MU20
Product Strategy
Feature Thinking
Defined the feature set and designed a high-fidelity Figma prototype to validate the "Core Loop" and secure pre-seed funding.
Year
2025
Role
Lead Product Designer & Strategist (Research → Concept → Funding)
The Context: Breaking the "Guidance Gap"
The EdTech market is flooded with course libraries, but it lacks counselors. Existing tools act as static gatekeepers: if a student fails a test, the door closes. Through our research, we found that Gen Z students were paralyzed by this binary "Pass/Fail" pressure, leading to high drop-off rates and "Analysis Paralysis."
The Insight: Micro-Opportunities
Gen Z isn't looking for another 4-week course; they want to "snack" on careers before committing. We pivoted the strategy from Education (Teaching) to Recognition (Identifying). The goal wasn't just to teach skills, but to uncover latent potential through low-stakes micro-tasks—even if the student "failed" the attempt.
The Constraint
A 4-Week Sprint This was a race to funding. My PM and I had exactly 4 weeks to triage a massive backlog into a shippable MVP. We needed to create a high-fidelity prototype convincing enough to secure pre-seed investment, without the luxury of building a complex backend first.
To meet this aggressive deadline, I heavily leveraged Figma Make to accelerate our iterative cycle. For critical flows like the Onboarding Wireframe and Portfolio Builder, I used generative design to visualize concepts in minutes rather than hours. This allowed us to "vibe check" strategic directions immediately with stakeholders, discarding weak ideas instantly and refining strong ones…which was the decisive factor that allowed us to deliver a validated, high-fidelity MVP in just one month.
Defining the MVP (Scope & Strategy)
The Strategy
To hit our deadline, I adopted a "Wizard of Oz" strategy. We prioritized a high-fidelity front-end that felt like an intelligent AI Coach, while the backend logic was simplified to rule-based matching. This allowed us to validate the value of personalization before investing in the tech of automation.
Architecture: Explorer vs. Focus
We identified two distinct user states: the "Lost" student and the "Decided" student. To accommodate both, I introduced a toggle in the Onboarding:
Explorer Mode: A randomized, arcade-style feed (Topic Trivia, Skill Quests) for students who need serendipity.
Focus Mode: A fast-track to Domain Deep Dives (e.g., Policy, Entrepreneurship) for students who already have a hypothesis, skipping the noise.
The Logic: Designing a Confidence Engine
We replaced the traditional "Assessment" model with a "Strength Recognition" engine.
The "Silver Lining" Feedback Loop
Standard platforms punish failure; MU20 rewards the attempt. If a student fails a coding quest, the system doesn't just say "Wrong." It identifies specific micro-skills they demonstrated (e.g., "Great Logic Structure") and awards a badge. This keeps the user in the ecosystem, turning "failure" into data for growth.
The Opportunity Builder
From Play to Action While discovery is about games, growth requires structure. We built the "North Star" Engine. Instead of asking "What is your major?", we ask "What is your goal right now?" (e.g., Win a Competition). The system then generates a linear Pathway of real, vetted opportunities to achieve that specific goal, moving the student from abstract advice to concrete action.
The Profile
A Live Growth Log I reimagined the profile as a "Live Social Object" rather than a static resume. Borrowing from developer culture, I designed a Consistency Heatmap (GitHub-style) that visualizes daily effort. This gamifies the act of "showing up," rewarding consistency over immediate outcomes.
Below you can see two versions: the first was designed for the funding meeting, and the second was prototyped using Figma Make.
The Business: A Two-Sided Marketplace
Investors invest in business models, not just interfaces. I designed the Opportunity Vault to serve as our primary B2B revenue engine.
The Monetization Strategy
We built a marketplace where Universities and Schools pay to list their summer programs and bootcamps. The value add is precision: we offer them hyper-targeted access to students based on actual behavior (e.g., "Show this Architecture Camp only to students who enjoyed the Design Skill Quest"), ensuring high conversion rates.
The Impact
Funding Secured The strategic prototype successfully visualized this vision. In January 2026, the founders used our high-fidelity designs and beta data to secure pre-seed investor funding.
I concluded the contract by handing off a scalable Atomic Design System (componentizing the Quests and Opportunity Cards), ensuring the engineering team could begin the build immediately without a redesign.
