At the end of 2019 we ran two design sprints with Swissquote bank that resulted in the new Swiss neobank Yuh App. A radical and innovative concept that makes trading accessible to millenials and people wanting to start in finance.Let's look back at the origins of the App with Jose Rosa, Head of Product of #yuhapp

A look back at the Design Sprint used to imagine Yuh App, the new swiss neobank, with Jose Rosa Head of Product

Steph Cruchon: Hi everyone, this is Steph from Design Sprint LTD. Welcome to another Design Sprint Chapters Meetup. Today, I have the pleasure of having with us Mr. Jose Rosa, who is the new head of product at Yuh Bank.

Jose Rosa: Hi everyone!

Steph Cruchon: Extremely happy to have you here today to talk about the project, so how do you say You or Yuh?

Jose Rosa: Yuh.

Steph Cruchon: Really, really, really happy to have you. We worked together almost a year and a half ago, two years ago on a first design sprint that finally gave birth to the product you announced a few days ago, which is called Yuh App, that I have here in my hands. And here is the idea, it is to redo with you the genesis of this project and we are very happy to welcome you with us. José, you told me that Yuh App will be officially announced on June 1st?

Jose Rosa: Yes, exactly. The official announcement in La Presse, the unveiling was already two weeks ago. This is its second week, but the big announcement campaign to the general public will be on June 1st. And we are very excited and very happy to see it.

Who are you Jose Rosa?

Steph Cruchon: It’s the end of May so we’re just before the big product announcement. Super, super happy to have you. Maybe before we start José, could I ask you to introduce yourself in a few words so we can know more about you?

Jose Rosa: Okay, in a few words? Well, I’m coming. In terms of background, I’m more of a communication designer. It started like that, and then I evolved quite a bit in terms of agencies. Afterwards, I worked in-house in different places. More in the luxury sector at Audemars Piguet and finally at Swissquote and now at Yuh App. It’s a bit of a strong background that has touched on a lot of things, especially in terms of design, I’ve been included in a lot of marketing projects and that was pretty cool. You kind of saw all the spectrums of that process. I wasn’t just as a designer, in a corner, in a silo.

Steph Cruchon: Actually, what needs to be explained before you became the new head of product at Yuh App, so you were Art director at Swissquote and Yuh App was launched. It’s a partnership between the Swiss bank Swissquote, based in Switzerland, and PostFinance, also based in Switzerland.

Jose Rosa: Exactly. So, really, at Swissquote, it was the brand creation part. Everything that was linked to the brand, to the brand’s box. That was very important. So we were linked to the Web part and we had a lot of interaction with the product design team itself, to make sure that when we talked about design, that everyone had the same understanding. So I was really in the visual part, but with a lot of involvement in the product part.

Steph Cruchon: Did you know, when we launched this design sprint , you were an important person in the sprint because you were a little bit in the center of this team that was going to work on the project. But did you think you were going to be the head of product of a new bank? Finally, the new bank, if you saw the importance of the thing at the time we did it or not really?

Jose Rosa: I don’t think so because we weren’t looking that far ahead. We just wanted to find a product that was cool for people who were just starting out in finance. And I knew that this idea was great and that we wanted to do it and find that little bit extra in finance. But I had no idea that it would turn out like this. But I’m very happy.

Steph Cruchon: That’s right, yeah, it’s a great adventure. And then maybe, if you can just move over a little bit so you can see the Yuh logo. You’re in the new offices of Yuh, right?

Jose Rosa: Very fresh. We’re just setting up a little bit. We’ll have a small team to get started. But with a lot of support from Swissquote. And then also from the agencies that collaborate with us. These are the premises that are there, so they are fresh, with the DNA of the brand. But that’s how it is.

Steph Cruchon: That’s great. Well, there you go. Maybe to start, the idea is to go over the genesis of this project with you. I think that people who watch us, that’s always what they like, to discover, in fact, how we went from a first design sprint to a product that is launched on the market and that will have, I think, a lot of impact in the case of Yuh. How did you start this project?

Jose Rosa, Head of Product Yuh

The first design sprint with Swissquote bank

Jose Rosa: This question, there is always a need, at some point, for a business to evolve and challenge the market a little. Swissquote has always been like that. Swissquote has always tried to challenge the market, the conventions, already with Crypto, it was the first bank to launch this and Swissquote did not want to stop there. So for me, in this project, Jan de Schepper, our chief sales marketing officer, had this idea of challenging the whole market by saying: But what can we do? It’s clear that there are a lot of new banks coming in, but they don’t have the security that we can offer our customers. We are in crisis. They come to play a little in our field, these neo-banks wanted to become banks. That’s why they’re getting involved with banking licenses. They want to become banks because it gives them a certain credibility and security. Jan did a huge benchmarking. He looked at the market. He said to himself, why don’t we do that? Why can’t we challenge the market? He came to see me. He said I have some ideas. Do you think we could do something? I said, “Look, you look at this and send me all your ideas. So he sent that but it was so huge for my stuff that there was a first start of information and everything from a first architecture, maybe in my head, but then we needed help to put the right people together in a room. And that’s where Design Sprint Ltd, you came in with all the knowledge and all that part there, the moderation, the motivation with the high five.

Steph Cruchon: Now, because of the Covid, the high five is dead. We’ll look at some pictures of that sprint afterwards. I think it’s cool that we’re getting through. On my side, to make a little bit of history again, we’re contacted, I don’t remember, was it October? I think 2019 like that to work on a project related to savings, to Swissquote. How can you make people pass the investment when it’s really savers’ profiles? Then we started working on it and then maybe if you’re OK, I can show some screens of a prototype that we had created at the time as part of a design sprint .I think you should see these screens and what was interesting is that we said to ourselves, when we did this very first design sprint t, that we were going to design something really extremely simple, much younger, think a little bit more millennials, very far from the classic Swissquote interfaces, try to create a link with brands typically here, Starbucks where we had taken the Starbucks logo and things like that. And then the thought, moreover, was that it could be a launch pad, or at least a gateway for younger people to start investing. So we had these screens and so on. Then, at the end of each design sprint , we always do user testing. And here, I still remember when we did that… I still remember, so there was Marc Bürki, the CEO of Swissquote, who was in the room, watching the tests. And that was really cool to see him participate in that. He was watching the tests live. And then other people, of course, that’s important at Swissquote. I think Marc, I think Jan was there too. And then he was watching these interviews, in fact, we had done the interviews with some young Swissquote employees who were working internally. And they were there on some pretty basic concepts of finance or trading, they were lost on the terms, on the ways we had organized the thing when we thought it was super simple. I saw Marc, he was holding his head in his hands, he was like: “Wow, we have to make it much simpler and we really have to make our products and what we do much more affordable for younger people, for millenials. So, we’ve finished this sprint. It’s always a little bit of a weird feeling because at the same time, we’re learning so much. It’s great. There’s a lot of concepts that were really, I think, very interesting and had a lot of green. But at the same time, there are things that we learned, we were too complex, that it wasn’t going to be the gateway that we were hoping for at the end of this sprint. Then I go home. And I think that as soon as I got home, I received a second email: well, Steph, we want to do a second design sprint . This time it’s going to be a little bit different. We have a product idea in mind because we hadn’t talked about that. And then, it was really this second design sprint that we did for a project that was going to become Yuh afterwards.

Design Sprint Hi-Five Yuh

The second Design Sprint which will lead to the creation of Yuh

So, if you want, maybe I’ll show some pictures of that sprint and we can do a little bit of the scrapbook together. I’ll just open it up. So, it’s really the pictures that come out of my album. There’s no selection. We all have some not-so-great faces, but that’s kind of the story I’m reading here. The famous high five we used to do back in the day that we’ll do again, but when the Covid is over. And then, what is important for people who know Swissquote bank, we see here some important faces of the bank. Here is Jan who is the head of marketing. We have in the foreground. So we’ll see them better afterwards. But the famous José, who is with us today and who was of course at the center of all this product and the sprint. And then here is Paolo Buzzi and Marc Bürki who are respectively CEO and CTO of the Swissquote bank and who participated in the sprint. This is really something that is important to understand: when you do a design sprint, if you want to get the best and most potential out of it, it’s extremely important to have the right people and to have important people at the hierarchical levels who will participate in these efforts and who will also give impact to what you do. Well, it’s not just that we spend a week, but that we really solve real problems together.

The role of leadership (CEO, CTO)

Jose Rosa: So it’s clear in there, it’s exactly that. It’s that these people and these important people in the company, they were there to give the impetus and their vision in the end, you can’t translate, do a design sprint just to do it. There is still a certain vision of something that will become a product, as if they had had this idea of product and in the end, the importance of Marc and Paolo, Paolo was there, really, in the sprint at the end before we close, for the ideation part and after, but it was very important that he could vote, that he could give his green light to this great idea that we took back then the project to transform it.

Steph Cruchon: Absolutely, absolutely. It’s very clear, you can see right away in the dynamics, you make teams when you lead sprints, if there are supports, CEOs for example, who are there, it will change the importance of the sprint a little bit. And then also, I think something super important to understand at Swissquote. But it’s ultimately Marc and Paolo, it’s at the core. They’re like makers, they’re people who got to where they are now because they got their hands dirty, because they were engineers who created a website where they put stock prices. And all that eventually became a bank. But these are people who, at the base, like to make products, which is very important to understand. You find profiles like that, it’s Elon Musk or people like that, who are basically people who like to manufacture, who like to make. And then? Well, the thing explodes. They become more important, but I think it’s fundamental to understand and it was a big part of the success of Sprint, that these people wanted to be there and participate, not just to be in their role as decision-makers, delegates, etc.

Jose Rosa: You’re totally right. Because even today, they’re still in the action and they’re not behind anything and they’re very involved. And since we launched the product, for example, Mark came to me: Ah there’s a problem there, it’s someone who told me something. And that, you know, they’re really in love with the product, they take a lot of care, they come to us and again the custom Marker part, that comes from them as well. They have this whole network of people who want to use their products and so they have a vested interest in being there, validating the ideas and giving more impetus and even more vision for the future. And that’s really nice to have people involved like that.

Marc Bürki CEO Swissquote, Paolo Buzzi CTO during a design sprint

The sprint Team

Maybe if I go down a little bit in this album, what’s interesting in the design sprint too, is that we’re going to give importance to everybody. So everyone will be able to express themselves, give their vision. And then maybe, I’m looking for a picture where we see a little bit of everyone, tell us a little bit about who is in the room here, in this famous sprint.

Jose Rosa: So, in this famous format, you have Paolo sitting in the yellow couch, you have Mark talking, Julien, he’s a business analyst project manager. Céline is our director who is in charge of all the project management. Marlèna, our product designer who is sitting there, you who is there at the back, observing and the director of development Alexandro with long hair. And then Nicolas, our person who is responsible for the mobile team and me in the foreground. And this is really the moment when they were throwing out ideas and we had just done an analysis of the market as it was. Julien, he had done a presentation, I remember well a little bit so that we knew where the people were, how do I put it? Not the people, but our competitors. At a certain point, he had Cedric, who was very important for the back office part as well. Fabio Project Manager and Yann, so he’s the crypto expert. So he was the one who was there to push the game. He’s still there because he really believes in it. He’s a good expert in the subject.

Steph Cruchon: I remember that he was super precise on the Lightning Demo keywords part to bring out a lot of crypto products that existed and especially, how to get inspired by the good things, because there are very good and very bad in this industry. So, to tell us what would be reassuring. And so, yes, it’s very, very interesting.

Jose Rosa: That’s Jan.

Steph Cruchon: With my photos, there are no filters. You really see everything absolutely raw. And then there is José, the boss.

Jose Rosa: You see, I presented the 5 apps and how they inspired social change. In the end, the idea was to say how these apps, all the apps that are there in terms of behavior, because that was what was interesting, not to make a financial product but a product that changes behavior. Because in the main idea, how do you get people to go from saving to investing? In fact, you are trying to change a behavior, do we really want it? So it must be in a broader framework in your everyday behavior. And how you see finance.

The Sprint Challenge: millennials, a new target audience

Steph Cruchon : To understand the context, we’re talking to each other, it’s 2021, etc. When I was a kid, people used to tell me that you put money in a savings account and then your money will grow. And then you’re going to get rich from it. Then, because at the time, there were also interest rates. Now, as we speak, there are no longer any interest rates that are worthwhile, so if you want to hope, etc., you’d better be a little more dynamic. It’s better to be a little more dynamic in the way you save or invest. And it’s clear that there is a general movement towards neo-banks. But in fact, it’s complicated to find because you have to reassure. That’s what’s very, very important. You have to reassure. So yes, I think Swissquote had the advantage of being a Swiss bank. And then all that experience, of course. But you still have to create the right product behind it that will bring the right value, and not be just another revolute like, but bring something a little more differentiated, so it’s really hard to get in. I remember those days, day 1 where we managed to understand and we spent a lot of time exchanging on our personal perspectives. So there you have it, everyone expresses themselves, it’s really important.

Giving a role to developers and engineers during the design sprint

So we can see that there are also people from the technical field who will speak. Yann, the crypto expert, but also the experts, developers, engineers. And that’s super important. I see so many tech projects where engineers are never involved. They only come in at the end of the chain months later, when everything has been decided, they just come in to implement and that’s a huge mistake because these are often people who have an extremely good knowledge of what is possible or not in the market, of how to use the best APIs and the best ways to build. And that’s really a trick, it can really save months on the development of a product if you have engineers and developers who have participated in this, because right away, they’re going to avoid pitfalls and offer you a technology, because they’ve thought it all out in their heads from the start. How are you going to build that?

Jose Rosa: That’s right, Swissquote, we have that engineering strength. We have 300 and something, almost 400 engineers, so developers who know the products well, how the infrastructure is organized and they can tell you that, it may not be a good solution, but they are not the type of people who are going to say no, but who are going to direct you to what is the most efficient, the least efficient. Are you going to put videos in your app, is that enough? Are you going to use in a native app? It will respond well to behaviors. They will know exactly what to do to make your app perform well, last, and so on.

The war room, the importance of having a space for creativity

Steph Cruchon: A successful design sprint will also depend on the space. We do it a lot online because of Covid, we do design sprint online and it works pretty well. But in a more traditional configuration, we’ll come back to that, it’s that you need a creative space that is adapted to bring people and teams together. I think Swissquote made a good investment by saying: we’re going to have a space dedicated to creation. What’s the name again?

Jose Rosa: The design studio.

Steph Cruchon: Exactly. What’s cool for a designer is that you go in and you have the whiteboards like this. The whole wall, you can draw on the whole wall. I think it’s even magnetic. That’s great. It’s not just to look pretty or to decorate or to look innovative. It’s really useful to do this kind of workshop, to bring a lot of people together and it creates an energy, I think, in this place that is cool.

Day 1 - the experience map

Design Sprint - User experience Map

There’s a really interesting part here, which is that we did an exercise called the note and map, everything that was the mapping. Then we asked people to describe their first experiences with neo-banking, which was typically a long time ago, and Tamara, who was quite important I found during this sprint because she really represented the persona of someone who was completely millennial, not very finance-oriented, but who had an interest in it anyway, who wanted to understand and who explained to us in her own words, her understanding of how it should work, according to her. And it was very rich, in fact. We also see Marlena, who is about the same generation. It’s very, very important when you’re doing a sprint, to integrate people close to the persona in the team or the right generation. Then, sometimes, I see workshops that are done with people, very high level decision makers, but who are all 50 years old. It’s complicated to design a product for people who are 22 years old.

Jose Rosa: Exactly, the target. If you don’t have the right people to help you understand the target, they will also say: Oh yes, that’s a very cool idea. But I’m not as excited about it. And then you have to ask yourself why they are less excited at this stage.

Day 2 - Lightning Demo, Crazy 8 and Solution Sketches

Steph Cruchon: we also did a big search during Sprint in the form of Lightning demos, existing products, existing features, things that we found interesting, so we captured them in that form. Now, it’s more like a board on a wall where we would stick the references, but it’s interesting. Now we’re getting into the hard part, which is that we had to imagine our concepts and then we see José, who starts this creative process. And here is maybe if you can comment on the famous crazy 8?

Jose Rosa: How long ago was Crazy 8?

Steph Cruchon: You have 8 minutes.

Jose Rosa: At this point, putting all these ideas in 8 minutes in the 8 screens, it’s quite difficult. But as there are many, many exchanges and we said to ourselves: can it really become something? There, I had already started to think about the idea of spending. How to put your money. Where to put it ? How can I put my money on the left and on the right, but it was very difficult. I think I didn’t even do the 8 screens…

Steph Cruchon: But at the same time, it’s funny because you’ve done 4 or 5 of them, but in the end, they end up in the app, those famous 3 tabs that are at the heart of Yuh App, that’s what’s cool.

Jose Rosa: Yeah, it’s cool, but it gives the right idea. At first it was Now, because it was now what are you doing with your money…in this financial behavior, we know we have to do certain things. The idea was do I really need to invest? Do I spend? What do I do and do I plan, do I save, so it was a bit broad. Fortunately we were able to understand the idea.

Steph Cruchon: Yeah, but actually, I think that’s really part of the heart of it. In the design sprint, we go fast, but it’s not to just go fast. It’s also a way to simplify things. If you have too much time, if you spend months on a project, you will tend to overcomplicate it, add, add things and in the end, you lose this simplicity and immediacy. I think that here, really, we feel it very, very strongly. You had 8 minutes to sketch something and in the end, we find this simplicity in this view that we have in Yuh App. If I show you down here, we really have these 3 tabs here and we find here in terms of sketching. So sometimes it’s very, very good to not overcomplicate it.

Design Sprint Crazy 8 - Yuh bank

Day 3 - Deciding and aligning on the best concepts

So, once we have each imagined these solutions, we find ourselves in day 3 with all the solutions that are displayed on the wall that we see here. I try to find a picture that is not too bad. So, do you remember this part here? These flashy words and skits?

Jose Rosa: Yes, there were. There were some really good ideas that we wanted to do. But the main thing we wanted to find was this kind of killer feature, so everyone was trying to find the killer features, there were so many good ideas that in the end, we found ourselves with a panoply of ideas that we could perhaps use for the next step. It’s really a generator of ideas and good ideas, not just ideas but really good ideas because everybody was involved. They understood exactly what it was doing.

Steph Cruchon: Yes, that’s right, it’s not fair, putting ideas on a post-it note, it’s still pretty advanced stuff. At this point, we had two days to think about our concepts. I think what’s also important to understand is that we’re not going to consult each other when we create ideas. Each person in his own thing and there may be a little different vision, but in the end, it brings richness. There, we see the wall. Indeed, it’s all that. It’s ideas that can become features. And that’s what I think makes the quality of design sprint so great. It’s the quality of what can come out of these ideas. So here we see Paolo extremely convinced, he was enthusiastic. Now we come to the process. Finally, we discover everyone’s ideas, but then we vote. This is also quite important. And this is what you see here, with these green and red dots. And here, we see that we’re coming up with concepts that have been retained and validated.

Design Sprint - Solution Sketches Yuh bank

The Storyboard, the foundations of the prototype

And so, this is what we prototyped afterwards. And then, the last photos were the Sprint of the workshop, and here we arrive at what I would call a little… Here, we are really in a war room. We were almost at NASA, explains José José what we see here.

Jose Rosa: So, in fact, that’s what you’re saying, it’s the war room? Why? Because we’ve already made the pitch. The concept had been validated, the main concepts. And now it was time to go into the details. So if you really want to do it the way you do it, we have to convince the person who is there on the technical side, to say: listen to this idea, it’s very good. So how are we going to do the part? I don’t know how to do it, but you help me and you have to explain it and the sketching part, how to make the first screens and then move on to the computer part. So we must not leave this room without it being clear that this is a feasible idea. Otherwise, we won’t be able to move forward at all.

Steph Cruchon: This is called the story board in a design sprint . It’s a complicated part in general to conduct. And then, there are a lot of people who are in decision-making positions, who are used to working in PowerPoint, putting bullet points, validating figures or things like that. But here, we are really in the concrete, in the hard. That is to say that we have to go from a vision to a tangible product, a product that will then be developed. It’s a very, very complicated part and here, I think that once again, we see that space helped us a lot because you can draw what you have in mind on a whiteboard. I remember there were profiles in the room that were much more critical, so we would draw something and then 2 seconds later they would take the rag and erase. Now you have to do it like that. That’s what’s great about it. It’s this really iterative work that goes very, very fast. Actually, at first, you’re there. You’re kind of lost. You can see the thing starting to take shape. We were three groups. You, I think on the home page. I was on another group, etc. Then since we were in the same space, we went to see what the other groups had. There was some crazy energy, really in that room. I really think that’s where the app was born and we started putting all the pieces together. And then, it’s great because you work with people who are product people or there we see Nicolas, he’s a developer. We all have a pretty good level of abstraction, even if it was drawn in three strokes of a pencil on a whiteboard. Since we’ve been together for several days, we know how it’s going to be done, etc. We can really talk about very precise things with very simple drawings. I really think that’s the power of the thing. By the way, we can say that José you literally finished on your knees.

Design Sprint Storyboard

Jose Rosa: It’s clear, we had to convince the two big guys, Jan and Fabio, who was the person who was really going to take care of the feasibility, the infrastructure part. I had to describe how you were going to do that. And there, I had to get down on my knees to explain the idea and make this pitch.

Steph Cruchon: This is a nice picture. You can really see the whole war room at the end of the Sprint with all the post-it notes, etc. And finally, the final result is in this, in these few screens that are very, very well thought out. And finally, the final result is in this, in these few screens that are very, very well thought out and frankly, when we came out of this, we already had a very, very good idea of what the product looked like.

Design Sprint Storyboard

Prototype and test on the target audience

So maybe I’ll close my slides and then José, if you’d like to explain the rest. How did you get back on track and how did it go these months after this first sprint? And above all, what led to the creation of Yuh App in the end? Because at the time, we didn’t have the name. We really worked on a product.

Jose Rosa: Exactly, the name came after the suite, it was after the design sprint , we would have another 5 days to put it into a prototype. So there, we worked hand in hand with Marina and Young, so the three of us were in a room. I was in charge of the branding part, the UI and the link between the idea I had and what she was developing because there were many things. First of all, they were great designers who were very quick to design. So we had to answer their questions and at the same time, be in the process of making the future of this product.
We built quickly, we were also validated the ideas with the users, we were in Zurich, for these key screens, we had a lot of feedback and as we went along, our main stakeholders, we gave them presentations. So, we said to ourselves that this investment part is going well or it was working, the overview part, what is complex? What is not complex? Is the general idea good? And when we finished this first prototype, when we went to Zurich, I think there were already 6 or 7 people, there were people who were asking themselves: Is this really true? Is it going to exist? So it was really cool.

Design Sprint Yuh dream team

The weeks following the design sprint

So we were like: “There’s already a good feeling, so we took that and we worked on the name. We worked together with Jan and there were a lot of discussions. Because what was Yuh App? It was really an app for the person. So, it’s for you. So you get to use it. There was this idea of Tone of Voice, which would be closer to the target. You can do it, you can use it, anyone can use it. And then we worked with two big agencies to see. We made a pitch because resources are finite in a company and we have lots of projects. There was not just this one, but we worked with a great agency called Nomenta to really help us take User Experience and UI to the next level. And so we developed the branding for that part. The logo came from me, the logo, the design of the card, the idea of handibooking, so it was really, really, really good. And then there was everyone who worked on L’infra. And that was an amazing job.

Scaling the project and the team, while keeping the energy

Steph Cruchon: That’s what’s crazy. Because when you start a project and then you’re in a design sprint , you start with a few people. It’s all very fragile. It’s your project, all it takes is one person saying a bad comment during the user test and then your project, you’re going to stop it or you’re going to rotate it, all that, it’s hyper fragile, and then when we hand over the project, it’s still a few smoldering embers, but afterwards, we had to blow on this fire and afterwards, it’s crazy the extent that it takes. Because how many of you worked on this project, on this product?

Jose Rosa: I think more than 100 people is 100 people.

Steph Cruchon: That’s what we really understand. Impact is what is decided in a room, etc. In the end, it’s developed by 100 people.

Jose Rosa: Yeah, you have to motivate people to give them a little bit of a vision of where they are at a certain point in the project and already, just the developers are saying, we’re going to make a great app that will probably grow. We’ve always been able to do that because we weren’t in the mode: We’re just going to do this. No, it was: we believe in this product and we think it’s good. It’s great, we were always excited and still today we’re super excited. So it got a lot of people excited and a lot of people also tired because it’s a project that pulled everyone and all the sources to get a specific release date and every time, we would add one thing or take one thing away. So, still to this day and I think people dream about Yuh at night. And it just started.

Steph Cruchon: That’s cool, that’s amazing. In fact, if you think about it, how did you manage this transition after the design sprint ? Did you have the path mapped out in your head? Did you know a little bit about the milestones and the timing, how it was going to happen? Or did you just let it happen? Did you just make sure that you went fast with the execution? How did you plan for that?

Jose Rosa: To be honest, we did it quickly, to get straight to the execution. We knew that we needed to find an agency to help us with the UI part and to support the team in terms of product design. So we got together to do this and we knew that the first big stone was what the UI would really look like. And that was three very intense days where I went to Bristol. I got up really early to go to Bristol and we had sessions… I don’t know if you can call it a maxi sprint but it was in three days every two hours we worked hard and presented and worked two hours and presented to get a really good pitch. And at the end of the first day, we had to reassure the stakeholders. So, Jan already, and then Paolo and pictures all the time Whatsapp really in, total flexibility, everything that came out, it was like that.

Steph Cruchon: Right. But I think to develop a product now, you have to be hyper fast, of course, but also hyper transparent about the whole process. Showing, showing, and showing things all the time, that’s also kind of the power of the design sprint, is that you get out of the thing. You already have mock-ups, prototypes to show. Because in fact, if you’re just reassuring people all the time that yes, it’s going somewhere. Yes, we’re making progress. Yes, the money is well invested and it’s interesting to see that you have kept this logic throughout the project. But it was necessary because otherwise, the product doesn’t come out. All it takes is one person coming in and giving negative reviews or saying yes, but you’re sure the budget is well invested and all that, it can stop very, very, very, very quickly. It’s much easier to stop a project than to continue it. So that’s really, really great.

What was the impact of the design sprint?

Steph Cruchon: Where do you think the project would be right now if you hadn’t done the Design Sprint?

Jose Rosa: So, I think it would have been very difficult to get everybody in a room and to have access to the initial buying, I think it would have been very long, I guess, because the power of the design sprint was that everybody was in that place, in the same place and explaining their vision and how they wanted to move forward. And as you say, to reassure and I think that without the design sprint , at that particular moment, because it’s like all the constellations were saying to themselves that this product should be there that day, they were there. Because they had also already seen the value of another design sprint that day, the first one spoke and they saw that it could go quickly. Today, I think we might still be feeling our way around.

Steph Cruchon: Yeah, in the process of analyzing Revolute… how they do…

The role of Postfinance

We didn’t talk about Postfinance’s role, so they weren’t with us in that first sprint. They came in later. How did it go, exactly? The integration of Postfinance into this project. How did you come to co-create this product together?

Jose Rosa: Afterwards, with PostFinance, what was interesting was when we presented the project to them and they already had an idea of wanting to challenge the market. So, when Mark went to see the CEO of La Poste, they were seduced by the project and then there was a lot of back and forth, discussions with people who were going to join the project afterwards.

What is the future of Yuh?

Steph Cruchon: Great. So, what’s the future of Yuh App? Can you already tell us some of the ideas you’re working on or how it’s going to evolve?

Jose Rosa: So Yuh App is going to evolve in a way, where the product has to be very useful for people all the time. So that’s the basis of the product. That’s when you want it to be useful and to be adopted. That’s everyone’s dream. But we’re really going to work in that direction. And for that, we already have a large customer care team in place to respond to everything that happens, that doesn’t happen. And then, as Swissquote likes to explore technology, we’re going to work in a direction where onboarding, we really want it to be secure, but at the same time simple and efficient. The banks that is behind Yuh App, so to vision of things that are very specific and It must follow the regulations. However, we can work with the regulator to see what is possible and show when and how.

Steph Cruchon: I have to say that onboarding, it’s already pretty amazing. I reinstalled revolute a few weeks ago, and Yuh App, I installed it now a week ago. And frankly, it’s as fast as revolute, which is no small thing.

Jose Rosa: The whole process is super fast, but then there are things, for example your first Cashing, you have to make a deposit from a bank that guarantees it’s from a bank, but at some point? If yUH wants to be the first bank that you deposit your money from, that’s the question. So, we really need to see how this process can be as simplified as possible, but secure at the same time. You have to remember security and transparency. And that’s where we’re going. Then, in terms of investment, there is the whole world of investment. We have the big stocks, the big brands, we don’t think there is a name in it. After the brands or small brands that have speculated in it, we didn’t want to give that right away because that wasn’t the goal. So we had to be in it.

Steph Cruchon: That’s what’s cool about Yuh App. It’s that you can actually trade well-known brands. Typically, if I’m looking for Nike, I’m going to be able to trade Nike, with the little logo, etc. Something really reassuring. We know what we’re trading, I really think compared to a lot of other apps, even Swissquote, sometimes it’s certificates with strange names. Here, it’s all very, very clear. It’s great. Well, I think we’re at the end of this hour together, it was great. Great to have you. Thank you so much. I really wish long life to Yuh App.

How did the launch of Yuh go?

Are you happy with the reception? So far, in terms of the launch, it’s gone the way you want?

Jose Rosa: So it went very, very, very, very well. And I can tell you that in terms of onboarding, we passed 10,000 subscribers in less than two weeks, so… And because I think that’s exactly it. The press was expecting it, we got really good press and so far, there’s nothing negative. There are points to improve, that’s clear, it’s not to say that the app is perfect and that’s never the goal, it’s that the app is out there, that people use it and that they give us feedback. But right now, we’re at the top.

Steph Cruchon: Great. Where do we find the product or do we install Yuh App?

Jose Rosa: Appstore, you look for Yuh App, go find it. You can also go to Yuh.com and there, you have all the information about the product, how it works and all that. And then on Android as well, you can go to Google Play and go search and download because it’s great and it has referrals in it. That saves you a lot of stuff.

Steph Cruchon: That’s true, I must say. One thing too, the pricing I really like is that it’s super transparent. It’s super clear. You know what you’re buying, you have conditions and all that. So, in any case, congratulations. Really from the bottom of my heart to see what you’ve managed to do with this product, with all the teams, of course and all that. But it’s really nice to see where you’ve come from and I really wish you long life and good luck.

Jose Rosa: Thank you so much, Steph, thank you so much. And see you soon.