EMPLOYEE BONUSES
Sending a bonus should take minutes, not spreadsheets. The hardest part wasn't the interface. It was what Legal taught us.
Client
TIKIN
Year
2025
Category
FINTECH
Role
Product Manager & End-to-End Designer (0→1)
Companies wanted to pay employee bonuses quickly and cleanly. In practice it meant spreadsheets, emails and manual reconciliation.
Employees had no simple way to receive the money and use it. Tikin wanted to turn that manual process into a product.
Product Manager and end-to-end designer, from zero to launch. I worked with client companies, Legal, Finance and Engineering, and I owned the problem, the MVP scope and the whole experience for both the company and the employee.
Companies were losing time and control, and nobody had designed for the employee.
The biggest risk wasn't visible yet. Without proper invoices and the employee's explicit acceptance of what the bonus could be used for, there was real legal and tax risk.
/// 3 DECISIONS
01 — Don't make employees create an account before receiving money.
Why: Asking for sign-up before showing the money is where people drop off. The bonus is the reason to sign up.
Trade-off: We created accounts on people's behalf, using their phone number, so identity and consent had to come later in the flow.
Result: On first login, the employee completes registration and the bonus is already there.
02 — Review before sending, because money mistakes are expensive.
Why: Once money moves, fixing a wrong amount or recipient is slow, costly and hurts trust.
Trade-off: One extra step for HR and Finance on every send.
Result: Recipients, amounts, totals, fees and bonus category are checked before any money moves.
03 — Legal changed the product.
Why: We interviewed ~10 companies and designed a direction around speed. Then Legal showed us we only had half the story. Companies needed proper invoices. Employees needed to explicitly confirm receipt and accept what the bonus could be spent on (for example, food).
Trade-off: We rewrote the first flow and delayed the first release.
Result: An MVP that is compliant, invoiceable, and ready for cash-out and a debit card without redesigning the core journey.
Bulk and individual bonus sends.
A review screen before any money moves.
Automatic accounts created from the phone number.
Employee acceptance by bonus category.
Company invoices and period reports for accounting.
Employees: 100% of the target cohort used the product.
Business: 5 new clients and +$250k ARR.
Operations: Manual bonus sends were eliminated.
I'd bring Legal into discovery, not after the first direction. Their requirements shaped the product more than any interview. I'd also accept "almost any file format" for bulk uploads from the start, because asking companies to use our template was the first friction they hit.
