How Make Great Products For Traders

Building a product for one specific customer segment is hard. Everyone tells you that, and they're mostly right. But hard isn't impossible. It comes down to three things: know your audience, stay adaptable, and keep innovating even when the current version is selling.

Over the past decade I've built products that racked up millions of user interactions and hundreds of thousands of sign-ups. The most recent ones — FunderPro and TradeLocker — show what happens when you listen to the market and build the thing it's actually asking for, instead of the thing you wish it wanted. You can read more about them here.

But let's get into the real question:

How do you keep building products traders actually want?

The ecosystem as it stands

Right now the ecosystem covers the whole trading journey. Three products, each doing one specific job:

• FunderPro: a prop trading platform.
• TradeLocker: a state-of-the-art trading platform for prop firms and brokers.
• TradesAI: a trading toolkit for automation and decision support.

Each one owns a different part of a trader's journey. Need real funds to trade? Covered. A reliable platform to execute on? Covered. Advanced tools to refine a strategy? Also covered. A trader can find everything they need without leaving the ecosystem — and that's by design, not luck.

Meet traders with choice and flexibility

Take FunderPro. One of the biggest reasons it works is the sheer range of options. Traders pick challenges from $5,000 all the way up to $200,000, across three formats:

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• 1 Phase Challenge
• 2 Phase Swing Challenge
• 2 Phase Regular Challenge

That setup creates over 24 unique combinations. So a trader isn't squeezing themselves into our idea of a challenge — they're picking the one that fits their goals and their risk tolerance. Choice is the point. It puts the trader in control of their own journey, and people back products that put them in control.

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The real winning formula at FunderPro is Real Funds. We lead the way on prop firm payouts because the profit comes from real trading accounts on the live markets. Payouts aren't hostage to whether the firm happens to have cash on hand that week — the profit is sitting in a real live account. That's the model, and it's why the "sorry, your payout is delayed" email isn't part of the experience we've built.

TradeLocker's rapid growth

TradeLocker is the same lesson from a different angle: listen first, then deliver. When we launched it in early 2022, we knew it had to enter the market with a bang. By April of that year I'd taken the platform's first trade, and from there it was a sprint to build awareness. Together with my team — Luka included — we worked a plan to generate leads, get in front of traders, and grow the platform.

TradeLocker offers access to prop firms and brokers registered through iOS, Android and Web apps.

The most critical element of TradeLocker's success wasn't clever at all. We asked thousands of traders what they wanted — and we built it. A few of the early requests that shaped the platform:

• Easy and familiar charting tools
• Risk management tools
• Customisable alerts

Basic? Sure. But these were non-negotiables for traders, and shipping them properly is what earned the trust and the loyalty. You don't win this audience with a gimmick. You win it by nailing the fundamentals they told you they needed.

TradesAI: building for what's next

TradesAI is the part of the ecosystem that proves you have to stay adaptable. Indicators, trading signals, semi-automation — none of it was on our original roadmap. Then October 2023 brought a major shakeup in the trading platform space, and a lot of traders and businesses were left scrambling. That was the gap. We stepped into it.

Using TradesAI on TradeLocker.

Today TradesAI is a robust set of tools that integrates straight into TradeLocker — from signals through to semi-automation via a Bot Studio. It gives traders new ways to refine and execute their strategies. Nearly 9,400 traders are using it now, and the number keeps climbing.

Using TradesAI signals on Trading View in November to gain 27K profit manually trading.

The strategies that keep working

So how do we keep evolving as traders' needs change? It comes down to a few core principles:

• Offer choice: give traders a real range of options so they can shape their own journey.
• Keep innovating: adapt to market changes and ship new features before the market forces you to.
• Listen to your customers: actively ask for feedback — then actually build from it.
• Keep the dialogue open: ongoing communication with your audience builds trust and keeps you aligned with what they need.

Final thoughts

Products that resonate with traders don't come from guessing what they want. They come from listening, adapting, and building things with real value in them. Choice, innovation, close communication with the community — that's how this ecosystem got built, and it's why traders lean on it. The mission doesn't change as we grow: give traders what they need to succeed.

And if the run with FunderPro, TradeLocker and TradesAI is any indication, there's a lot more building ahead. Let's keep building.

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