MyManifest
A fintech startup came to JetRuby with an ambitious concept: create a platform that brings together the many fragmented parts of a client’s financial life in one place. What began as a prototype request evolved into a broader product discovery effort that helped shape a clearer, more focused, and investor-ready product vision.
Technologies
Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Financial Aggregation APIs, ATTOM API, Alloy, Unstract, Background Processing Infrastructure, Cloud-Native Architecture
Industry
Fintech
Engagement model
Solution architecture & custom development
Platform
Web Platform
Introduction
The client’s original goal was to create a clickable prototype for investor presentations. The idea was to demonstrate how a unified platform could support financial planning across banking, investments, insurance, tax, real estate, and other critical areas of a client’s financial life.
As the engagement progressed, it became clear that the real challenge was not only visualizing the product, but also defining how it should work in practice. The scope expanded into product thinking, workflow design, architecture definition, and prioritization of a realistic day-one MVP.
The challenge
The initial concept was centered around a single universal experience for the end client. But once we started breaking down the product logic, it became clear that the platform had to support much more than an individual dashboard. It had to account for households, multiple user roles, collaboration with financial professionals, data ownership, visibility rules, and the balance between human guidance and automated workflows.
That complexity made a straightforward prototype insufficient. Before moving into delivery, the product needed clearer structure, sharper priorities, and realistic boundaries for what should belong in the first version.
Our approach
We helped the client turn a broad idea into a more focused product concept grounded in real user scenarios. Through research, persona thinking, and a jobs-to-be-done approach, we reworked the product vision into something more practical, more differentiated, and more aligned with how trust-based financial tools are actually used.
Our work focused on making complexity visible and actionable. Together with the client, we broke down user scenarios, identified contradictions, prioritized the most valuable flows, and removed unclear or risky ideas from the initial scope to sharpen the MVP.
Product architecture
Once the product logic was defined, we translated it into structured user flows, system behavior, and architectural boundaries. The architecture was designed as a direct reflection of product decisions, not as an isolated technical exercise.
The resulting approach emphasized scalability, modularity, configurability, compliance readiness, and resilience to incomplete real-world data. We also defined a more realistic day-one scope, intentionally deferring some scenarios to future iterations in order to support faster testing and a more controlled rollout.
Financial data aggregation
A critical part of the platform was the financial data aggregation layer. During discovery, we evaluated multiple providers and uncovered practical constraints that could affect both workflows and the overall product experience, including inconsistent data structures, partial data availability, regulatory limitations, and gaps in transaction or investment data.
To address these realities, we designed the system to support hybrid aggregation, document and statement parsing, provider isolation layers, and data normalization and validation pipelines. This made the concept more robust and better suited for real-world financial infrastructure.
The research covered key capabilities, including:
- secure bank account linking
- financial account retrieval
- joint account ownership detection
- transaction history ingestion
- transaction categorization
- financial data enrichment
Proof of concept development
The final deliverable was a clickable prototype built around the most validated user stories and the clearest expressions of the product’s value. It gave the client a tangible way to communicate the concept to investors while also serving as a practical tool for product alignment and future testing.
Although the PoC was intentionally focused on a narrower day-one audience, the design system and architecture were created to support future expansion. That allowed the product to stay focused in the present while remaining flexible for future capabilities and user types.
Key outcomes of the PoC
- validated financial data aggregation workflows
- created a reusable integration foundation
- reduced technical risks and uncertainty
- defined the development roadmap and WBS
- demonstrated the platform’s value to investors and stakeholders
This phase significantly reduced technical uncertainty and accelerated the next development stage.
Results
What began as a prototype request evolved into a much clearer product direction. By the end of the engagement, the client had not just a clickable PoC, but a more focused MVP scope, a stronger product narrative, and an architecture designed for real-world iteration.
1. Sharper day-one scope
We helped define a more focused first version of the product by prioritizing validated user stories, clarifying workflows, and excluding unclear or risky areas from the initial scope.
2. Stronger product architecture
The resulting architecture reflected product decisions directly and was designed to support scalability, configurability, compliance readiness, and future expansion.
3. Better investor communication
The clickable prototype made the product easier to explain, demonstrate, and validate by turning a complex concept into a tangible investor-facing experience.
Key measurable outcomes
- More focused day-one product scope.
- Faster path to user testing.
- Stronger foundation for ongoing engineering.
- Clearer investor-facing product narrative.
Conclusion
This project illustrates a product-driven Discovery approach, where the value of the engagement went beyond technical execution and helped define a clearer path forward.
Structured complexity
The team helped transform a broad and ambitious idea into clear product logic, realistic priorities, and a more focused MVP direction.
Aligned product and architecture
The resulting architecture was shaped around validated user flows and real product decisions rather than abstract technical assumptions.
Made the concept actionable
The clickable prototype became a practical tool for understanding, validation, and investor communication, not just a final deliverable.
In the end, the project gave the client not only a prototype, but a stronger product foundation for iteration, testing, and future growth.
