How we helped MoreHarvest build the right product, then make it faster and leaner.
- Industry
- Property investment, Japan
- Discovery
- 9 rounds of testing over 8 months
- Services
- Discovery, product design, development, AI-assisted rebuild
At a glance
iOS, Android and web apps with an intuitive, distinctive user experience
API-first backend and admin system for portfolio management, dividend calculations, account management and audit-ready data
Integrations for CMS, KYC/AML, transactional emails, translations and customer support
MoreHarvest was born during Covid, when Founder and CEO Henry Hu had to pause expansion plans for his residential rental business in Japan. Instead, he saw an opportunity to reinvent it.
His idea was to create a digital platform allowing investors to own shares in a portfolio of Japanese properties. Beyond product development, we also helped launch MoreHarvest's online presence through SEO, social media, and video content production, supporting the business from initial concept through to launch.
MoreHarvest needed to convince foreign investors to put their money into Japanese residential properties through an unfamiliar company and an investment model they might not fully understand. Unlike more accessible markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong, Japanese property investment comes with additional complexity for overseas investors.
The challenge went beyond building a competitive investment platform. Every feature, design decision and piece of information needed to answer one fundamental question:
“Can I trust this company with my money?”
Prototype instead of specs
To forgo building its own team, MoreHarvest approached a development house to take on the build. What came back was a documented solution and high-fidelity page designs. The company realised this project would take years to build before it could be put to test and find out any evidence it would actually work. It's putting the cart before the horse. It didn't need order takers; it needed consultants: our team, who rethought the approach and were aligned on and cared for its vision.
Before a single line of code was written, our team took the user designs it had, quickly built some prototypes, and put them in the hands of users. Had they continued on the original path, the product, whilst feasible to build, would have failed on usability, unable to demonstrate trustworthiness on first contact with the target audience.
Swapping a dashboard for properties
Our design team inherited an app made of dashboards, portfolios, returns and payouts. Early user testing revealed two problems: investors lacked essential information and struggled to understand what was presented.
To answer the key question, “How willing would the user be to invest?”, we ran tests: we watched users scroll, get lost, ask questions and flag concerns in our prototype. We found out the users wanted to know more about the properties, so we made a new prototype showing property listings, maps, interior and exterior photos, income and occupancy performance was also introduced, while retaining essential financial information.
The result was a shift from a static, data-heavy dashboard to a more visual, intuitive experience inspired by e-commerce, helping investors better understand what they were buying and build trust in the platform.
From 4 codebases to 2
As MoreHarvest approached launch, advances in AI-assisted development created an opportunity to consolidate four different codebases into two, simplifying maintenance and reducing costs, but at the risk of delaying release. Our team tested the approach by rewriting one platform using AI.
Applying lessons from the test, we completed a transition that would previously have taken years in just a few months. By consolidating the codebases and automating processes such as testing, we halved the team needed to develop and support the platform, improved development speed, and preserved all functionality without compromising security, regulatory compliance or user experience.
The rebuild kept a user experience that was discovered, not guessed. This resulted in a product not based on what MoreHarvest thought people wanted but what had been proven to be needed.
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