Helping first-time buyers turn spare change into their first crypto investment.
Project type: 0 to 1 • My role: Co-Founder, Product Design • Timeline: 1.5 years
Task: Micro Investing App
Build a way for first-time crypto buyers to invest spare change automatically.
Problem: High Barrier to Entry
Buying crypto required upfront capital and decision-making most first-timers weren't ready for.
Team:
2 Product Designers (Co-founders),
2 Engineers, 1 Business Development
Solution: Round-up Investing
I designed a system that rounds up everyday purchases, accrues the spare change, and auto-invests it into a user's chosen crypto basket once it hits a set threshold.
Hansel used spare change as a first step into crypto.
CONTEXT
People wouldn't invest without understanding it, but wouldn't learn without money at stake. Hansel broke that catch-22, letting users get skin in the game with round-up investing.
First-time buyers wouldn't invest without understanding crypto, and wouldn't learn without money on the line.
PROBLEM
Buying crypto also meant upfront capital and decisions most first-timers weren't ready to make.
Building Hansel meant doing it all: recruiting a team on no salary, designing the product, and solving problems no one else had answers for yet.
PROCESS
Recruiting: ~8 months to land two engineers, one left mid-way and had to be replaced, all on equity alone
Ideation: Our biz dev co-founder helped shape the product and talked through API usage with Gemini and Coinbase
Onboarding: Users finished Hansel's setup, then had to complete Coinbase's full KYC before they could invest.
Fees: A $20 minimum investment threshold kept fees from eating into small deposits
Scope: A single fixed BTC investment grew into user-chosen amounts, timing, and crypto selection
RETROSPECTIVE
Scope crept past the MVP. A single, fixed BTC investment would have been enough to test the idea. Instead it grew into user-chosen amounts, timing, and crypto selection before we'd proven anyone wanted the core loop.
Onboarding was a hard constraint. Coinbase's KYC was required to facilitate transactions, we couldn't shortcut it. I'd revisit how we set expectations earlier, so users saw it coming instead of hitting it cold.
Learned how to lead without a paycheck to offer. Recruiting on equity alone meant selling a vision and handing people real ownership and responsibility, not just asking for a favor.
Users finished setting up Hansel, then hit a second full onboarding through Coinbase before they could actually invest.
DESIGN 1/2
Email, phone, identity checks, account verification, all after they thought they were done.
The full experience: round-up onboarding, portfolio dashboard, coin selection, and the investment threshold.
DESIGN 2/2
Every purchase rounds up to the nearest dollar. Spare change accrues until it hits a user-set threshold, then auto-invests into their chosen basket of BTC, ETH, LTC or BCH, tracked alongside balance, performance, and transaction history.
