How Toucan took flight and became Touco
When I first joined Touco in 2019, our mission was to create products that helped people struggling with mental health manage their money with the help of someone else. We felt that a burden shared is a burden halved.
Little has changed since then. However, instead of looking at just mental health, we’ve begun to explore the many different reasons why someone might need help with their finances.
We realised the value in what we did was in empowering individuals to have better money conversations. This meant broadening our horizons to be more inclusive of who has those conversations and why. This change has started with shifting our focus to carers, and led to us becoming Touco.
The motivation for changing our name was prompted by growth. Our product was evolving from a proof of concept in stealth mode into something more fully-fledged. We were getting to a stage where more visibility meant we had to double-down on who we are. With this came a common hardship most new businesses face–unfortunately Toucan was not ours to claim!
We started by acknowledging our attachment to the start of our name “Tou”. We like that it sounds like “too” and “two”, indicating a partnership, like us with the people we help, or a carer and the person they care for.
We then started thinking about the heart of our product — inspiring conversations between people. From there we began thinking of the collaboration, conversation, and compromise that often happens between carers and those they care for.
“I think as the time has gone on it’s got better, the communication and the planning.”
– Pilot feedback, 2019
Our original logo focused on finding calm in nature. Early research moved us away from the daunting aesthetic of banking, and more towards the soothing visuals used in meditation aids. We found softness in asymmetry, rounded shapes, and bright jungle colours associated with birds of paradise.
“I love the colours and the nature inspired homepages which are really calming and serene.”
– Pilot feedback, 2019
We always knew we wanted to create a visual narrative around care that reflected the vibrant people we interviewed and tested with early on. They didn’t represent gloomy tales of caution, but stood testament to the power of having a loved one’s support in difficult times. We wanted our designs to have that same brightness and joy shine through.
“Most of the time when I brought [the app] up, I was quite jovial. So, I got a text, are you okay?”
– Pilot feedback, 2019
“We want carers to feel less like dictators, more like facilitators. We want those who are cared for to feel both supported and dignified, never like a burden.”
Developing the next evolution in our brand with a distributed team in lockdown didn’t stop us from having close collaboration with each other. Much of how we have developed our aesthetic has been done with the help of remote contributors with asynchronous testing and feedback, with designers in timezones with 8 hours time difference.
Understanding how carers might collaborate with a loved one from a distance begins at home, with building a team culture that faces the challenges of remote communication with honesty, patience, and a touch of playfulness.
Our hope is for Touco to become synonymous with care. With the launch of our new app focused around carers, we are excited to be taking our first step towards creating a narrative in care that doesn’t shy away from its challenges, yet manages to bring calm and sometimes joy to an awkward conversation.
“It’s made us a lot closer because even though they tried to understand before, I was hiding a lot of things out of shame. So it’s brought us all closer and she has helped me.”
– Pilot feedback, 2019
We’re gearing up to launch our new app very soon. Sign up on our website to hear when it’s live.
