Indy is an all-in-one freelancing platform that gives independent professionals everything they need to run their business: proposals, contracts, tasks, time-tracking, invoicing, payments, and more.

Team

Responsibilities

Role

Duration

Summary

About Indy

Indy revenue

User research & Hypothesis
Rapid prototyping
Cross. functional collaboration
A/B testing & post-launch analysis

1 product manager
1 product designer
1 backend engineer
4 product engineers

January – March 2023

Staff Product Designer

MAU in a February 2023

freelancers in Indy's academy

2 000 000

150,000

indy's commisson revenue (8-10%)

churn rate

+~$24K

-77%

increased invoice submissions

completed projects

+16%pp

38.4%

every month, freelancers never send the invoice after completing the prjct

of completed projects never turned into a sent invoice (Dec '23 cohort)

$420,000 lost

78%

Before Anton, we thought invoicing was just boring plumbing. Turns out it’s the #1 driver of retention and growth.

Sebastian K., CEO & Co-founder, Indy

Project overview

The Invoices screen was a classic 2021 MVP that never evolved:

gray rows, low contrast, tiny text
freelancers lose their money
status visible only by a barely noticeable color change
“new Invoice” button buried in the top-right corner

Late-2023 data painted a brutal picture:

Data

Freelancers finish the job, mark tasks as complete, and… vanish. The client is ready to pay, the money is literally waiting, but the invoice is never sent.

Context

We weren’t losing individual invoices. We were losing almost four out of every five completed projects before they even turned into an invoice.

One single page — the Invoices List — became the silent bottleneck of the entire monetisation flow. Users opened it, didn’t understand what to do next, and went off to send invoices anywhere but inside Indy.

Conclusion

Issues

monthly income freelancers never received because they abandoned invoicing. Based on 31% drop-off × avg. invoice value $1,840 × active users

~$420K

average value of an abandoned invoice

$1,840

churn is among the users who had at least one "frozen" invoice.

4,7 times higher

of completed projects never resulted in a submitted invoice

~80%

or month asking Where is my money? or How do I send the invoice?

80+ tickets

The Problem

I analyzed support ticket analysis (the total was 50–70 tickets/month). The top three most frequent questions were the same as the pain clusters above:

“Where do I even create an invoice?”
“I know I have money owed, but I can’t find the invoice.”
“How do I know which invoices are overdue?”

We have already seen the brutal 78% drop in the Problem section.
Now it’s time to understand exactly why freelancers abandon invoicing the moment the project is marked complete.

User behaviour on Invoices tab — 28 000+ sessions, Dec '23 – Jan '24

Quantitative behaviour

Behind the 78% drop, there are only three universal pains:

No obvious way to start an invoice
Impossible to quickly spot what actually needs attention in a long table
Complete silence from the app after a project is completed

Root cause confirmed.
Fix the “front door” and add one tiny auto-trigger after project completion — and the whole funnel will recover on its own.

On to the redesign.

Conclusion

*Invoice submission rate = % of completed projects that turned into a sent invoice.

All external numbers are taken from official company reports, G2/Capterra verified usage stats and annual freelance industry reports (Freelance Business Report 2024, G2 Category Reports 2023–2024).

Every direct competitor solved exactly the same three pains 3–6 years ago.
Their public metrics and third-party reports speak louder than any opinion:

Competitive benchmark

30–45 min each, freelancers with 3–15 invoices/month.
I asked them to walk us through the moment they finish a project and try to get paid. These quotes hit the hardest:

11 in-depth interviews

Affinity mapping — Three undeniable pain clusters. After clustering 180+ individual statements, we ended up with three groups mentioned by almost everyone:

“I don’t see how to start an invoice” – 11 out of 11 users.
“I can’t quickly spot important invoices among dozens of rows” – 10 out of 11
“There’s no reminder or automatic next step after project completion” – 9 out of 11

User problems

Discovery

“After I mark the project as complete, Indy just says ‘Great job!’ and that’s it. I completely forgot it even has invoicing.”

– Kate, web designer & developer, 9 years freelancing

“I see a huge table, but I literally can’t tell which row is a $7k overdue and which is a $0 draft.”

rage clicks recorded (filters)

412

average session duration

18 sec

bounced within 20 seconds

73%

– Miguel, motion designer, 5 years freelancing

“Finished the logo, client loved it. Opened Indy, got completely lost. Tiny buttons. Ended up emailing a PDF invoice… again“

— Sarah, brand designer, 7 years freelancing

3 weeks that turned a diagnosis into a testable hypothesis, and then into a winning solution. I started with ruthless prioritization.

the 78% drop in invoice creation is caused primarily by the main friction point:

Invoice submission rate for completed projects rises from 22% → at least 55% within the first 30 days after launch.
Zero support tickets containing “how do I create an invoice.”

Success criteria

Jobs to be Done

Locked on day 1 of the sprint. I formed:

Hypothesis

Ideation

we build a solution that:

We will know we are right if

We believe that

Then I formed JTBD to understand user motivations:

Directions

After dot-voting with the team, the clear winner was direction #4 — the only one that satisfied everyone.

When I finish a project → I want to get paid fast → so I don’t have to think about admin ever again.

Primary job story

Hypothesis 1

Lack of a clear (persistent “+ Invoice” CTA), unmissable entry point to create an invoice.

Hypothesis 3

Automatically creates a fully populated, ready-to-send invoice draft moment a prjct is marked complete.

Hypothesis 2

Reveals the status of the project in such a way that it is impossible not to notice it.

Week 1–2. Floating CTA.

Floating CTA made creation obvious. But users struggled with spotting urgent items.

Next: Iteration 2 adds tabs + column priority for better scan.

Conclusion

First exploration test.

75% success (<5s avg)
Heatmaps showed 90% clicks on CTA
25% missed overdue in All tab.

Feedback: "Tabs help focus, but need visual pop for urgent invoices."

Testing

We started with something simple: testing a new CTA button design. Floating CTA (iOS circle, bottom-right) on existing table.
Unmoderated in Maze: task "Create new invoice" (8 users).

Exploration

Iteration 1. First exploration

Week 3. Tabs + column priority.

Results:

90% success on "find overdue" (<5s avg)
100% on create. 4 noted expiration date (Due) not visible enough.

Feedback: "Unpaid tab is game-changer for urgent."

Testing

Hi-fi with Iteration 1:

tabs (Unpaid/Draft/All/Recurring)
reordered table (Status badges red for overdue, Issued Date, Due sorted in Unpaid, Actions).

Unmoderated in Maze: tasks "Find overdue" / "Create new" (12 users).

Exploration

Iteration 2. Second exploration

Week 3. Toggle

Final A/B test on 50% live traffic (new vs old) for submission lift.

unmissable entry (CTA)
urgent focus (tabs/columns)
flexibility (toggle)

Ready for production.

Conclusion

Second exploration test: 12 users + internal A/B:

92% success on "find overdue" (<5s avg)
100% on create
83% preferred cards on mobile

Feedback: "Toggle genius — cards for glance, table for scan".
2 noted "Due bolder in cards".

Testing

Hi-fi with:

Iteration 1+2
table/cards toggle (default table, cards for mobile with huge amount/avatar/badges).

Unmoderated in Maze: tasks "Find overdue" / "Switch view" / "Create new" (12 users).

Exploration

Iteration 3. Final design recap

After

Before

4 weeks, 100 % traffic, clean hold-out group.

All guardrail metrics stayed green — no increase in churn, no drop in overall retention.

Variant A — old Invoices List, Variant B — final hybrid.
Audience: all active freelancers with ≥1 completed project in the last 60 days
Metric: Invoice submission rate (% of completed projects that turned into a sent invoice).

Test setup

Final A/B test

indy's commisson revenue (8-10%)

churn rate

+~$24K

-77%

increased invoice submissions

completed projects

+16%pp

38.4%

In numbers, freelancers actually felt:
$238,000 of previously abandoned money is returned to creators every single month.

Finally, I reimagined core invoicing flow, improving invoice submissions and helped freelancers get paid for their work on time.

Test setup

Outcomes

“As Anton's direct manager at Indy, I can attest to his exceptional skills in design. Anton consistently applies his profound knowledge of design principles and attention to detail to create highly functional and user-friendly designs that yield positive business results. With experience in web and mobile app design, Anton is a valuable asset to the industry. He is receptive to feedback and collaborates effectively with his team to ensure high-quality work.

I highly recommend Anton for any design position as he would make an excellent addition to any design team.”

Eugene Zayats ↗

Head of Design @Indy