10Spot

I am a founding member and Lead Product Designer at 10Spot, an iPhone app that recently launched in LA and NYC. 10Spot provides its users with a new way to treat friends at local bars, restaurants, and shops with digital gift vouchers. A user can send as little as $10 or as much as $250 — to a friend to enjoy a drink, coffee, or dinner at a local place. It’s the antithesis of an Amazon or Starbucks gift card — thoughtful, personal, and classy.  

Overview

As part of the founding team, I played a critical role in deciding and shaping the product we ultimately decided to build. Because the app was inherently financial, social, and local, we had many debates about what features to build, how they should work, and what should be included in MVP. My goal was to design the product to be as simple and delightful as possible — for both users and merchants.

My Role

While the app is financial at its core, it has also been carefully designed to be more than just a gifting solution. We want the app to evolve into a meaningful social network that enables people to connect with their closest friends and support their local places. While gifting is the Trojan Horse that allows us to acquire new users, the social and local experience deepens our relationship with users and keeps them coming back.

Help users make the transition from a financial app to a social app

Challenge

We studied purely social apps like Messenger and Instagram, as well as financial apps like Venmo (with a very limited social experience), and created a highly curated social experience that allows users to see local bars, restaurants, and shops that are endorsed by their friends

Approach

The social features further enrich the experience as users move beyond just sending money to seeing what their (real) friends like to do in the neighborhood

Result

From a social perspective, we wanted to be different from typical social networks like Facebook and Instagram. We wanted the users' friends in the app to actually be their friends in real life.  

From a local perspective, we didn’t just want to offer deals and discounts. We wanted our relationships with merchants to mimic real-life interactions, where they could easily identify their best customers and reward them for their loyalty.

When someone receives a 10Spot, they can redeem it anytime. All they need to do is show the digital voucher to their server, and funds are instantly transferred to the merchant. No QR codes, no scanning, no hardware. From a design perspective, making this process simple, safe,
and secure, was a key challenge.

Create a “touchless” digital gift card

Challenge

I designed a redemption flow for 10Spots (digital gift cards) that took inspiration from touch-less, digital Amtrack tickets. In this design, the user only needs to flash the voucher on their screen, and it’s confirmed. No scanning, no hardware, no training. The merchant just redeems it like cash and the money is reconciled on the back end.

Approach

I incorporated several security features in this simple, 10Spot branded view, including: the user and merchant name, timestamp, countdown clock, animation, and an interactive digital watermark. I was able to maintain a fully digital, touch-less experience, while adding features that combat fraud without visual clutter.

Result