from zero to launch — we need to get paid!
MVP Billing for Employee Benefits Portal
Pacific Life has expanded its product offerings into the workforce benefits space with the goal of differentiating itself with a seamless digital experience.
We launched our MVP portal for brokers to sell policies in just 10 months, followed by an employer-facing onboarding portal. The ability to accept payments from employers had not been scoped by project management and all of a sudden it needed to be delivered.
As the design lead for our team, I had to quickly shift priorities and take ownership of the billing experience, aligning stakeholders and delivering designs for development within just three weeks.
Initial Timeline
· 1 Week Discovery
· 2 Week Sprint to Delivery
Role
Lead Product Designer
Partners
Finance, Legal & Compliance, and Marketing
Design Team of 5
Business Analyst
the background.
Pacific Life is a B2B financial company offering life insurance, and employee benefits. The company launched the start-up like Workforce Benefits Division in 2022, going to market in 2023 servicing small to mid-sized businesses. We sell benefits through Brokers to Employers, who offer them to their Employees.
project kickoff.
When I learned of the delivery deadline, I knew we had to move fast to gather the right information. I set up daily working sessions with the finance team during the first week to quickly align on requirements and iterate on wireframes.
the research.
During initial empathy interviews with employers we discovered that Billing is one of the biggest sources of pain in an employers work day. We created a Persona, Alex, based off these interviews.
Frustrations
Unreliable integration between their company and carrier
Inability to make manual updates when integration file feeds don’t work correctly
Reconciliation is time-consuming
Needs
Invoices in all formats are needed (PDF and CSV)
Autopay language must feel trustworthy
HR Director
Owner
Head of People
refining the plan.
user flows.
To ensure we were building all the necessary screens, and that development was scoping appropriately, I developed multiple flows for different scenarios.
low-fi exploration.
My schedule that first week was a tight loop: mornings with the finance team, afternoons spent furiously sketching and writing requirements, then presenting the work the following morning — rinse, refine, repeat.
design team capacity and sprint planning.
Once we had aligned on MVP features and requirements, it was time to start designing. With just one sprint to complete all of our work, I strategically delegated work based on my team member’s strengths.
Lead Designer (me)
Senior Designer
Junior Designer
Junior Designer
finally…designing.
We had multiple people working on many different aspects at the same time, so to ensure consistency we were in close communication and creating file-specific components for even simple things, like bank account names.
async collaboration.
components for all.
delivered designs.
Based on all of my low-fidelity sketches and thorough user flows,
post-launch testing.
We were unable to test before release, but we wanted to test as soon as possible. We had also intended to test with production accounts, but during our preparation they kept crashing and we ended up testing with design prototypes instead.
Chief People Officer
General Manager
Director of HR
results.
“This right here would be awesome! The projected bill is 11% higher. Then I’ll go, “Well, I did add five employees this month, so that’s about right.” Or if I’m like, “Why? I haven’t added anybody.” Then that would prompt me to jump in and make a change.”
100% understood how Pacific Life Billing functions when looking at the UI.
80% Users said they would use Autopay; though some personality styles just prefer to make the payment themselves each billing period.
100% said they would find the change report useful.
💥 post-launch calamities.
Due to tight deadlines and miscommunication with contracted developer teams, code was pushed with minimal QA and many mistakes. While many production issues were styling and responsiveness-related, key billing features were also deprioritized due to data access challenges. Unfortunately, it took customer complaints for us to discover that production was not behaving the way we intended.
Reach out for a full case study review to find out what happened!
outcomes + learnings.
MVP Billing was released on schedule and 69% of employers are using our system to pay online each month.
Major Learnings
Early alignment isn’t just about stakeholder sign off; understanding tech feasibilities and delivery timelines are crucial.
Collaboration with engineering, even through resistance, will prevent future problems.
Testing with the real environment as early as possible—simulated testing can mask fatal gaps!
Skills
Ownership & Team Management
Strategic Thinking
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Rapid Iteration
tl;dr.
🏃♀️ Late ask, tight deadline: I took ownership of an unscoped, high-impact feature late in the MVP cycle.
🤝 Fast discovery + alignment: I balanced speed with strategic delegation, aligning across product, finance, and design.
🧩 Designing for trust: We focused our designs on giving employers transparency in a space known for confusion.
🔄 Shipped, then iterated: We pivoted post-launch, using real user data to refine and resolve gaps.
☪️ Results: We delivered measurable improvements, and while constraints shaped our first version, user feedback gave us a clear north star for future iterations once platform capabilities evolve.