Regardless, the vision remained constant and true. It was our North Star to guide us along the way.

Where Did the Vision Take Us?

Ascending to new heights as a company

Our company grew from 17 to 350 employees and ended up touching 1 in 7 mortgage loans across the U.S. The improved product experience helped us win deals and decrease support cases while the new design system sped up front-end development time.

Maturing as a design team

Our design team grew from 2 to 12 designers. Furthermore, for the first time ever, we finally had a “triple platform” design system, which unified web, iOS, and Android in both Figma and code.

Making the homeownership dream a reality

Homebuyers loved the experience we created, with a world class NPS rating of 72 from 5.7 million homebuyers. Additionally, tasks that used to take days to complete were now getting resolved in hours.

9.3x

Task speed completion

72 NPS

From 5.7M homebuyers

23x

Annual recurring revenue

80%

Loan application conversion rate

98%

Customer retention

Inc. 5000

Company 4 years in a row

But Wait, There's More!

Eventually, our world-class homeownership experience caught the attention of the industry leader in cloud banking, a company called nCino. Our product offering complemented their cloud banking strategy, and they made an outstanding offer to acquire us. The following are quotes from the definitive agreement statement:

“SimpleNexus has streamlined the many stages of the homeownership process into a single, seamless journey…

Their innovative solution and deep subject matter expertise in consumer front-end technology will extend our capabilities...

nCino has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SimpleNexus in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $1.2 billion."

The Journey Keeps Going

With the explosive growth and success of the company, my role transitioned from a Senior UX Lead to managing a growing team of designers and helping them continue to execute the vision. This ongoing journey of scaling a design team through initiatives across people, product, and process at an enterprise level are shared in my other case study, "Leading Design for 10 Million Users."

Leading Design for 10 Million Users

At nCino I helped grow our design team to 30 designers while also directing the product design vision for the company's largest business unit.

View case study

9 Designers

Directly managed

22 Teams

Directed

72 NPS

From 10M Users

Leading Design for 10 Million Users

At nCino I helped grow our design team to 30 designers while also directing the product design vision for the company's largest business unit.

View case study

9 Designers

Directly managed

22 Teams

Directed

72 NPS

From 10M Users

Leading Design for 10 Million Users

At nCino I helped grow our design team to 30 designers while also directing the product design vision for the company's largest business unit.

View case study

9 Designers

Directly managed

22 Teams

Directed

72 NPS

From 10M Users

Reflections From Startup to Unicorn

This journey from a 17-employee startup to a $1.2 billion valuation (15x multiple) may seem like a fairytale success story in the product world, but it was not a result of a magical intervention from a fairy godmother.

Instead, it was the result of dedicated efforts spanning over 4 years. Those efforts included deeply understanding our user's pain points, crafting a bold product vision, mapping out our strategy, and collaborating with executives and cross-functional department leaders.