Crash Course in Equity/Debt Real Estate Crowdfunding

One of the later prototypes of the investment portal. Featured clear navigation and an eye catching black box "call-out" for important investment details.

 

I spent 6 months advising the Midwest based real estate crowdfunding platform, Loquidity. My goal was to work on making the product user-friendly.  That sounds simple... but evolving SEC crowdfunding/equity laws demanded the platform should accommodate both state and federal requirements. This was an additional challenge heaped on top of the already multifaceted on-boarding process Loquidity users faced. After understanding the requirements and limitations of 506c, 506b and state specific deals (i.e Michigan's MILE Act), it was on to how to ascertain if someone was an accredited investor or not. Then, of course, I had to design an app that would allow browsing and funding of all types of deals with that specific user in mind.

For example, with 506b deals a user would have to be a registered member (of the platform) for at least 30 days. It was important to show the quantity of deals, so removing the deal all together was not desirable. I designed an overlay that would obfuscate the deal but still hint at it "being there". A lot of time and resources went into procuring deals. It was also a great opportunity to educate users on why they couldn't see the deal, and more importantly when they would have access to it.

 
 

The Properties section was where all deals are displayed. This would need to correspond with the access level of each user.

For example, this user can not see 506b deals yet, they must wait an additional 10 days before they hit the 30day requirement.

 

I'm choosing to only show one quick section, I hope it's obvious that there was a lot of back work! Below is are some earlier prototypes. 

An early prototype of the Investor flow

The app leveraged an "admin bootstrap framework" for a mobile first approach

Another early example of the "Browse Investments" area

Prototype of Investment page

An earlier exploration of a property page

Very early prototype of investment area

Very early prototype of Deal page

The company had to decide how to launch their MVP. They had two options, raise capital give up equity and invest in building the app from the ground up or save time/money and leverage a platform/engine. They chose the latter of the two, and the goal was then to re-skin this powerful backend system with the design I developed (with some changes of course). Integrating with the backend proved to be more of a complex process than anticipated. This is still taking place as I understand, though in all honesty I'm not certain. If any thing my work on the UX help them gather valuable acceptance criteria. Redardless, I do wish these gentlemen the very best, these guys really want to reinvest where they grew up.