Startup CRM

Startup & Investor CRM Platform

I brought contacts, meetings and messaging into a location-based workspace that connects startups, brokers and investors.

SaaS
Web App
UX/UI
User Journey Mapping

Overview
Lead Product Designer
User personas, product structure, founder and investor onboarding, and the design system.
Team: 1 PM, 2 engineers, 1 user researcher
Problem
Outreach lost context across tools
Founders and investors tracked outreach separately in Notion and Sheets. Missing status and rejection records led to repeated outreach to the same declined leads.
Solution
Matching and follow-up in one place
Connect regional matching with outreach status and rejection reasons so both sides can decide what to do next.

Matching, outreach and decisions

Regional matches. The home view defaults to the founder's region.
Outreach status. Labels such as “asked for intro” and “pitched, awaiting answer” show where a conversation stands.
Recorded decisions. Rejection reasons remain available when planning the next round.

Founder home surface showing regional matching board — Regional matching board.

Founder pipeline with verb-led status states — Regional matching board.

Keeping deal activity private

Cut from the build · Public founder leaderboard

What we tried. A public ranking of founders by activity and warm introductions.

Why we changed it. Investors did not want deal activity made public, and activity rankings did not indicate funding fit. We made visibility private and dependent on consent from both sides.

From interviews to a working MVP

27: Interviews, founders and investors
3: Directions explored, one shipped
5 mo: Kickoff to a working MVP

Investor contact card with thesis, check size, and outreach status — Investor contact card and founder outreach form.

Founder outreach form with verb-led status pickers — Investor contact card and founder outreach form.

Design the empty region first

Two more months

I designed the matched board before the empty region. Founders still needed a useful workspace when no investors were available. Next time, I would start with a standalone outreach CRM, then add matching and referrals as a region grows¹.

- Tidjane