NEXTMATE.AI
Bringing crypto memes to life with AI-powered characters and earnings.
I led the design of Nextmate.AI, an innovative AI-powered crypto platform featuring interactive meme characters and earning opportunities through meme predictions and DeFi activities, delivering an immersive user experience.
As a solo designer, I was responsible for the whole design process, establishing the design system, and promoting the testing and implementation of functions.
Product
Telegram Mini App
Skills
Product Design
Product Management
Interactive Prototype
User Research & Testing
My Role
Solo Product Designer
Timeline
July 2024 - December 2024
Results
4,000,000
Worldwide Users
1,300,000
Monthly Active User
134,400
X Followers
500+
Media Coverage
What’s Memecoin?
Cryptocurrencies driven by internet memes and speculative investment.
Memecoin
Memecoins are like the internet’s inside jokes turned into digital currency. Take Dogecoin, for example—it started as a joke but shot to fame thanks to Elon Musk’s tweets and a passionate community. It’s become so iconic that even U.S. government institutions have playfully joined in, naming a cybersecurity program 'D.O.G.E.'
Other memecoins like Shiba Inu, PEPE, and Floki have also made waves, blending humor with the thrill of viral culture. These coins are more than just digital assets—they’re a cultural phenomenon where memes meet markets in the wild world of Web3.
Market Size
Memecoins are now a $140 billion sector, making up 11.21% of the crypto market. Every day, 40,000 to 50,000 new tokens are created, with spikes up to 100,000 during viral events. Memecoin trading volume surged by 979% in 2024, attracting millions of global holders and creating wealth for many.
Context
“Can I interact with the meme?”
Amidst Web3’s quest for real-world adoption, memecoins often lose momentum once hype fades, and most tokens lack compelling daily use. Combining AI’s proven ability to enhance user experiences with the viral appeal of memecoins, Nextmate.AI meets a clear market need: an engaging, AI-driven environment that brings genuine value to tokens and supports sustained community participation across the Web3 ecosystem.
Goal
Enhance Token Utility
Transform tokens from short-lived hype into meaningful assets that fuel lasting engagement and deepen user attachment.
Offering Rewarding Experiences
Balance the thrill of high-risk, high-reward speculation with user-centric features, providing both financial potential and entertainment to sustain long-term community participation.
What we learned
Driven by cultural identity and the potential for financial gain.
The team was eager to launch quickly in this emerging field, but I realized that “buying tokens” doesn’t necessarily mean a deep understanding of mainstream users. Determined to balance speed and quality in a startup environment, I delivered features rapidly to gather feedback while interviewing users in my spare time. Though the core decision-maker initially dismissed this approach, he changed his mind once I translated those interview insights into actionable design principles, proving the vital importance of truly understanding our users.
User Motivation
The motivations for investing in memecoins are primarily driven by two factors.
Meme investors are often drawn to it due to cultural identification and the opportunity to express personal beliefs or emotions.
Meme investors are drawn to the financial potential of memecoins, seeking thrills, embracing high risks, and chasing substantial returns.
Final Design
Solution
Decentralized AI-Driven Prediction Markets with Memecoin Integration
Nextmate.AI provides a comprehensive way to bring memes to life and allows users to interact with memecoins in more diverse ways.
Key Features
Meme AI Agents
Immerse yourself in the world of memes with custom AI characters that bring your favorite memes to life.
Meme Mini Games
Immerse yourself in the world of memes with custom AI characters that bring your favorite memes to life.
AI-Driven Prediction Market
Powered by AI insights, our platform equips you with the tools to make smarter, more informed predictions. You can also create Your Own Markets.
Challenge 1: Visuals
Balancing simplicity and richness
At the start of our product development, I embraced a minimalist approach, ensuring users could achieve their goals quickly with a clean and intuitive interface. As market feedback shifted our positioning toward a more playful and eye-catching product, I experimented with visually rich cyberpunk-inspired designs. Creating a cyberpunk mobile UI was a unique challenge due to the lack of references, so I crafted custom elements to achieve an exciting and futuristic aesthetic. Through this process, I realized that visual complexity doesn’t automatically captivate users, just as simplicity doesn’t always equate to usability. By the third UI iteration, I struck a balance where simplicity and richness complemented each other.
Dance of opposing forces: Simplicity & Richness
Simplicity in User Journey and Information Architecture
I ensured the user journey was clear and effortless by focusing on intuitive information architecture and familiar interaction patterns. This approach prevented confusion and allowed users to quickly understand and navigate the app. Starting with user flows instead of jumping straight into design ensured a solid foundation of usability.
Richness in Emotional Experience
To make the app playful and engaging, I focused on evoking emotions through vivid colors, dynamic animations, and unexpected narrative elements. These features brought moments of delight and excitement without complicating the user journey.
Iteration 1
In the beginning, we focused on AI-assisted language learning, aiming for a clean, refreshing UI with AI-generated characters for novelty, yet minimal distraction during learning.
Users found the interface concise but not engaging enough—especially given AI’s limited conversational capabilities—so a more visually appealing design is needed for a truly immersive experience.
Iteration 2
To better accommodate with the market needs, we pivoted to memecoin, drawing blockchain enthusiasts who crave striking visuals and embrace futurism. I used this chance to adopt a cyberpunk style, imbuing the product with fresh energy so users feel transported to a futuristic world upon opening the app.
User feedback fell short of expectations, largely because the time-intensive cyberpunk design made it difficult to maintain component consistency. The complex, irregular shapes also required image-based assets, creating performance issues and engineering hurdles.
Iteration 3
After researching design references and consulting senior designers, I resolved previous issues by using lively colors and animations, ensuring a clean user journey and consistent design.
Implementation went smoothly, and all stakeholders were satisfied.
Challenge 2: Roles
Balancing Dual Roles as PM and UX Designer
When our CEO, initially acting as the PM, became increasingly occupied with external partnership meetings, I stepped in to take on the PM responsibilities while remaining the sole designer on the team.
This dual role presented a challenge: as a PM, I focused on rapid development and timely delivery, while as a designer, I aimed to create seamless user experiences. These goals often conflicted—user research revealed critical needs, such as revising reference data displays, but implementing these changes required significant technical adjustments, faced resistance from developers, and was difficult to achieve within the constraints of tight timelines and limited resources.
Over time, I found a dynamic balance that turned this challenge into an advantage, ultimately boosting team efficiency:
Dance of opposing forces: Efficiency & Quality
Integrating Feasibility into Design
I started designing with technical feasibility in mind, creating Plan A, B, and C for each feature. This allowed me to align with stakeholders on phased rollouts—defining when to aim for Plan A versus settling for simpler iterations. Early technical discussions with engineers not only saved time but also fostered their engagement in building better user experiences, motivating them to overcome challenges for ideal outcomes.
Prioritizing What Matters Most
Balancing both roles forced me to focus on impact over perfection. Instead of getting caught up in making every interface visually stunning or interaction playful, I learned to prioritize strategic enhancements that deliver the highest value to users and the business—critical for a new product's survival in a competitive market.
Spending Enough Time On Analysis Before Visuals
Even with tight schedules, allocating enough time to upfront analysis is essential. I've learned that the design thinking process—covering market research, user needs, design decisions, user journeys, and feature architecture—is highly efficient when executed thoroughly. Rushing the initial steps often results in gaps that require more time to fix later in development. A well-thought-out foundation ensures both efficiency and accuracy.
Being a product designer is about balancing opposites - efficiency and quality, simplicity and richness, stakeholder goals and user needs. I thrive in this dance.