Paladin / Quest V2
A marketplace for a scarce resource
Overview
As Paladin's founding designer, I led Quest V2, a marketplace where organizations pay for votes that direct funding. Quest grew from 5% to 20% of its market and paid out over $10M.
The challenge
Make complex campaigns easier to run
Buyers needed predictable costs. Earners needed a routine they could set once.
Spending ran through private deals and manual transfers. V2 had to make offers easier to compare, support flexible payment terms and reduce hands-on setup, while fixing the weekly participation burden on earners.
Decision 01
Strong defaults, optional advanced controls
Buyers’ requests for more settings came down to one worry: “Am I overpaying?”
Interviews with buyers and earners led me to one campaign flow: strong defaults up front, advanced terms behind a reveal. We shipped the same path for new and experienced buyers, giving first-time buyers confidence and sophisticated teams full control.
Decision 02
Automate the weekly voting step
The product was asking people to repeat a decision they had already made.
After weeks of interface improvements hit a ceiling, I pushed for automation. It shipped opt-in and reversible, with a simulator showing potential earnings before commitment. The simulator built confidence; automation removed the largest source of drop-off on the earning side.
Decision 03
Sequence delivery around three engineers
In 2023, keeping design ahead of build helped a small team ship V2 in four months.
With engineering split across projects, I sequenced delivery: defaults and the quick path first, advanced terms next, automation last. The team handled vote pricing and budget setting personally so development could focus on the core flow.
Outcome
The product’s reach after V2
- Quest's market share by the end of 2024.
- $10M+
- Paid out through the product.
Most major projects in the category ran their campaigns on it.
The share number matters less to me than how it happened: one flow served first-time buyers and sophisticated teams.