Overview
This project involved designing a digital platform for trading unlisted shares, ESOPs, and pre-IPO opportunities for SN Capital. The existing process relied heavily on manual coordination, making transactions slow, fragmented, and difficult to scale.
I was responsible for the end-to-end product design, from understanding the existing trading workflow and defining the product strategy to designing the final user interface. The outcome was a complete web platform concept designed to streamline operations and create a more structured and transparent trading experience for investors.
The problem
"Unlisted stock trading relied on manual operations, leading to delays, low transparency, and a fragmented investor experience."
Unlisted stock transactions were being managed through manual processes, creating inefficiencies, delays, and limited transparency for both users and the business. Investors lacked a clear and structured way to explore opportunities, track transactions, and build confidence in their decisions. The absence of a centralized digital system made the overall experience fragmented and operationally dependent.
Objective
The objective was to create a centralized digital platform that brings structure and transparency to unlisted stock trading, making it easier for investors to explore opportunities and buy or sell shares.
Final design
Let's explore the full story
I approached the project by
Exploring
Understanding the problem space, business needs, and market landscape.
Structuring
Mapping workflows, defining information architecture, and designing system logic.
Strategizing
Aligning user needs with business goals and defining the product direction.
Designing
Crafting high-fidelity interfaces, interactions, and scalable design systems.
#EXPLORING
Talking to the stakeholders
Before opening Figma, I spent time speaking with the founder to understand how the business currently operated and what problem they believed the platform needed to solve.
The initial framing was straightforward:
“We need a place where people can buy and sell unlisted shares online.”
While simple on the surface, it quickly became clear that building the platform would require structuring a complex transaction process rather than just designing a trading interface.
Together with the stakeholders, we aligned on three outcomes for the platform:
• Increase investor conversion
• Improve trust signals for investors
• Reduce manual operational workload
What was actually happening before
To design the platform, I first needed to understand how transactions were being handled before any product existed. Through conversations with the team, I mapped the typical workflow of an unlisted stock trade.
The process relied heavily on manual coordination between investors, relationship managers, and operations teams. Communication happened across multiple channels, and the progress of a transaction was often tracked internally rather than through a structured system.
Key Observation
Transactions relied heavily on manual coordination.
Communication happened across multiple channels.
There was no centralized system to track deal progress.
Understanding this workflow helped establish a clear baseline of how deals were currently being managed before designing a digital platform.
Competitive landscape
To understand the market, I reviewed platforms in the unlisted shares space such as Planify, UnlistedZone, UnlistedKart, and Atum Capital, along with Groww and Zerodha as UX benchmarks for investment platforms.
What I observed
Different platforms focus on different strengths
Research depth, price transparency, and relationship-driven brokerage are handled separately across products.
UX maturity varies across platforms
Modern investment apps emphasize simplicity and guided flows, while unlisted share platforms tend to be more information-heavy.
Trust is a recurring theme
Platforms consistently highlight pricing visibility, research, and credibility to support investor decision-making.
Opportunity
Design a platform that brings together clarity, usability, and a structured transaction experience in one place.
What the research told me
After analyzing stakeholder inputs, existing workflows, and competitor platforms, a few patterns became clear.
Discovery exists, but conversion is broken
Many users visit the website to check rates, but very few move forward to contact the team (~1–5%), indicating a major drop-off between interest and action.
The market lacks a structured trading experience
Current transactions rely heavily on calls, manual negotiation, and document exchanges, making the process slow and operationally dependent.
Unlisted share platforms lag behind modern fintech UX
While platforms like Groww and Zerodha have set strong UX standards in investing, most unlisted share platforms still rely on basic listing-style interfaces rather than guided transaction flows.
Transparency is critical for investor confidence.
Pricing clarity, share availability, and transaction visibility repeatedly emerged as key concerns for investors exploring unlisted shares.
These insights helped shape how the product needed to be structured.
#STRUCTURING
Mapping the new flow
Before designing any screens, I mapped the trade lifecycle to understand how transactions currently happen and how the platform could structure the experience.
The existing workflow relied on multiple human handoffs, with investors depending on the operations team to move deals forward. Instead of removing these operational steps entirely, the goal was to structure them within the product so the experience feels seamless for users.
This lifecycle became the foundation for the platform’s transaction architecture.
Who I was designing for
The platform primarily serves two participants in the unlisted share marketplace: Buyers and Sellers.
Understanding their goals and interactions helped shape how the transaction flow and product structure were designed.
Buyers (Investors)
Buyers visit the platform to discover and invest in unlisted shares of private companies.
Their key goals include:
Exploring available investment opportunities.
Evaluating company information and pricing.
Confirming quantity and deal terms.
Completing the purchase securely
Sellers
Sellers typically include ESOP holders, early investors, or individuals looking to liquidate their shares before a company goes public.
Their objectives include:
Listing available shares.
Finding interested buyers.
Agreeing on transaction terms.
Completing the share transfer process
With these roles defined, the next step was structuring how information and actions would be organized within the platform.
Information architecture
The platform needed to support a high-value financial transaction without overwhelming users with too many choices at once.
To reduce cognitive load, the product was structured so that decisions unfold sequentially rather than in parallel, guiding users through discovery, evaluation, and transaction.
User flows
With the product structure defined, the next step was mapping how buyers and sellers would move through the platform to complete a transaction.
The flows were designed around the trade lifecycle, ensuring that each stage of the process - from discovery to settlement - is clearly structured within the product.
Buyer flow
Seller flow
In addition to the core trading journeys, the platform also required flows for essential account and compliance actions.
Sign-up flow, Login flow, KYC flow.
# STRATEGIZING
Product direction
The research made it clear that the challenge was not simply designing a trading interface, but structuring a process that currently relied heavily on manual coordination.
The platform needed to move beyond being a rate reference website and become a system where investors could discover opportunities, initiate transactions, and track deal progress with confidence.
This meant focusing on three outcomes:
Increasing conversion from passive browsing to active transactions.
Improving transparency around pricing and transaction status.
Reducing operational dependency while preserving necessary verification steps
Key product decisions
What I intentionally didn't build
No live negotiation
Avoid complex moderation and trust risks
No market sentiment signals
Prevent artificial FOMO in investment decisions
No AI recommendations (yet)
Meaningful recommendations need real data
No advanced trading analytics
Focus on clarity rather than complex tools
#DESIGNING
The Design system
To maintain consistency across the platform, a small set of reusable styles and components was created to support the product interface.
Designing the product experience - Key screens
The following screens represent the core product experience - from discovering opportunities to completing and managing investments.
Explore page - Discover opportunities
Investors needed a clear way to browse available unlisted shares while also guiding new users through the onboarding process.
The explore page adapts based on user state. New users are encouraged to complete KYC before initiating transactions, while active investors see portfolio insights and discovery tools such as IPO calendar, screener, and market movers.
This structure allows the page to support both first-time exploration and ongoing investment activity.
Stock detail page - Evaluate an investment
Once a user discovers a company, they need enough information to confidently decide whether to buy or sell shares.
The stock detail page consolidates key information including price trends, company fundamentals, order book data, and risk disclosures. A contextual transaction panel allows users to initiate buy or sell orders directly from the same screen.
Surfacing transaction fees, settlement timelines, and risk disclosures within the same view helps users make informed investment decisions without leaving the page.
Screener - Compare opportunities
Investors evaluating unlisted shares often compare multiple companies based on sector, valuation, and minimum investment requirements.
The screener provides structured filtering across sector, price range, market cap, and availability, allowing users to narrow down opportunities quickly.
This enables investors to move from broad discovery to targeted evaluation without manually browsing each company.
Order status - Track transaction progress
Unlisted share transactions involve multiple stages and manual verification steps, which can create uncertainty for investors.
The order status page surfaces the entire transaction lifecycle, showing the current stage of the deal and expected timelines. Buyers and sellers see different lifecycle stages reflecting their role in the transaction.
By making the process visible, the platform reduces ambiguity and builds confidence during settlement.
Portfolio dashboard - Manage investments
After completing transactions, investors need a clear view of their holdings and overall portfolio performance.
The portfolio dashboard provides a consolidated overview of total portfolio value, returns, and individual holdings. Supporting analytics such as sector allocation and top holdings help users understand how their investments are distributed.
This transforms the platform from a transaction tool into an investment management interface.
Expected impact
Since the platform is currently under development, the impact is evaluated based on how the new system addresses the operational and user experience challenges identified during research.
The product introduces a structured digital workflow for unlisted share trading, replacing a process that previously relied heavily on manual coordination.
Key improvements include:
• Clear transaction lifecycle - Investors can track deal progress instead of waiting without visibility.
• Faster onboarding - DigiLocker-based KYC reduces verification friction.
• Improved discovery - Structured listings and screener tools make it easier to explore opportunities.
• Operational efficiency - Structured flows reduce the manual coordination previously required from the operations team.
Together, these changes aim to improve investor confidence, conversion rates, and operational scalability as the platform grows.
Challenges
Structuring a non-standard transaction flow
Unlike public stock trading, unlisted share transactions involve negotiation, verification, and delayed settlement. Designing a flow that works for both buyers and sellers, while keeping it simple and understandable, was a key challenge.
Balancing automation with operational reality
While the goal was to create a seamless digital experience, several steps still required manual intervention from the operations team. The challenge was to structure these steps within the product without exposing unnecessary complexity to users.
Designing clear information hierarchy
The platform deals with dense financial data - pricing, order book, company fundamentals, and transaction details. Prioritizing what to show and how to present it clearly, without overwhelming users, was critical.
What I learned
The biggest insight from this project wasn't about design. It was about what users in high-stakes financial contexts actually need.
They said they wanted better prices. More stocks. Lower fees. What they actually needed was enough confidence to act on information they already had. The design's job wasn't to give them more - it was to make the existing information trustworthy enough to act on.
Everything else - wallet-first architecture, Browse-First KYC, outcome-based color system, visible verification progress - traced back to that.
Trust is the product. The interface is just how it gets delivered.
Thank You!
