Role: Sole Product Designer, PM & Software Team Lead
Team: CEO, CTO, Blockchain Developer, 4 React Developers
Outcome: Acquired by Binarii Labs, 2021. Patented Application.
Gvanta was a patented blockchain file sharing platform built to solve a problem enterprises kept failing to solve with conventional security tooling: data breaches caused by human error, insufficient access controls, and fragile document oversight.
I led the entire product cycle as the only designer on the team, from initial MVP through to the Beta version deployed to six UK firms. That meant owning product direction, research, design system, UX, UI, onboarding, user trials, and the website, while also running the contracted software team day-to-day. It was the first full cycle Beta platform that I had designed from scratch.
Enterprise file sharing sits at an awkward intersection. The security requirements are serious, but the users aren't technical. Blockchain cryptography offered genuinely stronger guarantees than existing protocols, but its complexity created exactly the kind of friction that causes people to work around security tools rather than through them.
The core design problem was reducing that friction without reducing the protection. Gvanta needed to feel as simple as a standard file sharing tool while operating on a fundamentally different infrastructure underneath.
Gvanta - Initial IA for the system.
Completely hiding blockchain would have undermined confidence. Over-exposing it would have created friction.
We surfaced clear document ownership states, explicit permission hierarchies, and immutable audit trails. We avoided exposing cryptographic mechanics, key exchange complexity, and technical terminology. Security was framed through outcomes: control, traceability, accountability, not infrastructure.
Granular access control wasn't a feature. It was the product. I designed multi-level document permissions, role-based team access, revocation logic, and clear status feedback for shared files. The interface had to make permission states immediately legible. In enterprise environments, ambiguity around access equals risk.