How UX/UI Upgrades & Brand Strategy took this fintech app from startup to acquisition

“We have been blown away by the capability and experience of the webuild team. Over time webuild has become an extension of our team, taking ownership of all product and UX design requirements of Quadpay. ”

Brad Lindenberg

CEO/Co-founder

4.8 App Star rating & 2+ million users thanks to stand-alone strategy and design

fintech BNPL tool

Post-IPO

$893.6M raised

founded 2013

Zip (formerly Quadpay) is a fintech app that allows payments to be split into four installments. They're part of a larger "buy now, pay later" movement (BNPL) that's an alternative to credit cards.

No credit impact, no interest as long as you pay your installments on time. As recently as 2020, 37% of consumers report using a BNPL service.

A Note

We started working with the Quadpay team in 2020. They were later acquired by Zip in 2021, so you’ll see work from both brands represented below.

Quadpay product family.

Problem

Quadpay came to us for help with their product and marketing design. They specifically requested UX/UI upgrades that would help them stand out against competitors like Afterpay, Affirm, Klarna, and Sezzle. As we worked together, it became apparent that we got along pretty great, and what started as a singular, specific ask morphed into more opportunities to iterate and optimize, well, everything.

Solution

After combining their vision and existing product with our design and brand strategy expertise, Quadpay has seen tremendous growth. Over two million users have downloaded their apps and use their consumer products. They have a 4.8 App Star rating. Not to mention, they’ve been acquired by Zip, an Australian-based fintech company of the same nature. More on that later!

How Combining UX/UI Expertise & Brand Strategy
made this product
acquisition-ready

To get to that point, Quadpay not only needed to up their UX/UI game; they quickly realized they needed to totally adapt their brand, too. They knew it was crucial they started speaking more directly to their two core audiences: “lifestyle optimizers” (consumers) and “momentum brands” (retailers). They didn’t know where to start.

We gladly jumped in and implemented our specialized marketing strategies to help them elevate and adapt their brand. It was important that the brand better fit their target audiences, so we helped them explore a wide range of branding options that would help them achieve that goal. From typography to color palettes, brand voice to icons and graphics, nothing was off the table.

Re-defining the Quadpay brand for their new stage of growth meant helping them fit in with their younger, fashion-forward consumer through elevated, rounded, and softer brand assets.

Original icon design to match Quadpay’s empathetic approach.

We delivered 4 distinct brand directions with different options for logo, icon, color, marketing, and other collateral.

Creating a relevant identity

Ultimately, Quadpay ended up needing an entire brand refresh: a trendier, fashion-forward, and relevant identity. Working with them to get everything just right positioned Quadpay in an area of the market where they became widely recognized. Cohesiveness and collaboration settled in place, giving everyone a little more stability.

Next on the list was catapulting their brand recognition. The key to turning things around in this area came through product enhancements and updating and releasing new features. In order for Quadpay to grow, it was critical that they offer new and exciting differentiators.

Quadpay identity guidelines.

We utilized and leveraged data to help them shape and define what these new features would do, then helped release them into the world. Our tried-and-true method was applied: test, learn, and rapidly iterate and optimize. And we had fun doing it. 💪

A clear plan shows users how to efficiently pay their quarterly charges.

During onboarding, users are asked simple, non-judgmental questions.

Getting acquired

A great design refresh (and of course, the incredible product machine and deep thinking of the Quadpay team) brought Quadpay to the next level. In August 2020, shortly after our work finished with them, they hit a major milestone. Monthly transaction volume exceeded $70 million (or 600% increase on July 2019).

Those numbers were hard for other market players to ignore. In September 2020, Australian fintech giant Zip acquired Quadpay for $296 million. Quadpay became a key part of their North American strategy.

Within the year, Quadpay fully merged into the Zip brand. Zip continues to reach new heights within their new American market. By May 2023 Zip had a $1.5b valuation, and reached their Series C round of funding (like our client ClickUp ).

We’re proud of the role webuild played in this journey, and can’t wait to see Zip continue to thrive.

By putting ownership and autonomy in the hands of users through spend calculation features, we encouraged user independence and further purchasing.

Incentives for users to continue to utilize Quadpay post-onboarding were embedded at organic points throughout the app. This included time-bound deals (left screen), clear user education on tool functionality and features (middle screen), and clear order summaries that illustrated the value proposition of BNPL (right screen). These screens also demonstrate the evolution from Quadpay to Zip UI, a fun challenge which our team was proud to kickoff post-acquisition.

Partnership programs like Zip for Microsoft Edge continued to bolster this tool’s footprint in the marketplace.

While Quadpay/Zip is firstly a D2C fintech experience, B2B partnerships were a core component of their product growth strategy. No one knows better than our team that if you want to pitch your product to the big fish, your design needs to be top-notch. Slick partnership videos, like the ones we created above, helped paint the vision for future profitable collaborations.

Beyond B2B video assets, our videography and animation team faced an even greater go-to-market challenge. How would consumers know how to use Quadpay/Zip?

We took digital design into the real world with these training videos, which played on repeat on tablet devices in stores which supported Zip payments.

A revamped Zip Branded Design

Hover to reveal new design

This digital tool had to function in the real world. Easy, in-store cards within a user’s digital wallet made that happen. See how we took that tool from one brand identity to the next post-acquisition