Karma
Built first-ever digital media platform for the next-gen investors and entrepreneurs
Karma is the first and only original programming network for next-generation investors and innovators. Its global audience encompasses those with advanced income and high intellect but limited time and actionable insights.
The platform utilizes primetime-style programming to bring forth highly intelligent storytelling that informs, inspires, grips, motivates, and leads to impact at scale. It is the first-ever alternative investment network for family offices.
Also, it aimed to expand from being a content platform to facilitating financial transactions & smarter investment decisions.
The Opportunity
There was already a basic version 1.0 of Karma Impact when I had started. However, after building the product and marketing it for a year, Karma was not gaining the desired user traction and was getting feedback on the need to improve the site.
The Solution
I, along with my team, decided to re-evaluate Karma’s strategic framework to get product-market fit and revamp the user experience from scratch. Also, we built a UX framework to facilitate expanded content libraries and allow multiple financial firms to do financial selling on the platform.
The Impact I Created
As the Head of UX, my role was to consult with the in-house team, build this product under a tight deadline and budget, and turn the fortune around because version 1.0 had failed.
I had full access to the C-Suite leadership, including the CEO from the multibillionaire Hinduja family, and collaborated with an 8-person team that comprised 2 product management heads, 2 designers, 1 content writer, 1 project manager & 2 marketing strategists.
What I helped accomplish
Optimized the design process timeline by 25% using Joyful Design Process
Helped achieve a 5x bump in user traffic on the website after launch
Improved team collaboration & engagement and helped achieve the best outcomes using joyful methods from my toolkit
Defined, refined, and improved product vision and value proposition by collaborating with Karma leadership
Set a foundation of solid design principles and a design vision for future growth
Enabled transparency, alignment, and contact awareness among the stakeholders throughout the product redesign lifecycle
Delivered user-centric & business-friendly product solutions by implementing prioritization processes
How I helped accomplish it
Led extensive user research to test and validate product needs and ideas
Collaborated with the product management team to frame the research objectives, define the approach, develop a prototype, prepare a moderator guide and drive research with the team from analysis to insights
Spearheaded the project scoping to present the final design strategy and prototype
Led the product idea transformation into actionable concepts while considering the financial implications and the overall business objectives
Owned the full design process that resulted in timely, detailed, and polished deliverables
Guided the team to define a target state customer journey while highlighting key areas of improvement and innovation opportunities
Planned, designed & led initiatives like cross-disciplinary idea generation, client co-creation sessions & workshops with cross-functional leadership
As per Forrester, every $1 invested in user experience design yields a return of $100, i.e., 9,900% ROI. We leveraged such metrics to highlight the value of design, creating design awareness and eventual design maturity.
The process:
Discover and Define: Business interviews, user personas, empathy maps, user interviews, user journey: media consumption behavior and action map, comparative analysis, value proposition, UX strategy with problem and goal definitions, feature list and use cases, feature prioritization, and analysis. Leading the product design team, my goal was to go beyond what users say they like and dislike to understand how consuming the Karma content fits into their lives.
Ideate and Refine: Co-creation workshops, white-boarding sessions, storyboarding, flows, concept explorations, and evaluation.
Create and Adjust: Wireframes, site map, visual designs, prototype, and testing.
Deliver and Release: Style guide and final files delivered for development
Style guide and final files delivered for development
Despite the effective redesign, the team decided to pivot the business model once more to reduce the video production overhead and incorporate more printed work into the product. The product is live at https://karmaimpact.com/
What people I worked with have to say
"Himanshu and I worked on a project together where he took ownership of all aspects of the UX process from discovery to design under a tight timeframe. When I learned we might be working together I was excited to have him on the team because of his great reputation, and the experience of working together exceeded my expectations.
Having Himanshu lead our UX process brought a level of creativity, design execution, and collegial professionalism that made every day working together a pleasure. He's not only great at his job but also a great person to work with on a day-to-day basis.
I will definitely plan to work with him again at the first chance I am given, and anyone who has an opportunity to have Himanshu work on their team should jump at the chance. Thanks, Himanshu!"
Alex Christison, Co-Head of Product & Agile, Trunk Digital
"Working with Himanshu was a joy and yielded great results. We're really happy with the designs he submitted for our website, which are both gorgeous and intuitive. He also made all of our working and brainstorming sessions fun and knew how to get people involved."