INDUSTRY
Education technology, AI-assisted enterprise software
SUMMARY
HumanLogic worked with the co-founders of Ooln, a pre-seed stage venture, on product definition and applying design thinking to guide Ooln to a product offering that addresses a well-defined buyer and user need. The 2024 collaboration lasted three months and involved remote workshop sessions and a full-day, in-person meeting.
Initially, Ooln’s concept focused heavily on a specific technology, AI recommendation models. However, working with HumanLogic, the founders pivoted to focus on empowering Academic Advisors to enhance student success—a domain aligned with the founding team’s expertise.
CLIENT PROFILE: OOLN
Ooln is developing an AI-assisted co-pilot for College Academic Advisors to proactively increase student retention at US universities. Each 1% decrease in student retention represents $16M in revenue shortfall for the average US college. Ooln’s offering will leverage data to allow advisors to focus on providing personalized support to students while AI proactively handles administrative tasks. This human-AI collaboration aims to enhance academic success and strengthen university student support systems.
PROCESS
During its very early stage and before seed funding, Ooln was a technology-focused venture led by two recent MIT graduates. HumanLogic worked closely with the co-founders in an advisory capacity to help sharpen the focus by connecting them with other entrepreneurs and experts in the initial domain. This product concept review led to a pivot to align more closely with the co-founders’ strengths.
In workshops held during the early part of the engagement, acting as thought partners, HumanLogic asked critical questions to understand, analyze, and uncover the sweet spot of value creation for Ooln’s offering. The methodology in the diagram below, as documented in our book “Envision Product: User Experience for Founders”, helped the founding team tackle prioritization.
Utilizing a Design Thinking methodology, HumanLogic guided Ooln towards a product offering that leveraged the founders’ strengths and expertise in a domain they understood well. Following the design methodology covered in our book, HumanLogic helped Ooln’s founders define and test assumptions with target customer interviews. From there, we helped the founders develop prioritized personas and user journeys reflecting what we term “user paths to value”.
After working with Ooln’s co-founders to clarify the initial offering, HumanLogic helped to articulate the story of the product’s value proposition for customers and stakeholders.
RESULTS
As a result of our work with Ooln’s co-founders, they headed off one or more potential product pivots and found an area of focus that best matches the criteria of their business case, user value, and viability.
We guided the team’s generation and articulation of a product with a focused value proposition for end users and buyers. We also helped Ooln’s founders get clarity on where to play, who to sell to, what kind of service they want to provide.
Ooln is now in a conversation to provide a pilot to one of the largest higher education institutions in the country.
CO-FOUNDER REFERENCES
Andri Rajaobelina, CEO and Co-Founder, Ooln
Omar Figueroa, MBA, COO and Co-Founder, Ooln
“As Co-Founders of Ooln, an early-stage startup originating at MIT, we worked with HumanLogic principals Karen Donoghue and Craig Newell to validate our initial idea and product.
Working with Karen and Craig accelerated the discovery process and allowed us to hone in on product-founder-market fit quickly and reorient our efforts. Throughout the engagement, they provided invaluable feedback and shared their own learnings from being founders who have built technology companies. We highly recommend Karen and Craig from HumanLogic to founders seeking expertise in planning, designing, and derisking new technology product concepts before launch.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information on how HumanLogic can help enhance your product user experiences while reducing risk, please visit www.humanlogic.com.