TWISTO × ZIP
Scaling Twisto from early-stage BNPL to a $100M acquisition
When I joined in 2017, Twisto was a single-market product with rough experience and no real design foundations. I was the first in-house product designer, working across four cross-functional product teams, owning product design end to end. By the time I left, Twisto had grown to 1M+ customers, 20K+ merchants, expanded into three countries, and been acquired by Zip for $100M.
Bringing clarity to the core experience
Right after joining, I focused on the core experience. It lacked visual hierarchy, and the most common user tasks, checking available credit and reviewing recent transactions, were harder than they should have been.
User interviews and early concept testing pointed to a clearer direction: credit front and centre, transactions easier to scan, and billing condensed into a single readable summary.
Onboarding for trust and scale
Twisto’s first contact with a customer had to feel different from a traditional bank. The original flow was a long form, heavy on inputs and light on explanation. I redesigned it as a conversation: one piece of information at a time, plain language, friendly tone, and progressive disclosure for anything complex.
That made the flow easier to understand, easier to complete, and easier to improve over time. It also made error handling cleaner and gave us better visibility into where users dropped off.
The structural decision that paid off most was modularity. Each step was independent, which made the onboarding easy to adapt across markets with different KYC and AML requirements.
Driving revenue with instalments
Research confirmed what was already visible: the word instalments carried negative associations. The challenge was not only designing the flow well, but getting users to enter it in the first place.
After exploring different positioning and communication approaches, we chose not to separate Pay in 3 and longer instalment plans into different experiences. Instead, we combined them into a single flow where users could adjust the number of months. Leading with Pay in 3 (0% APR) made the first click feel safer.
Once users were in the flow, the product became easier to understand. Cost was clear, and moving to a longer plan no longer felt intimidating. I also ran several A/B tests across copy, placement, and timing to find the right moment to surface the offer.
Designing for failure, not just success
Before Twisto built its own PSP, checkout ran through third-party gateways or direct merchant integrations. Owning the checkout process changed that. It let us design not just for the happy path, but for failure states too.
I mapped the full journey and used data to quantify the main friction points. That helped define the right recovery options for each case with product, engineering, and risk. A user with a limit too low for the full amount could move into instalments. A user flagged for additional checks could answer extra questions. A user who could not pay with Twisto at all could fall back to another payment method. Instead of losing them at checkout, we could keep them moving with much less friction.
One design system, two brands
When Zip acquired Twisto, the product had to go through significant change without fragmenting. Czechia moved toward Zip branding faster, while Poland continued as Twisto for longer. Two markets, two brands, and one system that had to support both.
I audited the system, removed legacy components, introduced token-based theming, and fixed accessibility issues that had accumulated over time, mainly around colour contrast.
That gave us the flexibility to carry two brand identities, and keep the product coherent and scalable during a period of real business change.
What I learned
The biggest lesson from Twisto was that the highest value decisions are often structural. Systems, modularity, and scalable patterns held up far better than feature specific custom work.
It also showed me the limits of designing without owning measurement directly. That gap shaped how I worked in later roles, where analytics became part of my own scope.
