Product leadership
and design

Your market is moving.
Where should your
product go next?

Without a clear direction, features pile up and customers drift. We bring the clarity to decide and the expertise to design and build what grows your business.

Start the conversation
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Where you are

Most growing products
hit the same wall.

Growth slows. Releases take longer. People give up before the product clicks.

New technology, new rules and new competitors change what people expect, faster than most products can follow. The product that was once simple to use now needs someone in the room to explain it. Nobody holds one clear vision of what it is for, so the roadmap follows whoever asked last, and the product grows more complicated with every release. Whoever owns the product knows this, and has no time to step back and fix it.

We (re)define the product's vision with you and your leadership team, then turn it into a roadmap and a clear plan of action. Every step is scoped and planned around your business priorities, and we commit to the results.

Two colleagues reviewing a product flow on a monitor
The dCS Mosaic app on a tablet in a stand
Bitcoin watchlist alerts on a phone
Claptrap live audio app on two phones
Revolve Energy's Auckland Airport project page on a phone, held in an office overlooking solar panels
Signal's profile results and discovered selectors on a desktop monitor, demonstration data
How we help

We diagnose your product and your market against your business goals to find what's costing you most, and we fix that first. From there, we set the roadmap with you and design each step, so every decision reaches your developers as a design they can build from. You keep the final say.

If you're not sure which one fits, begin with a Clarity Sprint.

See ways to work with us
01 · Product leadership

Someone finally owns where your product goes.

The product gets one clear direction, and your biggest customers stop setting the roadmap. Adrien takes the product seat with you: what the product is for, what to build next, and what to stop building.

Discover Fractional Product Leadership
02 · Product experience

Make the product obvious again.

We find the part of your product people came for, usually a fraction of what's there, and rebuild the experience around it. New customers reach their first win without leaning on your team, and they stay.

Discover Focus Sprint
03 · Story & positioning

Make the right people see what you built.

We find the position that makes your value land and tell your product's story the way your buyers think, on your website and inside the product. The right people understand it without you in the room.

Start the conversation
04 · Design system

Ship faster. Look ready for bigger customers.

One set of building blocks your developers use for every screen, with the design taken all the way to what they code from. New features are put together from parts that already exist, so they ship faster, every screen matches, and releases break less often.

Discover Design System Sprint
Ways to work with us

Every engagement starts
with a Clarity Sprint.

A Clarity Sprint gives you an accurate picture of where your product stands today and the roadmap to your business goals. If you bring one urgent problem, we narrow it to that part of your product. From there, the work follows the roadmap: Focus Sprints, each one roadmap item designed and ready to build, or a Design System Sprint so your team ships faster. Fractional Product Leadership can run alongside either, with someone who owns where your product goes. We agree scope and price before any work starts.

Where every engagement starts

Clarity Sprint

We look at your product, the people who use it, your team and your market to get an accurate picture of where your product stands today. From there, we build the strategy that gets it to your business goals. We uncover the gaps between the two and plan the roadmap to close them.

Good fit when

“The product has to change, and we need an accurate view of where it stands before we decide what comes first.”

Not a fit when

“We need more people to build what's planned, not a look at where the product stands.”

“The person who can act on what we find won't take part.”

How it runs

We start with a short kick-off with you and your leadership team: we agree which part of the product we cover, who we need to hear from and what we need access to, and we sign a confidentiality agreement. We then go through your product ourselves, as your users do, and read your usage data, support tickets and customer feedback. You introduce us to people in your team and to some of your customers or users, and we talk with each of them. Alongside this we study your market: what competitors offer, what your customers now expect, and the rules and technology changing around you. Next, we run a session with your leadership team to agree your goals and the number that will show progress. From there we set out the gaps between where your product stands and where you want it to be, and build the roadmap to close them, grouped into items we can take one at a time, each with its scope and price. We finish with an alignment session where you and your leadership team agree where to start, with a one-page summary for whoever signs off.

What you get
  1. 01Current-State Assessment: where the product stands today, including how your team decides what to build and how it ships, seen in the product itself, in your support tickets and customer feedback, and in conversations with your team and your customers or users.
  2. 02Market Assessment: what competitors offer, what your customers now expect, and the regulation and technology changes that affect your product.
  3. 03Goals and Target State: where you want to be, agreed with you and your leadership team, and written down: the goal, the constraints, and the number that will show progress.
  4. 04Gap Analysis: the gaps that matter most between the two, ranked, from bugs and inconsistencies to what your market now expects, and what each one does to your customers and your team while it stays open.
  5. 05Strategic Roadmap: the roadmap to get there, grouped into items we can take one at a time: what comes first, what follows, the assumption behind each, the number to watch, and the scope and price of each item.
  6. 06Alignment Session and Executive Summary: a working session with your leadership team to agree where to start, and a one-page summary for whoever signs off.

Once your design system is in place, we can keep it and your product's design up to date month by month, with our recommendations each month.

Price
15,000–28,000
Plus GST · Fixed before we start
Scope
Scoped with you
We agree which part of the product we cover
After
The plan is yours
Your team runs it, or we lead it with you
Next stepStart with a
Clarity Sprint
Sprint

Focus Sprint

We take one item from your Clarity Sprint roadmap, a major feature or a set of features that work together, decide how it should work, and design it, ready for your team to build.

Good fit when

“We want the next item on our roadmap taken all the way to a decision and a design.”

Not a fit when

“We already have the design. We need someone to build it.”

What you get
  1. 01Design Direction: two or three ways it could work, with our recommendation, agreed before detailed design.
  2. 02Detailed Design: every screen and state, accessible, built on your design system and checked with your users.
  3. 03Handover: walked through with whoever builds it, with everything they need to start.
  4. 04The number it should move, agreed before we start and measured after.

This is a range. Your price depends on the item we agree, and it is fixed before we start. A bigger piece of work becomes two items.

Price
18,000–30,000
Plus GST · Per item
Led by
A senior product lead
Throughout
Your team
Alongside your Head of Product
If you have one
Next stepTalk about a
Focus Sprint
Sprint

Design System Sprint

One set of building blocks for every screen, taken all the way to what your developers code from.

Good fit when

“Every release breaks something, and the screens don't match.”

What you get
  1. 01Every component and style your screens use, in one library.
  2. 02Taken to the point your developers code from it.
  3. 03A written read of what the build showed about your product.
  4. 04The number it should move, agreed before we start and measured after.

Once your design system is in place, we can keep it and your product's design up to date month by month, with our recommendations each month.

Scope
Scoped with you
Based on how much product there is
Led by
A senior product lead
Throughout
Your team
Your developers
Build straight from it
Next stepTalk about a
design system
Ongoing

Fractional Product Leadership

Adrien leads your product with you: what to build, what to cut, and the design behind every decision.

Good fit when

“Nobody owns where the product goes, and the roadmap follows whoever asked last.”

What you get
  1. 01Someone in the product leadership seat.
  2. 02The product's vision, (re)defined with your leadership team.
  3. 03The roadmap and a clear plan of action.
  4. 04An answer to every feature request.
  5. 05A written record of every decision, and of the numbers it moves.
Term
Three months
Minimum, then month to month
Who
Adrien
Leads it with you
Build
Design and build
Added when you need them
Next stepTalk about
product leadership
Selected Work

Signal · Threat intelligence

Ongoing engagement

Analysts see the real threat first, with every detail still in reach.

1 week

Full product upgraded to an enterprise-grade design system

Product experienceDesign system
Signal's profile list for an investigation on a desktop monitor, demonstration data

We're rethinking how Signal's analysts catch the threat that matters across many live feeds, and building it on an enterprise-grade design system.

Signal's live monitoring screen on a desktop monitor, shown with demonstration data

Kiwi Wealth · Investment

Kiwi Wealth app on a phone, showing savings goals

From portfolio-based to goal-based investing.

65%+Still active 90 days in
85%+

Signup to first transaction within 7 days

Product leadershipProduct experienceDesign system
“Boald's decision to move from portfolio-based to goal-based investing changed everything. It made the platform accessible to people who'd never invested before.”
Joe BishopGeneral Manager, Customer, Product & Innovation, Kiwi Wealth
Kiwi Wealth investment dashboard on a tablet
Kiwi Wealth goals overview and a savings account's transactions on two tablets

Sav · Domain Auction and Management

50%

Less churn

Product experienceDesign system
Sav's domain auction page on a phone in a stand, with the bid panel open

Every domain flow, from search to sale, redesigned as one product.

3×Conversion, 3% to 9%
Sav's checkout on a tablet: payment options beside the cart of domains
“Boald has been an exceptional product partner. Their eye for detail and inventive thinking have noticeably sharpened our user experience.”
Nick RoskamCTO, Sav

Revolve Energy · Clean energy

The customer now understands the value of the Revolve solutions.

“Boald took the time to understand our business before they designed anything. They drafted every page and worked it through with us until it explained what we do properly. They set the site up to be found on Google and in AI search, and every page is built to get people in touch with us.”
Shay BrazierFounder, Revolve Energy
A Revolve Energy case study on a phone, on a solar rooftop

We redesigned and built Revolve Energy's website around the four things its customers come for: lower energy bills, lower lines charges, developer revenue and community energy.

Story & positioningProduct experience
Revolve Energy's Auckland Airport case study on a tablet
More work
Crypto

Digital Surge

Rebuilt trust after the crypto market collapsed.

High-end audio

dCS

Software held to the standard of the hardware.

Who you work with

The person you meet
leads the work.

Adrien Castelain founded Boald and leads every engagement. He sits with you when you decide what to build, designs it to the point your developers can build it, and stays with them while they do. We use AI for speed and knowledge. The judgment stays with Adrien.

One partner leads the product and designs it.

One partner leads the product with you, designs what you decide together, and stays with your developers while they build it. Nobody has to keep a strategy team and a design team in step.

Senior people do the actual work.

No account managers, no junior handoff. The people who scope your problem are the people who solve it, start to finish.

We're on the hook for the outcome, not the output.

A prettier screen isn't the win. Revenue that climbs and churn that drops is. If the work doesn't move your business, we won't call it a win.

We'll turn down work that won't work.

If we're not the right fit, or what you're asking for won't get you there, we say so before you spend. You get the honest call, not the easy sale.

Next step

Let's decide where your
product goes next.

We work with the people answerable for a product that customers, advisers or staff rely on, and who are ready to invest in getting it right. One conversation tells us both whether we're a fit.

  1. 01

    A free 30-minute call with Adrien about where the product is stuck.

  2. 02

    We fix scope and price before any work starts.

  3. 03

    Every engagement starts with a Clarity Sprint: an accurate picture of where your product stands today, and the roadmap to your business goals.

Start the conversation
Two people in conversation across a meeting table