Designing real help — for people who don’t ask for it

The brief was as minimal as they come. ADG reached out and said: “We have thousands of people working for us. We want to give something back. We want to help people get out of debt.” That was it. No requirements, no screens — just a sentence. “Martijn, can you come up with a concept?” Time to get to work.

The first thing I asked myself was: where and how do people feel safe enough to talk about debt?

Debt is a deeply personal and often shame-loaded topic. It’s not something people post about or casually mention. Any solution would need to feel private, anonymous, and accessible. That quickly ruled out in-person help or anything tied to a desktop computer.

So I focused on building a mobile app. Why? Because not everyone owns a computer. But almost everyone — regardless of income level — has a smartphone. A phone is personal, always nearby, and something you can use in your own time, at home. That was key. If we wanted to actually reach people in financial trouble, the solution had to meet them where they already are.

As I explored concepts, one direction stood out: a chat-based approach. Could we help people structure their finances through conversation? Could we collect the right data, without overwhelming them with forms and numbers? A conversational flow might feel more human, more manageable.

But there were challenges. At the time, we didn’t have the kind of AI tooling that makes chatbot design easier today. More importantly, we were dealing with emotionally fragile situations.

The wrong tone — even a single cold or robotic message — could create distrust, or worse, cause someone to give up. We weren’t building a service, we were building a sense of safety.

That’s when the idea shifted. Instead of a bot, what if real, certified debt counselors were behind the chat? Human professionals who were trained to guide people out of debt — not with generic advice, but with empathy, expertise, and nuance.

We built a system where each debt coach could manage multiple cases through the app. Users remained anonymous — only visible by their initials or avatar — and could respond in their own time. Together, both sides could view the financial “dossier” and make progress through small, trackable tasks. Coaches could nudge, guide, and help — but never pressure.

After the first pilot, things moved fast. The concept grew into a full company. Today, more than 5,000 people have received help through the platform, supported by nearly 1,000 trained coaches. From a single sentence, to something that genuinely changes lives.