Hi, I'm Cliff Canan

I am a

Computer
  • Cliff Canan
  • Cliff Canan animated
  • Nooch screenshot in hand
  • Cliff Canan Logo Collage
  • Nooch screenshot baseball stadium
  • Nooch Team Baiada 2012

What I Do

I'm a Philly-based fintech entrepreneur, app designer, and front-end web developer. I love to build clean web and iOS apps that
just work.

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Mobile App Design

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Web App Development

75

Payment UX

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Love of Learning

Companies

Nooch Inc

Founder & CEO

Philadelphia, PA

Fintech, P2P Mobile Payments

"Never Carry Cash Again"

Nooch is the quickest way to pay and get paid by friends and family. Seamlessly, securely connect your bank account with your mobile phone and send money to anyone using just an email address or phone number - with no transaction fees.

Rent Scene, Co.

Co-Founder & CTO

Philadelphia, PA

Real Estate Tech

"Guiding You Home"

Rent Scene is an online platform that does the grunt work for finding the perfect apartment. Rent Scene's digital concierge service improves and unifies the experience of searching, evaluating, and paying for a new apartment.

Featured Project

Nooch For Landlords is a responsive Angular web app for managing rent payments. Designed for landlords that don't have time to waste, this clean interface makes it dead simple to request and collect rent from 1 or 1,000 tenants.

Nooch For Landlords

About Me

Cliff Canan

I built Nooch - a P2P moible payments app - after graduating from Duke with too many friends who never paid me back. I taught myself to code and love to build clean, usable web and iOS apps. I also co-founded Rent Scene, a "digital brokerage" that uses technology to automate the apartment hunting experience.

When not reading up on state Money Transmitter laws, I'm an ambidextrous ping-pong player, political junkie, colorful rhetorician, Wentz-Wagon rider, and an Eagle Scout.

Duke University  •  B.A. Political Science •  2007 - 2011

My Work

Working on startups means wearing many hats! Here are a few things I worked on...

Nooch iOS App Screenshot In Hand

Native iOS App

Lead Designer & Developer

Nooch: P2P Mobile Payments

Overview

Nooch lets you send and receive payments from friends, family, roommates - or anyone - anytime, anywhere. Nooch replaces paper checks and cash to make it simple, private and free to pay and get paid.

My Role

Anything and everything ;-)

Responsible for:

  • Designed all screens and UX for iOS app, Angular web app, and admin dashboard (in C#)
  • Recruited and led six-person development team and coordinated project sprints with off-shore devs.
  • Secured bank partnership to launch PA-only pilot. Managed strategy overhaul when that bank failed by changing our model to avoid holding users’ funds so we could re-launch without needing a bank.
  • Created and maintained all compliance and employee training materials (BSA, AML, GLBA, NACHA).
  • Developed automated anti-fraud processes which prevented 100% of malicious transactions.
  • All initial compliance policies and strategy (BSA, AML, KYC, GLBA, NACHA)
  • Securing key partnerships with industry leaders in technology, security, compliance, & banking.
  • Managing branding overhaul & all UX design for Nooch's iOS app (native iOS and Ionic cross-platform)
  • Representing Nooch in regional & national competitions, including 1st place wins in Duke & Drexel University-sponsored business competitions
  • Presenting Nooch to: Philly Tech Meetup, Mobile Monday, Philly Tech Week, StartMeUp Radio 106.9, Vator Splash SF, and more

Recognition:

  • Finalist (Small Tech) | Marcum Innovator of the Year Region’s Business Journal, 2013
  • Faculty Panelist | Mobile Payments Regulatory Triggers, New Business Models & Technologies, Law Seminars International, 2013
  • Featured Panelist | Millennials & P2P Payments, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Payments Symposium, 2012
  • 1st Place | Baiada Incubator Competition Drexel University, 2012
  • 1st Place | Duke Startup Challenge - Elevator Pitch Duke University, 2011

Presenting Nooch to Philly Tech Meetup - including a live demo of an early-ish version of the Nooch iOS app!

Visit App Store

Nooch Mobile App History Sceen

Hybrid Mobile App

Lead Designer & Developer

Nooch: Ionic Refactor

Overview

In order to have a cross-platform application, I completely re-built the existing Nooch iOS app using the Ionic framework.

My Role

I designed every screen, wrote all in-app content/copy, selected and configured 3rd-party libraries and plugins, and configured the completed build for successful submission to Apple (never had an app version rejected yet! (...knock on wood))

Visit App Store

Nooch For Landlords Homepage

Lead Gen Landing Page

HTML / CSS / JS

Nooch For Landlords

Overview

While I worked on building the actual application in Angular, I needed a page to connect with prospective landlords to get their feedback and learn about their pain points. I also wanted to run some small-scale Facebook ads to test how well we could generate leads and what types of landlords would be most receptive to out core value proposition focused on painless rent collection.

My Role

I designed and threw together the landing page in a few weeks. I decided to save time by using a basic pre-built HTML template, but I was committed to putting enough time into the project to ensure that Nooch's brand and personality would be woven into the design.

The site's main purpose is collecting email addresses. So the top section features a prominent call-to-action which reminds landlords that this service is free... "for landlords". I was hesitant at first to focus on the free part, but by specifying it was free for landlords, the implication was that the service wasn't simply a scam; tenants will be the ones who pay. We did get feedback that this turned off some landlords who didn't want to add more fees to their tenants. But those were the exceptions... most landlords didn't bat an eyelash as long as they weren't paying.

For, the rest of the page I wanted to hone in on WHY a landlord would want to give Nooch a shot. The "Key Benefits" section uses a toggle button to showcase the key benefits of using Nooch for both landlords and tenants. The tenant tab shows a beautiful screenshot of the yet-to-actually-be-built rent portion of the Nooch iOS app, but I included it to remind landlords that tenants want to pay from their phone, and we already knew how to do that really well.

Beyond simply listing benfits, the site had to show that Nooch was simple enough for even a middle-aged, part-time landlord who can't stand Twitter and doesn't have a PayPal account to get started easily. The "Ready in 4 Steps" section has large icons and much smaller text so the eye picks up the visual reference before getting bogged down in descriptions. The text uses fragments to keep it conversational, almost like the site is responding to the natural questions a landlord would have as they ponder the idea of switchig to online rent collection.

Visit Landing Page

Web App Landing Pages

HTML / CSS / JS

Nooch: P2P & Rent Payments

Overview

Functional browser pages that complement the Nooch iOS app and allow non-iOS users to create an account, link a bank, view transaction history, pay requests, accept payments.

My Role

I conceived, designed, coded, and deployed each page.

View Sample Page

PCF Brand Book Cover

Nonprofit Brand Book

Designer

Philadelphia Children's Foundation

Overview

The Philadelphia Children's Foundation (PCF) supports Philadelphia public schools by installing internet-ready computers in classrooms and publicly accessible locations. PCF also helps outfit school libraries with books, provides computers to low-income families that do not have them, and runs community 3D-printing classes.

My Role

As an active board member since 2013, I have helped build and maintain PCF's website and produced a variety of branding assets for the organization. I created multiple fundraising one-pagers and holiday email campaigns to promote PCF's participation in the AmazonSmile Program. i also designed several other miscellaneous items like custom branded stickers for all donated computers.

Visit PCF Website

Relentless Pursuit Book

Marketing Website

Web Developer

Relentless Pursuit Book

Overview

Single-page layout website for promoting a brilliant book by a long-time friend of my family's about American fighter pilots in WWII, many of whom died heroically after being captured by the enemy and undergoing brutal torture.

My Role

I used a pre-built template since the author needed the site built ASAP. So I created all the image content by curating dozens of photographs from Ken's research that told the story of the US 5th Air Force's 39th Figher Squadron. I also took the most capitating chunks of the book and incorporated them into the main body of the page with a custom widget that displayed each passage within a scrollable container beneath a montage of categories, at the center of which is a powerful image of a Japanese soldier raising his sword moments before beheading an American POW.

Visit Website

Cover Page

Startup Marketing Collateral

Adobe InDesign / Illustrator / Photoshop

Overview

Nooch needed high-quality branding assets for investor meetings, public demos/presentations, various startup competitions, and general marketing. Each design went through dozens of revisions - sometimes over the course of 2+ years - and usually had multiple versions aimed at different constituencies: investors, partners, potential users, etc.

My Role

I was responsible for designing and building all print assets, investor materials, pitch decks, and related assets for Nooch. Usually I made my designs in either Adobe Photoshop or InDesign (occasionally Illustrator for more complex charts/graphs), and it was incredibly rewarding to see the vision come alive after what seemed like endless revisions, tweaks, and adjustments as the needs changed over time.

Some of the design work included:

  • Executive Summary - 1 Page
  • Executive Summary - Long-form (20-25 pages)
  • PowerPoint presentations for various public presentations
  • Compliance materials and internal training manuals
  • Multiple fliers, cards, handouts and other miscellaneous items as needed


More projects coming soon!

Skills


Frameworks

AngularJS
Ionic
Bootstrap
Meteor

Languages

HTML5 / CSS3
Javascript
Objective-C
c#

Awards & Recognition

Get In Touch

I'd love to hear from you.

I'm always looking for new projects and opportunities to learn / grow / work with amazing people.

Cliff Canan
Philadelphia, PA
(408) 990 - 0002