Olof Schybergson, the founder and CEO of Fjord, a digital design agency that counts Citi, Foursquare, and Flickr among its clients, is a romantic. Sitting at a cafe in New York's Greenwich Village on a sunny day, he's talking dreamily about his company's desire to help people fall in love with ... their banks.
After the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and a long, grueling recovery, banks have taken their knocks with the public. But bills must be paid, funds transferred and balances checked. Schybergson believes such financial chores shouldn't be represented on iPads and Kindles with flashy designs that scream for attention. Instead, tablet apps should be instantly familiar and quietly inviting. Like a potential spouse.
Schybergson is convincing. With his neatly combed hair and his Euro-preppy clothes, the CEO, in his late 30s, is boyish and polite. And subtly charming. "There's an analogy between human relationships and services like personal banking," he says. "Finding the right digital banking service -- or any service -- is like the search for a life's partner," he says earnestly in a soft voice.
He argues that there are different stages on the way to love. "There's matchmaking. There's dating, where it's important to have a 'wow' response," he continues, speaking with a slight Finnish accent. "When you find true love, people say 'of course!' about the relationship -- or the banking app -- because it feels natural, and they can't imagine a time before having it in their lives. It's a more flattering reaction than 'wow.'"
Schybergson and his team at Fjord, a nearly 200-person firm headquartered in London and spread across eight offices in the U.S. and Europe, have been courting big banks and winning business designing mobile and tablet apps in the last couple of years. Data proves that Fjord's iPad app designs for two of the company's biggest clients, Citi (C) and Spain-based global bank BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), are luring in and retaining customers, in terms of impressive adoption rates and very positive reviews. In Fjord's case, Schybergson's metaphor has been more than apt.