Threadline — investing for the rest of us
Retail investing that feels calm, readable, and fast on real devices.
Problem
The founding team had a strong product thesis but onboarding was bleeding users: too many screens before first value and unclear trust signals around money movement.
They needed a native-quality mobile baseline without rewriting the roadmap every quarter.
Challenges
Bank-linking deadlines and sandbox quirks across Plaid pathways; strict App Store scrutiny for anything that resembles financial advice.
Design had to reconcile a bold brand voice with WCAG-heavy contrast requirements and nighttime usage patterns.
What we did
We tightened the funnel to “connect → qualify → fund” with fewer branches, surfaced progress and risk copy inline, and instrumented drop-offs weekly.
Engineering landed on Kotlin/Swift stacks the team could own long-term; we paired on release trains until v1.3 shipped to both stores.
Technical notes
iOS/Android native shells, shared analytics schema, feature flags per market.
Plaid linkage with staged rollout + kill switch; guarded server APIs for eligibility.