How Boli Ai achieves a clear solution vision through EffectiveSoft’s discovery phase

We evaluated Boli Ai’s business idea from different perspectives, refined it, and established definitive steps for its implementation.

boli ai discovery phase for ai powered algorithmic trading platform

Context

Boli Ai is a U.S.-based startup founded by a professional trader who wanted to disrupt traditional trading processes, which are often conservative, complex, emotionally intense, and not user-friendly. What’s more, conventional trading requires users to fully immerse themselves in the process before they can start earning money, requiring significant time and constant monitoring.

To achieve its goal, the company envisioned a straightforward AI-powered algorithmic trading platform tailored for millennials but lacked a fully developed vision for the future system.

The company needed to find a reliable technical partner to develop a comprehensive vision for the system and implement the idea. This is where the startup faced its main challenge.

Client
Boli Ai
Country
USA
Solution
Vision for an AI-powered algorithmic trading platform
Service
Discovery phase services
Outsourcing model
Dedicated team
Domain
Trading

Problem

As Boli Ai aimed to disrupt a conservative industry but had an incomplete solution vision, it struggled to find a long-term technical partner who would not only take on the task but also do this with enthusiasm, courage, and curiosity.

After a lengthy search, the company turned to EffectiveSoft. During the initial call, we impressed them with our:

Technical and business acumen
In-depth expertise in user experience (UX) design
Practical experience in AI-enabled trading and unceasing curiosity to explore it further
Unwavering determination to support them in disrupting the industry

With full confidence, the company chose us as their technical ally, launching the initial stage of this revolutionary project—the discovery phase.

AI Development Services

From AI strategy building and data analysis to AI integration and deployment, our comprehensive artificial intelligence development services are tailored to address challenges across domains.

Boli Ai’s discovery phase: our process

The team

The discovery phase of the Boli Ai project involved a consulting team comprising:

A fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Solution Architects (SAs)
A Strategic Designer
A UX Designer
Business Analysts (BAs)

These specialists undertook various activities to assess Boli Ai’s solution idea from different angles and refine it where necessary.

Step 1: Workshops

To gain a deeper understanding of the initial solution vision, our strategic and UX designers, SAs, and BAs collaborated with the startup’s CEO through three consecutive workshops. These sessions resulted in tangible outputs—artifact documentation.

	Workshop 1: Shaping the overall picture	Workshop 2: Diving into roles and functionality	Workshop 3: Setting priorities
Goal	Understand the big picture; define the intended primary user journey; and identify potential UX, technical, and business bottlenecks	Gain a deeper understanding of the platform’s various roles and functions	Prioritize features based on the potential impact on UX and development effort
Activities	Interviewing Boli Ai; discussing direct and indirect competitors; building a preliminary customer journey map (CJM); identifying all aspects of the CJM, including user actions, touchpoints, potential pain points, and dependencies; and generating ideas and preparing relevant questions for further research	Defining key system roles beyond the user; identifying the key tasks for each role and the required functionality to complete them; ideating solutions for various project stages, from simple, quickly deployed systems at the start to more complex, well-planned ones after the product launch; and detecting potential technical blockers	Organizing the scope from Workshop 2 on a priority matrix; distinguishing between the minimum viable product (MVP) and proof of concept (POC); and prioritizing features for the MVP and POC
Artifact	A CJM	A roles and features mind map	A preliminary priority matrix

Results

Boli Ai shaped their idea into a more accurate vision.
Our specialists delved deeper into the concept behind the final system and continued to analyze it further within their respective areas.

Step 2: User research

As part of the discovery phase, we conducted user research to:

Identify user personas, including their goals, pain points, behavioral differences, and current investment and trading experience
Assess our assumptions
Answer the questions posed during the workshops

Methodology and process

To obtain qualitative data, we chose the in-depth interview method.
We then defined the objectives of the research, formulated our assumptions, and created the interview script.
Next, our team determined selection criteria for research participants—U.S. region, age (20–40 years), investment/trading experience (all are Robinhood users), interest in trading, and full-time employment—and recruited suitable respondents through the User Interviews platform.
Once the panel of participants was approved, we scheduled a series of 45-minute interviews with each of the 15 respondents.
Finally, we collected all interview recordings and conducted a thorough analysis, identifying key user personas and the critical aspects of their UX.

Results

Identification of key user personas: the Curious Beginner, the Careful Trader, and the Amateur Trader
An opportunity solution tree (OST) connecting user personas’ pain points to specific solutions within Boli Ai’s platform Confirmed/unconfirmed assumptions
Answers to the key questions, including how users build trust with trading platforms and what they think about using AI algorithms

Step 3: System operation and broker integration

Our SAs and fractional CTO focused on defining system operation and integration with Interactive Brokers (IB)—the broker chosen by Boli Ai—by conducting a set of technical and operational activities.

Technical

Communicating with IB
Assessing integration feasibility
Researching efficient integration methods
Defining system execution for both Boli Ai and IB
Outlining the process for user account linking and implementing algorithms and trading bots
Clarifying non-functional requirements
Developing an architectural vision

Operational

Defining the process for activating the broker system, managing user accounts, and scaling algorithms without significant operational and maintenance overheads
Discussing potential business risks
Devising proactive risk mitigation strategies
Conducting a quality control (QC) process

Results

Technical and operational artifacts like the IB connection flowchart and architectural overview

Step 4: Business analysis

Our BAs identified functional and non-functional requirements for the future system, incorporated them into a software requirement specification (SRS), and conducted a successful analysis of Boli Ai’s direct and indirect competitors. During this analysis, we were laser-focused on Robinhood, an indirect competitor targeting the same audience as the startup.

Results

The SRS and competitor analysis report

The final vision

By assessing the initial business idea, we shaped it into a comprehensive vision with well-defined UX, customer experience (CX), and technical, business, and economic aspects, providing a new understanding even for Boli Ai. With a fully shaped vision, the future system had to:

UX and CX

Provide a quick and smooth learning curve
Resolve UX issues reinforced by traditional trading
Make trading simple, transparent, and accessible to all
Build trust with users new to trading
Improve users’ CX through personalized support and community engagement

Technical

Integrate with the IB broker flow
Incorporate automated trading algorithms powered by AI
Create advanced and proven trading strategies
Scale as the number of users grows

Business and economic

Anticipate and manage potential risks
Offer simple and cost-efficient investment tools
Avoid operational and maintenance overheads
Eliminate hidden fees and payments

Impact

By trusting in EffectiveSoft, Boli Ai not only achieved a refined and clear vision of the future AI-based algorithmic trading system but also obtained a deep understanding of an implementation strategy and project scope, all in just a month and a half.

Implementation strategy