Melco

Overview

Through informal conversations with 8 friends aged 25-35, I noticed a pattern: 6 mentioned avoiding banking apps due to anxiety. Existing apps like Mint focus on budgets and control, which increases stress rather than reducing it.

I identified an opportunity to reframe personal finance from "Did I overspend?" to "What did this feel like, and what patterns are forming?" addressing the emotional root cause of money avoidance.

Solution

Designed Melco as a "gentle finance companion" that helps users understand how spending feels, not just where it goes.

Core Product Architecture:

• Transaction Capture: Automated tracking via bank sync (premium tier) or manual entry

• Emotion Tagging: Optional 1-tap emotional reflection on transactions (Calm / Joy / Regret / Neutral)

• Monthly Emotional Statement: Calm, letter-style report summarizing emotional spending patterns

• Guided Reflection: Wellness-framed journaling with non-clinical language

Key Product Decisions

Prioritized emotion tagging over bank sync for MVP
Tested core hypothesis (does emotional tracking provide value?) before committing to variable costs like Plaid aggregation.

Designed tiered pricing that aligns costs with value
Free tier enables habit formation without cost blowups. Premium tier ($8.99/mo) covers bank sync costs. Supporter tier ($14.99/mo) offers cosmetic perks only—no "pay for better outcomes" dynamic.

Chose monthly statement as north star metric
Engagement without daily pressure. Ritual over discipline. Validates that users return for insights, not just transaction tracking.

Made emotion tagging optional, never required
Users can skip reflections to reduce pressure. Prompts are selective, not on every transaction, to avoid overwhelming users.

Results

Product Strategy Deliverables:

• Conducted 12 informal user interviews validating emotional finance gap

• Developed 3-tier monetization strategy balancing free habit formation with sustainable unit economics

• Built functional SwiftUI prototype testing core interaction patterns

• Created MVP scope focused on hypothesis validation before feature expansion

Strategic Learnings:

• Learned to scope an MVP that tests core hypothesis without over-building

• Understood importance of validating willingness-to-pay before adding variable-cost features (bank sync)

• Developed framework for balancing user value with business sustainability

• Discovered how to position wellness-framed features without clinical claims

Skills Demonstrated

• User research & problem discovery

• Product strategy & monetization design

• MVP scoping & prioritization

• Technical prototyping (SwiftUI/SwiftData/Supabase)