Forge Intelligence

Forge Data

Lead Product Designer

10/2019 – 12/2022

Forge Markets is one of the largest brokers of private company stocks in the world, and Forge Data captures every trade, bid, and ask to help investors analyze the private market and make investment decisions. Available as a Web Application, via API or file, Forge market data brings similar transparency and accessibility to the private markets as available from stocks, bonds, commodities, or currencies. (1)

Forge Data originated at SharesPost (later acquired by Forge) when Product leadership made the gamble to monetize this exclusive data set. Myself, a Product Manager, and a Senior Analyst built it from the ground up, interviewing institution portfolio analysts and investors, and incorporating other primary information pulled from State of Delaware filings, mutual fund marks, and press releases.

Created as a wholly separate product from Forge Markets, Forge Data has become an important revenue stream for Forge, and helped to establish Forge as a leading source of information and perspective on the private market.

1 forgeglobal.com/forge-data (July 23,2023)

Forge Data team members at NYSE public listing, New York, March 2022

image of First-time user experience, shown on first visit to the product dashboard

First-time visitors to key pages see brief walk-throughs that highlight key features or value proposiitons.

image of F.I. product dashboard, the Market Insights screen

Market Insights, product landing screen.

Web Application

Forge Intelligence is a responsive web UI that allows subscribers to interact with and visualize private company funding and stock trading activity, expressions of interest to buy or sell, and the activity of leading funds and institutional investors. It was even an important sales tool for institutions who prefer to consume the data via API or file.

For 2.5 years, I worked with Product and Engineering to overcome issues related to data availability, data presentation, and the dynamic and changing private market investment landscape. As Forge grew and became itself a public company, changing teams, changing leadership, and product goals presented additional challenges.

Throughout, I remained committed to polishing the UI to a high gloss, and bringing new features to life such as market data visualizations, Sector and Sub-sector insights, and ensuring the data was presented with accuracy and integrity. I worked with Product and Marketing teams to produce quality communications, including Product Update emails, and the highly visible, Private Market Update monthly newsletter.

Thousands of Companies

image of Design mockup, showing top section of an example 'Company Detail' page

Each "Company Detail Screen" is a long-scroll page showing all available data about the company.

Each Company, In Detail

We brought together all of the private company information possible to help Forge Data customers develop their investment strategies, including same-day pricing from trades. Some of the data shown was proprietary and gave a competitive advantage. Some of the data was available from other sources but Forge Data made available more quickly and at much greater convenience, collected through automated processes.

image of 'Secondary Transactions' section mockup of a Company Detail page

Individual trades a.k.a. "Secondary Transactions" in a company are shown by quarter, or in full in a separate window.

The proprietary Waterfall Chart allows users to visualize exit scenarios.

image of Private Company Comparables feature

We developed features like Private Company Comparables to help customers go beyond simply viewing data, to answer questions and make decisions.

Private Market Data

By 2022, Forge Data was tracking thousands of companies, with trade data on more the 500 companies spanning 12 years, more than 21 thousand transactions, and $12B of trades closed.

The "Companies" overview screen allows users to see key data on many companies at once, including Favorites.

image of 'Companies' page with Filters panel mockup

A robust filter panel makes it easy to target companies matching specific criteria.

Investors Screens

image of Panel 1 of FTUX shown to visitors of the Investors page

First-time visitors to the Investors page see helpful context and ideas for how this information can be used.

An investor detail screen shows all investments by that investor.

Smart Money Investments

Details about major institution activity can reveal key insights. We made it easy to see funding round participation over time for repeat investments, drop-offs, and first-time exposure in private company names. Customers can Follow investors to be alerted of new activity.

image of Investor Detail page showing a specific investment's details

Details about each investment made in a company can be viewed in context of other funding rounds.

Whole Product Design

Product Design "Zero-to-One"

Designing a product "zero-to-one" meant more than shipping features. I developed templates for various needs such as Product Update emails, styles for charts that were adopted in Marketing communications, and standards for presenting data values, data labels, and terminology that was industry standard but also avoided unnecessary jargon.

When first launched, the product was "Dark Mode" only to target analysts familiar with the Bloomberg terminal and other benchmark experiences. After the merger of SharesPost and Forge the product was rebranded "Forge Intelligence" and restyled to include both Dark and Light mode. This brought the Data product into the Forge product brand, and would point the way to a possible dark mode for other products.

image of 'Product Update' email template

Product email template

Dark Mode

Light Mode

Token-based Design System

Built from scratch, using jQuery and a modern stack, Intelligence had a different engineering history than Forge Markets or Forge Trust. As the sole designer on the Intelligence product for over two years, I had to move fast. I had developed a Figma component library that was extensive, but still had gaps. I worked with the rest of the design team to establish common design tokens and components. I left with a path to a unified design vocabulary, and had already taken major steps to migrate typography, color, and layout styles to a common Forge Design System.

image of some icons in the design system

A few of the icons in the design system

Commitment & Change

Collaboration with my Product Management and Engineering counterparts changed over time, as the company grew to include dedicated engineering teams and support for operations, legal, and data analytics. I adapted, and facilitated change to improve our design and delivery processes, even in the face of the pandemic and remote work.

Our understanding of customer needs also evolved, through customer research, iteration, and by responding to customer feedback. I'm proud to say that I was recognized with the company "Bold" award, that I tackled challenges with humility and initiative, and that the product got better and more successful over time.