When startups fail, their most valuable assets often disappear with them
Phoenix is a digital platform designed to connect investors, startups, and legal professionals to unlock the value of unused intellectual property from insolvent or struggling startups.
When startups fail, their patented innovations often go unused, despite significant commercial potential. Investors and organizations struggle to discover and evaluate these assets due to legal complexity, fragmented information, and a lack of trust.
Context
Phoenix is an early-stage startup exploring how to unlock the hidden value of intellectual property from insolvent or struggling startups.
When startups shut down:
patented innovations are left idle
investors and companies struggle to discover relevant IP
legal complexity and fragmented information create high friction
lack of trust prevents transactions from happening
As a result, startups lose potential recovery value, while investors miss viable licensing opportunities, especially in the European market, where IP regulation is strict and highly fragmented.
The challenge
The platform had to serve two very different audiences:
Startups looking to recover value from patents
Investors, companies, and legal professionals looking to license IP
Early research showed that:
both sides distrusted existing solutions
legal opacity was a major blocker
users were overwhelmed by complex terminology and unclear processes
The key question became:
How might we validate trust and value early in a legally complex marketplace, without building a full platform?
Situation & Constraints
Phoenix was still at the concept stage, with no validated product and limited operational resources.
Key constraints:
8-week timeframe to deliver research, strategy, and prototype
No access to real users for usability testing
Legally complex domain with low user trust
Scope intentionally narrowed to one high-impact screen
Given these constraints, the main challenge was not visual design, but deciding what not to design.
Research & Insights
Research approach
I conducted stakeholder interviews on both sides of the ecosystem and complemented them with secondary research into existing IP marketplaces.
Method | Goal | Key insight |
|---|---|---|
Stakeholder interviews | Identify trust barriers | Legal transparency is more important than feature richness |
Secondary research | Map current solutions | Existing platforms lack clarity and credibility |
Key insights
Investors don’t distrust patents, they distrust the process
Complex legal language creates hesitation and delays decisions
Clear structure and visibility significantly increase confidence
These insights directly shaped the MVP strategy.
Strategy: why the investor dashboard
Based on research, I proposed focusing the MVP on a single, high-leverage experience: the investor-facing dashboard
Why this decision mattered:
Investors were the gatekeepers of transactions
Trust had to be established before any negotiation could happen
Validating investor interest early would de-risk future development
Rather than building multiple incomplete flows, I focused on one screen that could validate the core value proposition.
Solution overview
I designed a clickable prototype of the Phoenix investor dashboard that focused on:
Legal transparency
Clear visibility into patent status, ownership, and licensing termsSimplified discovery
Structured presentation of IP assets to reduce cognitive loadTrust and credibility signals
Community validation, activity indicators, and contextual informationDecision support
Visual hierarchy highlighting asset potential and relevance
User flows
To support the design decisions, I mapped two primary user journeys:
Startup founder listing IP assets
Investor / sublicensee discovering and evaluating patents
These flows helped clarify where trust was built, and where friction had to be removed first.
Although the project concluded at the challenge stage, the outcomes provided strong early validation.
Outcomes:
🎯 2nd place out of 6 teams in a Pre-Incubation Challenge
Validated product concept and investor-facing MVP prototype
Strategic refinement of the product direction aligned with European market expectations
Solid UX foundation for future onboarding and platform flows
Validation signals (qualitative):
Increased perceived trust (stakeholder feedback)
Reduced negotiation friction through clarity and structure
Faster IP discovery during concept walk-throughs
As the project ended at the challenge stage, outcomes were qualitative rather than metric-driven.
What I learned
In complex domains, trust is a UX problem before it’s a legal one
MVPs don’t need many screens, they need the right focus
Strong research helps say “no” with confidence
This project strengthened my ability to design under uncertainty, balance research with delivery, and translate complex systems into understandable user experiences.
