A payments app for 400,000 freelancers, rebuilt around money that arrives on time.

Freelancers don’t want a bank. They want to stop chasing. So every screen answers one question: has it arrived?

The brief

Kinro began in 2021 as Paydue, an invoicing tool for designers and developers. By 2025 it held accounts, instant payouts and tax pots for 400,000 freelancers, and still looked like a spreadsheet with a logo.

The old name was already registered in four of the six markets on the roadmap. With a Series B closing and a launch in Germany and the Netherlands booked for spring, the team needed a name, an identity, a redesigned app and a launch film in sixteen weeks.

The idea

We interviewed forty freelancers. None of them talked about banking. They talked about the week a client paid late and the rent went out anyway. The brand is built on the opposite moment: the second a payment lands.

Kinro is two syllables with no meaning in the eleven languages we checked, and a round, closed shape that holds up on a 29-pixel app icon.

What we made

Naming and trademark screening
Identity and motion system
Voice guidelines and notification library
App redesign: onboarding, invoices, payouts
60-second launch film and six cut-downs

Four hundred names, one left

Eight names reached the final round. Each had to pass four tests, in this order, before anyone was allowed to like it.

A grid of printed name cards, most crossed out in red, with Kinro circled in blue — Naming, round 03, pinned up in Clerkenwell.

OndoOut: Registered in Germany and Spain
PayloomOut: Reads as a pun only in English
RavelOut: Registered in four markets
KinroPassed all four
BrisaOut: A Portuguese motorway operator
FennickOut: No usable domain under £40k
SovraOut: The v closes up at icon size
DuemoOut: Domain held by a parked portfolio

The tests, in order: Trademark clear in six markets; Says itself in eleven languages; Short domain available; Holds at 29 pixels. Kinro passed all of them.

How the mark moves

The wordmark lands like a payment: letters drop in, overshoot once and settle. The same curve runs on every amount that counts up in the app.

Five Kinro app screens in a row, from the welcome screen to a paid invoice — The payout flow: from invoice to arrival in five screens.

A hand holding a phone showing a Kinro balance of £2,480 on a London street

The balance comes first

The home screen shows one number and what is on its way. Everything else is a tap away. In testing, freelancers found their next payout in under two seconds.

A guidelines spread headed We sound like money arriving on time, with example notifications — The voice guide, where every notification says who, how much and when; and the storyboard for “On time”, the launch film.

A storyboard of the Kinro launch film with six frames and timings — The voice guide, where every notification says who, how much and when; and the storyboard for “On time”, the launch film.

What changed

sign-ups in the quarter after relaunch
Measured against the same quarter a year earlier, with paid acquisition held flat.
app store rating, up from 4.1
Reviews now mention speed and clarity, not missing features.
support tickets about payment status
Notifications say who paid, how much and when, in that order.

Daniel Osei, Co-founder, Kinro — **Daniel Osei**Co-founder, Kinro

Who made it

Orvel

Anjali RaoCreative directionLondon
Freya LundStrategy and namingLondon
Tomás FerreiraProduct designLisbon
Kayode AdebayoLaunch filmLondon

With

Client team: Daniel Osei, Leah Brandt, Joost van Rijn
Film: Kayode Adebayo (director), Ruth Achterberg (camera), Sam Ilori (grade)
Music: Tove Hallin
Trademark counsel: Marsh & Quill LLP

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