5 Design lessons from designing deal-sourcing platforms

Disclaimer: The products referred to in this article are deal-sourcing* products used mostly by investment bankers, private equity firms, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs.

If you didn’t know —

*What does deal sourcing mean?

Deal sourcing or deal origination, as it’s also known, refers to a process that venture capitals, investment bankers, corporate development experts and other finance professionals use. Through this, they attempt to find investment opportunities within the market.

The purpose of this process is to ensure that they obtain a large volume of deals throughout a set period in order to keep onto a viable flow of deals.

from Guide-to-deal-sourcing — Dealroom.net

1. Learning the language

This goes beyond the regular terminologies that are most commonly used in our everyday banking experience. There is a whole different vocabulary that investment bankers, product teams, and engineers use. Understanding the terms and concepts is very critical in getting the design right. Websites like Investopedia can be of great help in understanding and contextualizing every concept.

2. No tracking allowed

This was a shocker of all…Every deal is confidential hence no platform is allowed to track user data. Therefore every UX or UI design choice/decision is an educated guess. There is no possibility of user testing with the actual users, so any feedback given during product demos or customer feedback channels will be your best bet. This also means no personalized experiences for any user.

3. New product ideas? Get it approved by legal

You have a new idea for a product feature? It has to be approved by legal. No idea is a bad idea until the legal team says so because the stakes are too high. There is always a potential risk of getting sued even if remotely a product feature violates the terms of the agreement from their data providers or users.

4. Don’t make me learn

Most deal-sourcing platform users are investment bankers between the age group of 40 to 60 years. They are accustomed to user experiences from long-existing deal-sourcing platforms. Switching platforms will require retraining your eyes to the UI and UX to perform the same task. Keeping this in mind, designing platforms with the least learning curve can make the transition smoother. Further, this can help with user retention when the renewal period comes around.
So make sure to do a competitive analysis and note standard practices followed in terms of both UI and UX before kick-starting the design.

5. Understanding the data to recognize the unique value proposition

Understanding the length and breadth of the data will be the key driver in designing the information architecture of your platform. This will also help you identify unique data points that set your company apart from its competitors. Knowing these unique data points can help you design with intent. It can further serve marketing campaigns and other product strategies.

These are some high-level lessons that I have learned over the years designing a suite of deal processing products. Hope this article has given you a peek into the fintech world from a designer’s point of view.