What we did: Design Thinking, UX/UI design, Agile development, API integration, regulatory compliance
Mortgages are, by most people's standards, a nightmare. Not in the "I forgot to file my tax return" sense - more in the "I've spent three weekends printing bank statements, filling in forms, and still don't really know if I'm getting a good deal" sense. It's one of the biggest financial decisions most of us will ever make, and the process feels like it was designed by someone who actively dislikes people.
Matt Denman and Mark Hawkins - the founders behind Podium - knew this better than most. Between them, they had over 35 years in financial technology and had already built HD Decisions, the platform that became the industry standard for credit card and loan eligibility. They'd cracked the "will I actually get accepted?" problem for credit products. Now they wanted to do the same thing for mortgages.
The idea was straightforward: build a platform that helps consumers compare, understand, and apply for mortgages online - with the same ease you'd expect when switching energy providers or picking a credit card. No jargon. No guessing games. No printing things out and posting them to a building society in 2019.
But straightforward ideas and straightforward execution are very different things. Especially in financial services.
There's a temptation in startup circles to treat "first to market" as gospel. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. In Podium's case, it genuinely did. The mortgage industry was - and still is - going through a massive digital transformation. Lenders were starting to rebuild legacy systems and open up their APIs for the first time. MoneySuperMarket, who were backing the venture as a joint venture partner, had 16 million visitors a year hitting their mortgage pages, and those visitors were leaving the site to complete their applications elsewhere.
The window was open, but it wouldn't stay open forever. Other players were circling the same opportunity. So Podium needed to move fast - but not recklessly. Because the thing about fintech is that "move fast and break things" doesn't really work when the things you're breaking are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
When Podium came to us, they had a clear vision and deep domain expertise. What they needed was a team that could translate that vision into a working product at pace, without cutting corners on the bits that matter - particularly the consumer experience.
That last part is worth dwelling on. It would've been easy to build a platform optimised for lenders, or for brokers, or for the business model. Plenty of fintech products do exactly that and then bolt on a consumer interface as an afterthought. We went the other way. Every decision we made came back to one question: is this actually helpful to the person trying to get a mortgage?
The consumer experience wasn't a layer on top - it was the foundation we built everything else around.
Put another way: the APIs, the data integrations, the lender connections, the eligibility engine - all of that complexity lived behind the scenes so the person using the platform didn't have to think about it. They just needed to answer a few questions and get clear, honest answers about which mortgages they could actually get, what they'd actually cost (fees included, not just the headline rate), and what to do next.
Under the hood, we were connecting multiple data sources, integrating with high street lenders, building a sourcing engine on top of IRESS product data, and making sure the whole thing was compliant with FCA regulations. Not exactly a weekend hackathon.
There's a version of Design Thinking that looks great in agency pitch decks - lots of Post-it notes, empathy maps, and a lovely double diamond diagram. And then there's what happens when you're actually building something with real regulatory constraints, real deadlines, and real consumers who'll be making six-figure financial decisions based on what you put in front of them.
We used Design Thinking not as a performance, but as a decision-making tool. When you're working at pace and choices are flying at you daily, having a clear framework for "who is this for, and does it serve them?" keeps you honest. It stops you gold-plating features nobody asked for. It stops you building what's technically interesting rather than what's genuinely useful.
And with Podium, it meant we could make hard, fast decisions about scope and priority without losing sight of the experience. Because founders will always have ten more ideas than there's time to build - and the best thing a product team can do is help them figure out which three matter right now.
If you've been involved in any startup build, you'll know that the plan you start with is never quite the plan you end with. Priorities shift. Lender integrations take longer than expected (or happen faster than expected - occasionally the universe is kind). Regulatory requirements get clarified in ways that change your data model.
We ran the build using Agile - and I mean actually Agile, not "we do two-week sprints and call it Agile." Short cycles, frequent releases, constant communication with Podium's founders, and the flexibility to absorb curveballs without derailing the project. The founders threw several our way. None of them caused a panic.
The ability to absorb change without missing a beat is what separates a team that understands startups from one that just says it does.
Keeping stakeholders engaged throughout was part of the method, not an afterthought. Podium's founders weren't sat in a waiting room while we built their product behind a curtain. They were in the room, making calls with us, seeing work in progress, and steering the ship. That's how it should work.
Podium launched on time as the first comparison-to-completion remortgage platform of its kind. Consumers could compare personalised mortgage options, understand the true cost (not just the rate), check their eligibility without affecting their credit score, and - when they were ready - move into an application, all in one place.
It was a genuine first-to-market product in a space that was crying out for it. And it launched with partnerships already in place with major brokers and lenders, with more in advanced discussions.
Since then, Podium has continued to grow and now works with leading high street lenders, powering mortgage journeys across multiple distribution channels. The platform they asked us to help build became the foundation for everything that followed.
Every agency has case studies. Most of them say some version of "the client had a problem, we did some clever things, look how well it turned out." So here's what we'd rather you took away from Podium's story:
We're comfortable in regulated spaces. Fintech isn't just about building software. It's about building software that meets compliance requirements, handles sensitive data properly, and earns the trust of both consumers and regulators. We didn't flinch at the complexity - we planned for it.
We move at startup speed without startup chaos. Tight deadlines and ambitious scope don't have to mean late nights and technical debt. We hit Podium's launch window by making smart decisions early, staying disciplined about scope, and running a process that gave the founders visibility and control throughout.
We put your customers first - even when it's harder. Building for the end user rather than the business model is always the right call, but it's not always the easy one. It means saying "no" to features that serve the lender but confuse the consumer. It means spending time on copy and microcopy that makes a stressful process feel manageable. It means caring about the details that most people won't notice - until they're not there.
If you're sitting on an idea - especially one in a complex or regulated space - and you're wondering whether it's possible to build something genuinely good, genuinely fast, we should talk. Book a free 30-minute discovery call with our founder James. No obligation, no sales pitch - just a conversation about your idea and an honest take on what it would take to make it real.
30 minutes. One conversation. No obligation.
