M1 Finance operates in a fast-paced fintech environment where speed to market is critical. When crypto became hot, we needed to ship products quickly to capitalize on market momentum. But our reality didn't match our ambitions.
The team wasn't working inefficiently by choice—they simply lacked the infrastructure. We needed a design system, but no one had built one before at M1.
What I observed:
80%
company-wide adoption across design and engineering
30%
efficiency improvement (saved 2-3 days per sprint per team member)
Reduced design debt:
company-wide adoption across design and engineering
Faster time to market:
company-wide adoption across design and engineering
I took a methodical approach to gaining support:
Design leadership: Presented my reasoning and data to my manager, who became an early champion
Design team: Got alignment and support from the growing design team through training
Engineering: Demonstrated how a design system would improve their efficiency and code quality
The team was open-minded but inexperienced with design systems. I positioned Liquid not as a design tool, but as an investment in organizational efficiency.
We knew we needed a way to measure the impact of the design system. In order to secure organizational buy-in and resources, we would need a strategic approach. We needed to gather some data, and anallyze from there.
The findings were clear: Teams spent 2-3 days per two-week sprint on avoidable design-related work—roughly 20-30% of their capacity.
Gathering Evidence
I surveyed designers and engineers across the company with specific questions:
I established three core principles, that supported our business and design principles, to guide all team decisions:
North Star Principles
Upscale Our Design
We needed to improve our design to reflect our premium brand, and move beyond functional to inspirational
Empower Teams
Help our teams be more efficient and consistent and reduce duplicative work
Drive Adoption
A design system is only valuable if it's used, we wanted to scale across the organization
I developed a simple framework to manage the backlog:
This kept us focused on high-impact work and prevented us from building components no one would use.
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To maintain momentum and alignment, I created structure:
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While we were building Liquid incrementally, adoption was slow. Components existed, but teams weren't consistently using them. We needed a catalyst.
Executives wanted an upgrade to match our premium brand, we needed an overall redesign. Engineering leadership supported the overhauling the codebase to improve performance and reduce technical debt. Design leadership wanted to mature our brand to feel more premium and trustworthy. I saw the opportunity to align these initiatives with Liquid adoption.The strategy: Use the redesign as the vehicle to rebuild every pattern and style on top of Liquid. This would force adoption while simultaneously elevating our brand.
Over nine months, I led the redesign while simultaneously:
This wasn't just a visual refresh—it was a complete rearchitecture of how we built products at M1.
For most of the project, I operated solo—building components while also managing governance, advocacy, and adoption. This dual role was challenging but strategic. The breakthrough: When I presented our 30% efficiency improvement metric to leadership, it unlocked resources. I was promoted to Design System Manager and given a designer to manage and a PM to help with backlog management and communications.
The impact went beyond metrics. Liquid became part of M1's identity—we even made t-shirts. It transformed how teams worked together and established design as a strategic function, not just a service organization.
The Success of Liquid led to:
The most important lesson: a design system is not a project with an end date. It's living infrastructure that evolves with the organization. Success isn't building it—it's maintaining momentum and adoption over time. It's Really About People!
The technical work of building components is table stakes. The harder, more important work is:
