04Busuu
Turning learner insight into a new product direction.
A three-week, C-suite-backed vision that gave four product teams a shared strategy for the next generation of Busuu.
- My role
- Lead Product Designer
- Industry
- Education technology
- Focus
- Product strategy, Vision to release
- Scope
- Global B2C learning product and four release teams
The short version
The case in three moves.
- Challenge
- Continuous optimisation was not closing the gap in a competitive language-learning market; learners needed clearer progress, richer practice and stronger engagement.
- Leadership
- I worked with the CEO and C-suite to define product principles, strategic areas and a culture-led creative concept, then aligned four teams around the first release.
- Outcome
- The MVP launched in selected markets and showed positive early movement across every target metric: 14-day retention, registrations and Premium conversion.
01 / Insight
The product needed a shift, not another small optimisation.
Existing research showed where learners were losing momentum: long courses made progression feel slow, lesson experiences lacked variety, and people had too few opportunities to practise with others.
I translated that evidence into three product principles, refined with the CEO and C-suite: make learning engaging, build confidence through personalised progress, and connect people through language and culture.
02 / Strategy
Give the experience a structure and a soul.
The strategy organised the product around study, revise and community. A curated course remained the core; personalised revision would reinforce learning; and community would turn language into a shared experience.
Culture became the differentiator connecting those areas. Research across language pairings repeatedly surfaced culture as a motivation, so the vision used it to make content, progress and celebrations feel distinct for every learning journey.
03 / Release
Move from a future concept to a coordinated MVP.
Working with Brand, Product and Learning Design, I iterated the concept and prioritised a three-month release plan. Four teams owned activation, exercises, courses and Premium opportunities; I oversaw design across all four while directly leading three other teams.
Bi-weekly design syncs found collaboration opportunities and protected consistency. Teams tested changes that could disrupt established learner behaviour, and the successful usability studies increased confidence before release.
04 / Outcome
The vision created direction—and early commercial signal.
The first MVP launched in selected countries for learners using the English interface. Early results moved positively across all three measures the release had targeted: 14-day retention, registrations and Premium subscription conversion.
Live-product usability work and new journey mapping continued after release, using real behaviour to evolve the longer-term vision.
