Building a Lightning Network Payment Product for Modern Businesses

Problem Statement

Most crypto payment platforms are heavily focused on blockchain infrastructure rather than real business usability. Existing products often expose merchants to technical terminology, unclear payment states, and complex workflows that make everyday operations difficult for non-technical users.

Speed aimed to simplify this experience by creating a fast, transparent, and easy-to-understand platform where businesses could manage payments and operational workflows without dealing with unnecessary crypto complexity.

Key Problems Identified

Complex workflows confused users

Poor visibility reduced clarity

Workflows were not business-friendly.

Complicated onboarding reduced trust.

My Role & Responsibilities

As the Founding Product Designer, I worked closely with founders and engineers to design the product from 0 to MVP and establish the foundation of the overall platform experience.

My responsibilities included product strategy, UX architecture, competitor research, wireframing, prototyping, dashboard and payment workflow design, design systems, and developer collaboration.

Design Process

The design process started with competitor analysis and product research to understand how existing crypto payment platforms handled onboarding, balances, payment operations, and merchant workflows.

After defining the MVP scope with founders and engineers, I created wireframes, user flows, and interactive prototypes to validate the experience across onboarding, payment links, checkout flows, balances, and dashboards. Multiple iterations were explored to simplify workflows, improve usability, and establish a scalable product foundation.

Research & Insights

The research phase focused on understanding how existing crypto payment platforms manage merchant onboarding, payment operations, balances, and transaction visibility.

I analyzed products such as OpenNode, CoinGate, and Stripe to identify usability gaps and operational friction. One of the biggest insights was that most crypto platforms were built primarily for developers rather than businesses.

Businesses cared more about operational clarity, fast onboarding, simple reporting, and transaction visibility than blockchain technology itself. These insights helped shape a cleaner and more business-focused product experience for Speed.

Product Strategy

The product strategy focused on simplifying crypto payment operations by reducing technical complexity and prioritizing operational clarity.

Instead of launching a feature-heavy platform initially, the MVP focused on payment links, checkout flows, onboarding, balances, and merchant operations. As the platform evolved, additional workflows such as dashboards, settings, reporting, and developer tools were gradually introduced.

The platform was designed around business workflows rather than blockchain infrastructure while maintaining scalability for future product growth.

MVP Journey

The MVP stage focused on building simple and operationally clear payment workflows for merchants.

The initial version revolved around payment links, checkout flows, onboarding, balances, and dashboard experiences that allowed businesses to accept and manage crypto payments with minimal friction.

Navigation systems, workflows, and layouts went through multiple iterations to ensure the product remained simple, scalable, and easy to use as new modules were added.

Wireframes & Exploration

A wide range of low-fidelity wireframes were explored during the early MVP stage to evaluate different approaches for onboarding, dashboards, balances, payment links, checkout flows, settings, and developer workflows.

The wireframing phase helped simplify complex payment operations, improve information hierarchy, and validate different navigation and interaction patterns before moving into visual design.

Final Solution

The final solution transformed the explored MVP concepts into a scalable fintech platform experience supported by a centralized design system.

Core modules such as Dashboard, Payment Links, Checkout Flows, Balances, Onboarding, Settings, and Developer tools were refined with clearer workflows, reusable components, and structured layouts to create a cohesive product experience.

A centralized design system also helped maintain consistency, improve scalability, and support faster implementation across the platform.

Design System

A centralized design system was established early to maintain consistency and scalability across the platform.

The system included reusable components, typography standards, navigation patterns, tables, form elements, and interaction behaviors that helped improve consistency and collaboration with engineering teams.

Dashboard

The dashboard experience was designed to provide merchants with a clear overview of balances, payment activity, and financial operations.

The focus was on simplifying complex financial information through structured layouts, clear hierarchy, and operational visibility.

Payment Link

Payment Links formed the foundation of the MVP experience and played a key role in validating the product direction. The workflow was divided into three core experiences: creating payment links, managing payment link details, and sharing payment experiences with merchants and customers.

The Create Payment Link flow focused on reducing setup friction through simplified forms, structured workflows, and real-time previews, allowing merchants to configure payment requests quickly without dealing with technical complexity. Once created, the Payment Link Details experience provided operational visibility into payment statuses, balances, transaction activity, and payment history through structured layouts and clear information hierarchy. Together, these workflows helped merchants create, monitor, and manage payment operations more efficiently while maintaining a simple and business-friendly experience.

User Onboarding

The onboarding experience was designed to help merchants get started quickly through guided setup steps and simplified workflows.

The focus was on reducing confusion and improving activation during the early product experience.

Balances

The onboarding experience was designed to help merchants get started quickly through guided setup steps and simplified workflows.

The focus was on reducing confusion and improving activation during the early product experience.

Measurable Impact

The product was designed from the ground up with a strong focus on usability, scalability, and operational efficiency across the platform.

Clear navigation patterns, reusable components, and structured workflows helped simplify complex payment operations while creating a scalable foundation for future product growth.

Key Outcomes

Learnings

Working on Speed provided valuable experience in simplifying complex fintech workflows into business-friendly product experiences.

The project reinforced the importance of operational clarity, scalable design systems, and close collaboration between product, design, and engineering teams while building a SaaS platform from scratch.