Templum Markets
Quotation Bureau
Private-market quotes and deal chat
A proof of concept that brought investors out of back-channel deals and into the platform, with clearer listings, investor profiles, and live chat.
- Role
- Design lead
- Focus
- Fintech, Mobile, Social, Proof of concept
- Process
The problem
Private-market deals happened over phone calls and brokers, off the platform where nobody could see them
What I did
Acted as designer and de facto product manager to bring those conversations inside, with plain-language listings, investor profiles, and live chat
What changed
Investors started talking to each other, and the conversation turned into real trades
My part
- Defined the product with the CPO, with no dedicated PM
- Designed listings, investor profiles, and listing chat
- Worked with compliance so every conversation stayed within the rules
- Supported engineering through build and launch
Who I worked with
- Chief product officer
- Compliance officers
- A large engineering team
01 · Why it matters
Some of the best investments aren’t on the stock market
Templum lets accredited investors trade alternative assets: a stake in a real estate fund, a private company, even a painting or a sports car. Things you can’t buy on the stock market.
The catch is liquidity. With so few buyers and sellers, deals traditionally happen through private channels: a phone call, a broker who knows someone. If you weren’t in the right circle, you weren’t in the deal. And every deal that happened offline was one the platform never saw.
The conversations that moved money were happening everywhere except the platform
The goal
Make the platform stickier. Find the moments that keep investors coming back, and give them every reason to stay.
02 · The insight
Flip the problem
If private conversations were pulling deals off the platform, the answer wasn't to fight them. It was to bring them inside.
Give investors a secure, public place to talk, inside a platform where everyone has already been verified as accredited. Make the conversation part of the product.
Start where buyers meet sellers
The Quotation Bureau is where investors post what they want to buy or sell. Two parties, one listing. If conversation was going to happen anywhere, it would happen here, so this is where the work started, for the most impact with the least effort.
03 · The listing
Say it like a person would
The original listings were technically correct and hard to scan. “Sell side” and “buy side” are trader shorthand that excludes newcomers. Every card looked the same. And the data told a surprising story: investors countered offers far more often than they accepted them, yet “Accept” was the big blue button.
- Plain language"Sell side" became "Looking to sell."Anyone can read a listing in a second, trader or not.
- Show the buzzEach listing shows how many people are talking about it.Chat volume turns a static listing into a live one.
- Put a face on itEvery listing shows who posted it.Trust starts with knowing who's on the other side.
- Match how people negotiateCounter and Accept are now equal choices.The button design finally matches what investors actually do.
04 · The people
Meet the other side of the trade
Investor profiles brought down the wall between buyers and sellers. Follow an investor to see their moves. Badges like “500 Transactions” and “Top Contributor” show how they’ve earned their reputation. Their open listings sit right there, along with a short bio about who they are and how they invest.
Every investor is verified before they join. Profiles just make that trust visible.
Talk where the deal is
Every listing got its own chat. Posts are tagged Bullish or Bearish, so you can read the mood at a glance. A live ticker runs along the bottom, keeping prices in view while you catch up. New posts wait behind a quiet button instead of shoving the page around while you read.
Investors didn't just trade. They started talking, right where the trades happen
05 · The result
The conversation moved in
What started as a proof of concept proved the point. Investors traded $54M on Quotation Bureau and posted 750,000 messages in listing chats, and trade volume grew 25% in a year.
Trade volume, a year after launch
Year beforeYear after
25% moreTrade volume over one year
Indexed to 100 for the year before
