Wave

Empowering small business owners every step of the way

In the fall of 2014, I was working at a startup that was quickly running out of cash and product-market fit was nowhere in sight. I was the sole designer and it was time to find a new home. I decided to join Wave, another startup that had made big bets on financial tools for small business owners. I was hooked right away because I had used their products in the past, and I could feel the pains of their users. Also, I saw a lot of broken experiences in their products that I badly wanted to fix.

Wave empowers small business owners to achieve their dreams. As a financial management platform, Wave provides a free suite of products that specifically target the financial tasks of running a business. Products like invoicing, accounting, payments, and payroll allow business owners to bill their clients and get paid, pay their employees and contractors, and bookkeep transactions to understand how the business is performing. 

The team at the time was about 60 people, and we were crammed on the 6th floor in an old Wrigley gum factory. I joined as the 3rd designer on the team, jumping on the Payments team as my first gig. This is what Wave looked like at that time:

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Over the past 4 years, I’ve been fortunate to rotate across different products and different teams. I’ve designed products by placing a strong emphasis on clarity, consistency, and aesthetics.

Due to the vast ecosystem of Wave, and the inherent complexity in the financial worlds of small business owners, we had to double-down of creating effective user flows, while maintaining simplicity and a seamless experience as a user navigates the interconnected parts of Wave.

The team today is close to 200 people, and our design team is 10-strong. This is what Wave looks like today:

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I’ve touched countless parts of Wave, in individual product work, in ecosystem work, in growth work, and in design systems work. But what I’ve enjoyed the most is working with the incredibly talented individuals across all parts of Wave. I’ve also entered the world of design management, where the sport is more than hands-on individual contribution. It’s now a team sport, centered on listening, guiding and motivating other designers on the team. It’s about shaping our design culture, and bringing more people into the design process. It’s about creating the future of our team’s goals, talents, and structure.

Let’s dive into a few projects that I’ve personally led during my time at Wave: