SubMerge
Making subscriptions beneficial for consumers, not just companies.
Co-Founder, Lead Product Designer
February 2022 - May 2022
Figma, Slack
User research
Wireframes
Prototyping
Alongside 2 developers and 1 product manager, I co-founded a startup called "SubMerge," an all-inclusive subscription management platform for college students. As the lead product designer, I designed the wireframes, design system, branding, and pitch deck for the product.
The Problem
Subscriptions are increasingly expensive for customers.
The global subscription market size is estimated to be $1.5 trillion in 2025, an increase from $650 billion in 2020. U.S. customers increased monthly spending from $237 to $273 on subscriptions from 2018 to 2021.
35%
of Americans are unknowingly paying for subscriptions.
$133+
is spent on subscriptions per month than customers estimated.
Target User Segment
We decided to focus on subscriptions for college students specifically because of 3 key reasons:
High Subscription Use
The Process
We conducted 20+ user interviews and identified several key pain points specific to college students' experience with subscriptions.
Pain Points:
Students often handle shared subscription costs separately (e.g. Venmo/Zelle), but sometimes forget.
Students aren't aware of student-only subscriptions and don't take advantage of them.
Many SaaS tools students rely on have large learning curves, and there isn't a way to share knowledge of these common tools.
"I share subscriptions with friends, so I have to Venmo request them but sometimes I forget."
"I don't know all the subscriptions out there that benefit students. What if I learn about them only after I graduate? It'll be too late."
"I have a hard time learning the software sometimes, and I feel discouraged figuring it out on my own."
Competitive Analysis
We also did a competitive analysis to learn more about existing subscription products on the market and look for opportunities to create a strong value proposition for SubMerge. We found that competitors either exclusively focused on tracking subscriptions or sharing subscriptions. Additionally, they didn't focus on the student experience with subscriptions.
User Flow
I also created a user flow to outline how the user would navigate the website. This provided a basic guideline for designing key wireframes and later, prototyping user interactions.
How SubMerge Works
Dashboard information
Through our user interviews, we were able to extrapolate the data users said would be most helpful to manage subscriptions, such as current subscriptions, due payments, and costs saved. We presented this information on the dashboard, the user's central hub to track subscriptions and relevant analytics, so it was easy to find.
Learnings
Collaborate with other designers.
One of the best parts about this project was working alongside other students that were also creating their own start-ups.
Even though I was the sole designer for my team, I met with designers from other teams to get feedback on how to improve both the user interface and user experience. By collaborating with seasoned designers, I was able to rapidly improve my design skills.
Make decisions quickly.
The co-founders and I definitely experienced decision paralysis when coming up with the best features to solve this problem.
I realized that failing is really an opportunity to improve. When we received feedback from the venture capitalists during Demo Day, it gave me insights on how to improve our product in the future. Being stuck on making the "perfect" decision isn't nearly as helpful as iterating and getting feedback.
