Andre Nader

There are small optimizations that can really improve the conversion rates of your payment page. Many of them can be found by actually going through your payment flow on as many devices as possible. Focus on how the default behavior of each form field behaves. When you click into a number field, does the correct numeric keyboard come up? Is there automatic progression to the next field after entering information? When there are errors, is the error language clear to the user how to correct their mistake? Is it easy to know what the consumer needs to do to get to the next step? Sometimes the progression buttons are hidden in corners, think about where a users fingers/mouse naturally are at each progression.

Being aware of your irrational mind when it comes to making financial decisions. We have a strong tendency to evaluate all financial decisions under the same lens. A 10% sale on avocados at the grocery store is the same or sometimes more important than a 10% savings on a recurring internet expense. You see the avocado sale more often so you spend more of your time on the decision. While the 10% change on such a small amount will be meaningless in the long run vs a 10% reduction in a larger recurring purchase.

When building FinTech products it is important to put yourself in your customers shoes. You are potentially asking for some of their most sensitive financial data. Your customers need an extra level of trust from you that they may not need for other consumer websites. Thinking through how you can uniquely give them confidence that the data they give to you is secure will lead to better outcomes. This trust can come from clear language into how data is used/stored, 3rd party connections, and validation from other companies or people who use and trust your products.

While asset allocation has been touched upon, another area to consider is Asset Location. Asset location is all about deciding where in your portfolio to hold different asset classes. This is very important because it is one of the few ways you can gain "tax alpha" simply by making a few small changes. Holding tax ineffecient assets like Bonds and Reits in tax sheltered accounts like IRA's and 401ks can lower your lifetime tax burden. The mix of different tax efficiency on different assets combined with the different tax advantages of different types of investment accounts is why Asset Location matters “research has shown effective asset location strategies can add 20-50+ basis points of "free" value to annual returns”.

Always focus on the goal of any analysis. Rarely will anyone care the tool that was used to derive the insights. Ive seen even the most advanced analysis pulled from complex pipelines end up just getting summarized via SQL with the final calculations/visualizations happening in Google Sheets. Tools are just tools.