Rooted in the belief that loyalty should feel effortless, Benjamin transforms everyday spending into rewarding experiences, merging the trust of card-linked cashback with the simplicity of no-hassle design.

Benjamin is a US-based fintech product designed to strengthen loyalty between local businesses and their customers through effortless, card-linked rewards. In its earliest version, the product focused on delivering cashback when users shopped at stores—no coupons, no hassle. The MVP was built to feel trustworthy, simple, and rewarding, laying the groundwork for what would later evolve into a broader “money moments” experience.

When I joined Benjamin, there was no product—just a vision. A small team believed that helping users earn cashback from everyday purchases could foster loyalty between local businesses and their customers in the U.S.

My role was clear: I was to bring this idea to life from the ground up. As the only designer, I worked closely with the founders, engineers, and marketing team to shape an experience around a core mechanism—cashback made possible through card linking.

We launched just four months later, in January 2023, with a simple goal: help users earn cashback by linking their cards and shopping. By January 2024, after a successful seed raise of $5.5M and we began expanding that vision, turning everyday moments like playing games or scanning receipts into meaningful earning opportunities.

This wasn’t just about building a cashback app. We were trying to create a behavior change:

• For customers, trust a brand-new app with your card.
• For businesses, believe in a system that would drive loyalty and not just transactions.

There were three main challenges:

Benjamin’s MVP had one mission: make earning cashback feel effortless and trustworthy. But asking users to link their bank cards wasn’t trivial—we had to earn their confidence from the very first screen. I led research into what drives engagement with cashback apps and uncovered three essentials: clarity, speed of reward, and trust. The core experience was simple:

• Seamless card-linking during sign-up
• Shop at a store (in-person or online)
• Earn cashback (and get notified)
• Withdraw with ease

Early feedback revealed a major blocker: only 30% of users were successfully linking their cards. To fix this, I redesigned the flow:

• Explained the value of card-linking clearly
• Used visual guidance for entering bank credentials
• Prevented users from skipping key steps
• Added instant support within the flow

This led to:

• 90% card-linking success rate
• Fewer customer complaints
• Higher first-week engagement

In the end, trust wasn’t just something we hoped for—we designed it into every interaction.

After launch, we noticed a critical gap: users weren’t finding the Offers tab—and without that, they weren’t earning. It wasn’t a product issue. It was a visibility issue. I led a redesign of the home screen to guide users into action from the moment they opened the app:

• Surfaced personalized offers directly on the homepage
• Highlighted limited-time deals to spark urgency
• Visualized progress toward reward milestones

We didn’t stop there. To make earning feel more dynamic, we introduced: a browser extension that surfaced cashback opportunities while users shopped, a Gaming Hub that rewarded users for playing partner games, a Loyalty Program that increased rewards based on engagement, among others. These updates turned occasional users into daily participants—leading to:

• 50% increase in daily active users
• 30% boost in Gaming Hub activity
• 70% of users advancing in loyalty tiers within one month
• 60% increase in monthly revenue

By making rewards easier to find—and more fun to earn—we turned discovery into habit.

From the first tap to the final cashout, every detail was designed to make the experience feel effortless and rewarding. It wasn’t just about functionality—it was about earning trust and turning one-off users into loyal ones. And it worked. A few months after launch, we saw retention numbers that outperformed even our most optimistic projections:

• Day 1 Retention: 88%
• Day 7 Retention: 51%
• Day 14 Retention: 40%
• Day 30 Retention: 30%

As the sole designer on the team, I moved between roles—researcher, prototyper, UI/UX designer, and advocate—guiding the product from zero to a live app that fit seamlessly into users’ routines. What started as a vision became a product people returned to, again and again. And in the process, I learned what it really takes to design for behavior change, sustained growth, and human connection.