A journey through product design and development, tax and my self

Intro

Foretax is/was (not sure right now) an attempt to start my own business. It’s a tax intelligence and optimization tool for traders, tax advisors and brokers.

In my 18 months journey I visited areas close and far:

• Research & tax domain expertise
• Product design, from early mocks to MVP and hi-fi design system implementation
• Developing with a team and vibe-coding
• Finding ICP and product validation
• Creating and launching performance marketing campaigns
• Product strategy and business plans
• Engaging with traders
• Building and creating as if my life depended on it
• Emotional roller coaster from total despair to euphoria and vice-versa

The names in this article have been altered for privacy reasons

The beginning

The story begins when I was running some user research for my previous employer, in which I got to interview traders and investors who were expressing their concern that they own a certain amount of money, but don’t know how much of it they get to keep.

My initial thought was, “We should be able to calculate this”.

After the company went bust, I decided to embark on a journey: To be able to show all traders their current tax liability and their true after-tax performance.

I went and studied the capital markets landscape through the German taxation angle:

• There is a lot a trader can do to save on taxes