SEIZE: Venture Building OS and Idea Bank
SEIZE is an internal innovation management platform built to take ideas from raw concept to funded venture. It gives employees a structured way to submit, develop, and track ideas; while giving the Venture Building team the tools to review, score, and convert the best ones into active projects. The platform covers the full innovation lifecycle: idea submission with AI coaching, a venture building canvas mapped to a 4-phase CVB framework, stage-gated review workflows, and a real-time leaderboard that drives participation across the organisation.
Client
Confidential Client
DELIVERABLES
Product Strategy UX/UI Design Interaction Design Design System Prototyping Handoff Code
Year
2026
Role
Product Designer
Context
SEIZE was commissioned by the Venture Building team at a corporate innovation unit. The team runs a structured venture building programme — helping employees turn ideas into funded ventures through a 4-phase framework covering Assessment, Ideation, Validation, and Commercialisation. Before this product existed, the process lived in spreadsheets, email threads, and manual tracking. Ideas fell through the cracks. Reviewers had no single place to evaluate submissions. Employees had no visibility into what happened after they submitted an idea.
The problem
The brief was to design and build a platform that could handle the full innovation lifecycle — from the moment an employee has a raw idea, to the point where the Venture Building team converts it into an active venture. It needed to work for two very different users: employees who submit ideas occasionally and want the experience to feel approachable, and the VB team who manage a queue of 20–30 submissions at any time and need speed and clarity.
The added complexity was the CVB framework — a proprietary venture building methodology with its own phases, steps, activities, and deliverables. The product had to reflect that framework faithfully without turning into a process management tool that nobody wants to use.
SEIZE: Venture Building OS — Canvas & Phase Management
What I Did
I designed and built the entire product from scratch — strategy, UX, UI, interaction design, design system, and developer handoff. There were no existing components or brand guidelines to work from.
I started by mapping the full user journey for both personas, then established the information architecture: a two-mode interface (Ventures and Idea Bank) with a shared 3-column layout that adapts its right panel based on context. This let the same shell serve radically different content without the product feeling fragmented.
The design system was built in parallel with the screens — colour tokens, typography, spacing scale, and a motion language that uses a consistent easing curve and stagger timing across every animated surface. The goal was for the product to feel considered and premium without being heavy.
AI was embedded at two key points: inside the idea submission form as a coaching layer that responds as fields are filled in, and inside the venture canvas as the AI Architect — a persistent assistant that knows the current phase and step context.Design principles
SEIZE: Idea Bank — From Concept to Submission in Minutes
Venture Portfolio Dashboard
Venture Canvas Assessment
Employees Driven Idea Feed with rewards
Venture Building Idea Review Queue
Outcome
The delivered 1.0 version of the product covers 10 screens across the full lifecycle, with a working React prototype ready for backend integration. The Venture Building team has a complete review workflow. Employees have a structured, guided submission experience. The venture canvas gives teams a live map of where their venture sits across the CVB framework at any point in time.
The handoff includes annotated code, a design system reference, and a documented animation system — so the developer picking it up tomorrow can build on the existing foundation without starting from scratch.