The Intuit Idea Jam is an annual competition held at the Claremont Colleges. Competing in small groups, students have the opportunity to ideate, design, and prototype a product to solve a specific problem. This year's theme centered on creating a solution to enable income predictability for self-employed individuals. My team designed Prophit, a mobile personal finance assistant.
Problem
In the United States, there are over 15 million self-employed individuals, who, in turn, provide jobs for an additional 30 million workers. As a result, the self-employed industry accounts for 30% of the national workforce. Unlike employed workers, self-employed individuals often face greater unpredictability and variability in their incomes.
Goal
Create a product that enables increased predictability of future work and/or income for self-employed individuals
User Research
Before ideating possible solutions, my group wanted to first understand our target customers' pain points. We interviewed 12 self-employed individuals in a variety of industries, including agriculture, food & drink, manual labor, professional services, retail, and ridesharing. Interviewees were asked questions about their typical day of work, sources of revenue, usual costs and expenditures, as well as their method for tracking finances.
Slide Deck
