Dreams is a fintech app helping people save toward personal goals. They wanted to grow through their existing users rather than traditional marketing - so they brought us in to figure out how. I planned and facilitated a four-day design sprint, moving the team from open questions to a tested prototype ready for implementation: from expert interviews and "how might we" framing, through sketching and concept evaluation, to storyboarding, prototyping, and remote user testing.
What we tested
Two directions came out of the sprint: one built around a monetary incentive, one around gamification. Both let a user invite a friend and both used the same 50 kr reward mechanic, but the framing was different: money upfront vs. unlocking something.
What we learned
The monetary-reward concept resonated most, clear, motivating, transparent. The gamification concept generated intrigue but lacked relevance in a financial context. A few sharper insights: referrals worked better when users could see what friends were saving for; personal messages outperformed pre-written ones; people preferred dropping a link into an existing chat over a scripted invite.
Outcome
Dreams launched the referral program in the Norwegian market. The sprint methodology was adopted into their internal ways of working, and our team was invited back to present the method to the full organisation.