The Challenge
Employee benefits are one-size-fits-all. Companies offer the same package to everyone, regardless of individual needs or life circumstances. Employees get benefits they don't want and miss out on ones they do.
Beanstalk, backed by Redesign Health, set out to change that. Their vision: personalized benefits that adapt to each employee. The challenge: turning that vision into a product that employers would buy and employees would use.
What We Built
We partnered with Beanstalk during their stealth phase, serving as their primary design and engineering team through launch.
Product design. Benefits software needs to work for three audiences: employers who buy it, HR teams who administer it, and employees who use it. Each has different needs and different tolerance for complexity.
Branding. A visual identity that feels modern without feeling startup-y. Benefits are serious—the design needed to reflect that while still being approachable.
Technical architecture. Benefits administration involves sensitive data, complex eligibility rules, and integration with payroll systems. The architecture had to be solid from day one.
User testing. Real feedback from HR professionals and employees throughout development. Not just "does this work" but "would you actually use this."
The Result
Beanstalk hit their milestones:
- Production-ready platform in 10 months
- First paying customers in 11 months
- Seed funding secured shortly after
We needed to get our MVP in front of prospective customers during our launch phase to maintain critical momentum. Able delivered functionality and fidelity beyond our expectations.
Speed matters in venture-backed startups. But so does quality—cutting corners on benefits software creates problems that compound. We delivered both.