PointsOwl
PointsOwl
PointsOwl
From complexity to clarity in music royalties management
From complexity to clarity in music royalties management
Industry
Music Tech, Fin-tech
Duration
8 months
Tools
Figma, Radix Themes, Miro, Posthog
Deliverables
UX Research, End-to-end user flows, High fidelity prototypes, Design system adoption
UX Research, Wireframes, High fidelity prototype, UI Kit
User base
Expectancy during the first year: 30-100
Overview
PointsOwl is a platform that transforms how music professionals manage and trade their royalties. It solves a critical industry problem by automating the analysis of complex financial statements, helping rights holders understand their earnings in minutes instead of hours. For investors, it provides an access to music catalogs as an alternative investment opportunity, that is otherwise hard to gain.
My role
As the Founding Designer, I led the initial design efforts from research through launch and continued evolving the platform based on user needs. My responsibilities included conducting user research and discovery efforts, ideation, creating high-fidelity prototypes, and implementing a Radix-based design system to accelerate development. Post-launch, I drove iteration process by observing how our initial users interacted with the platform, added critical features, and refined our data visualization.
The problem
Imagine speanding hours over multiple statements trying to figure out what you're earning as a creator. And the statements wouldn't come in unified formats or at the same time.
This affects not only creattors, but the whole industry, making music roralties market hard to enter for investors willing to diversify their portfolios with an asset class notably independent of market fluctuations.
The constrains
Operating under tight market entry deadlines, we needed to move quickly while ensuring we built something valuable for our users.
Time pressure
Quick platform validation was essential for the business. Had to ship core features fast without compromising reliability.
Precision
Platform would influence financial decisions. Every number needed perfect accuracy and traceability to source statements.
Engineering resources
Engeneers needed to focus on building statement parsing tool. We had to make sure they wouldn't be pulled from this crucial task.
Our users
Our platform needed to serve two distinct user groups with different needs and technical expertise:
The Creator
In this user group we had artists, producers, and writers
Pain Points
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Can be hard to allocate immediate funds for new projects
Pain Points
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Can be hard to allocate immediate funds for new projects
Pain Points
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Can be hard to allocate immediate funds for new projects
Goals
Quickly understand total earnings
Track recoupment status of productions
Evaluate potential value of catalog for future planning
Goals
Quickly understand total earnings
Track recoupment status of productions
Evaluate potential value of catalog for future planning
Goals
Quickly understand total earnings
Track recoupment status of productions
Evaluate potential value of catalog for future planning
The Investor
Experienced investor seeking alternative asset opportunities
Pain Points
Limited access to music catalog investment opportunities
Difficulty evaluating music catalogs without industry expertise
Needs standardized ways to assess catalog performance
Goals
Find investment opportunities in established music catalogs
Understand historical performance and stability
Access clear documentation for due diligence
The Creator
In this user group we had artists, producers, and writers
Pain Points
Limited access to music catalog investment opportunities
Difficulty evaluating music catalogs without industry expertise
Needs standardized ways to assess catalog performance
Goals
Find investment opportunities in established music catalogs
Understand historical performance and stability
Access clear documentation for due diligence
The Investor
Experienced investor seeking alternative asset opportunities
Pain Points
Limited access to music catalog investment opportunities
Difficulty understanding catalog value
No easy ways to assess catalog performance
Goals
Find investment opportunities in established music catalogs
Understand historical performance and stability
Access clear documentation for due diligence
Through research we discovered that while we initially focused on investors as a user group that was familiar to us from previous product, the platform's success depended on having high-quality catalogs available. This led us to prioritize creating value for rights holders first, ensuring they could easily understand and manage their catalogs before considering sales.
Through research we discovered that while we initially focused on investors as a user group that was familiar to us from previous product, the platform's success depended on having high-quality catalogs available. This led us to prioritize creating value for rights holders first, ensuring they could easily understand and manage their catalogs before considering sales.
Design system
Before we started developing the product I wanted to deal with a critical bottleneck: our legacy custom UI Kit was consuming too much engineering time while we needed to focus on building our crucial statement parsing tool. Based on this insight, I proposed, styled and implemented a Radix Themes design system, which significantly reduced development overhead while maintaining design flexibility.
Before we started developing the product I wanted to deal with a critical bottleneck: our legacy custom UI Kit was consuming too much engineering time while we needed to focus on building our crucial statement parsing tool. Based on this insight, I proposed, styled and implemented a Radix Themes design system, which significantly reduced development overhead while maintaining design flexibility.
Early concepts
We brainstormed solutions based on research insights. While we initially focused on investors as a user group that was familiar to us from previous product, it soon became evident that the platform's success depended on having high-quality catalogs available. This led us to prioritize creating value for rights holders first, ensuring they could easily understand and manage their catalogs before considering sales.
I then visualized solutions through wireframes and lo-fi prototypes, focusing on a clear overview for both catalog and individual tracks.
We brainstormed solutions based on research insights. While we initially focused on investors as a user group that was familiar to us from previous product, it soon became evident that the platform's success depended on having high-quality catalogs available. This led us to prioritize creating value for rights holders first, ensuring they could easily understand and manage their catalogs before considering sales.
I then visualized solutions through wireframes and lo-fi prototypes, focusing on a clear overview for both catalog and individual tracks.
Solutions
Comprehensive financial dashboard
Created a unified view that transforms complex financial statements into clear insights. Rights holders simply provide their statements, and our service handles the complex work of standardizing and analyzing the data, presenting a complete historical overview of their catalog's performance.
The dashboard adapts its display based on user type - showing acquisition price and yield calculations for investors who own catalogs, while focusing on revenue analysis and track performance for rights holders.
Created a unified view that transforms complex financial statements into clear insights. Rights holders simply provide their statements, and our service handles the complex work of standardizing and analyzing the data, presenting a complete historical overview of their catalog's performance.
The dashboard adapts its display based on user type - showing acquisition price and yield calculations for investors who own catalogs, while focusing on revenue analysis and track performance for rights holders.
Created a unified view that transforms complex financial statements into clear insights. Rights holders simply provide their statements, and our service handles the complex work of standardizing and analyzing the data, presenting a complete historical overview of their catalog's performance.
The dashboard adapts its display based on user type - showing acquisition price and yield calculations for investors who own catalogs, while focusing on revenue analysis and track performance for rights holders.
Business needs addressed:
Need for different perspectives (creator vs investor)
Data precision
Pain points addressed:
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
No easy ways to assess catalog performance
Business needs addressed:
Need for different perspectives (creator vs investor)
Data precision
Pain points addressed:
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
No easy ways to assess catalog performance
Track performance
Developed detailed track page, showing earnings history, revenue trends, and recoupment status. This granular view helps rights holders and investors alike understand individual track value. Some times a single tack can bring up to 99% total catalog revenue.
Developed detailed track page, showing earnings history, revenue trends, and recoupment status. This granular view helps rights holders and investors alike understand individual track value. Some times a single tack can bring up to 99% total catalog revenue.
Developed detailed track page, showing earnings history, revenue trends, and recoupment status. This granular view helps rights holders and investors alike understand individual track value. Some times a single tack can bring up to 99% total catalog revenue.
Business needs addressed:
Data precision
Pain points addressed:
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Business needs addressed:
Data precision
Pain points addressed:
Needs expertise to understand earnings, even then it takes much time
Struggles to track earnings across multiple formats and reporting periods
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Catalog sales feature
Created a secure marketplace with standardized catalog presentation and valuation tools. Investors can analyze potential yield using industry-standard multiples, while rights holders maintain control over their catalog visibility and sales process.
Created a secure marketplace with standardized catalog presentation and valuation tools. Investors can analyze potential yield using industry-standard multiples, while rights holders maintain control over their catalog visibility and sales process.
Created a secure marketplace with standardized catalog presentation and valuation tools. Investors can analyze potential yield using industry-standard multiples, while rights holders maintain control over their catalog visibility and sales process.
Business needs addressed:
Revenue model support
Pain points addressed:
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Can be hard to allocate immediate funds for new projects
Find investment opportunities in established music catalogs
Access clear documentation for due diligence
Business needs addressed:
Revenue model support
Pain points addressed:
Difficulty understanding catalog value
Can be hard to allocate immediate funds for new projects
Find investment opportunities in established music catalogs
Access clear documentation for due diligence
Evolution
PointsOwl platform evolved through careful observation of user behavior and data analysis. Two key examples illustrate our user-centered approach:
PointsOwl platform evolved through careful observation of user behavior and data analysis. Two key examples illustrate our user-centered approach:
Data accuracy vs Feature richness
Initially PointsOwl dashboard included additional streaming data sources to provide predictive insights. However, we discovered reliability issues that could affect user trust. This led us to focus exclusively on verified data from statements – a decision that reinforced our commitment to accuracy over feature abundance.
Initially PointsOwl dashboard included additional streaming data sources to provide predictive insights. However, we discovered reliability issues that could affect user trust. This led us to focus exclusively on verified data from statements – a decision that reinforced our commitment to accuracy over feature abundance.
Simplifying complex metrics
Our initial dashboard prominently displayed a "Suitability for sale" catalog metric with a pie chart visualization, assuming users were primarily interested in selling. Through user demos and PostHog recordings, we observed this feature often caused confusion and interrupted users' flow of understanding their catalog performance.
Based on these insights, we:
Removed the visualization from the overview
Made it sales-related features optional and contextual
This data-driven iteration improved the interface's focus on catalog understanding while maintaining sales functionality for interested users.
Our initial dashboard prominently displayed a "Suitability for sale" catalog metric with a pie chart visualization, assuming users were primarily interested in selling. Through user demos and PostHog recordings, we observed this feature often caused confusion and interrupted users' flow of understanding their catalog performance.
Based on these insights, we:
Removed the visualization from the overview
Made it sales-related features optional and contextual