Iris

Industries

Personal Management

Collaboration

6 months

Backed by

Business model

Highlight

The Iris product, defined and designed in partnership with Amplifyn, delivers a focused AI-driven personal development experience with validated user stories and a scalable design system, enabling a rapid transition from early-stage ambiguity to an investor-ready prototype.

Our collaboration

Iris is a personal development tool heavily assisted by AI. When the founders approached us, they were at the very beginning of their journey, with a broad ambition to “build a personal management tool with AI.” While the idea was compelling, the market was already saturated with similar solutions, making differentiation critical from day one.

Our role was to help Iris move from a high-level idea to a focused, investor-ready prototype by defining the right problem, positioning the product clearly, and delivering a coherent first version of the experience.

The challenge of standing out in an oversaturated market

AI-powered personal management tools are abundant, each promising productivity, self-improvement, or life optimisation.

The core challenge for Iris was not feasibility, but relevance:

What specific problem should the product solve?

Who is it truly for?

Why would it exist alongside dozens of similar tools?

Before committing to features or interfaces, the product needed sharper direction and a clearly defined niche.

Framing the right problem before designing solutions

We began with a problem framing workshop to unpack the founders’ assumptions and uncover the underlying motivations behind the product idea. This allowed us to shift the conversation from what the product could do to what meaningful problem it should solve.

Translating vision into a buildable prototype

With a clearer direction in place, the next step was to move quickly toward a prototype that could support early investor conversations.We facilitated a user story workshop to identify the most important user needs and interactions. Rather than attempting to design a fully fledged product, we worked with the team to prioritise what truly mattered for a first version.

Designing for speed and consistency

To support rapid design and development, we established a lightweight design system with custom components tailored to the product’s needs. This enabled fast iteration while maintaining consistency across the experience, even as scope evolved.

Since there was no dedicated project manager on the client side, our team took ownership of self-managing the workflow from planning sprints, prioritising user stories, and sequencing work in a way that kept developers unblocked and productive.

Navigating ambiguity and ownership gaps

This project came with several challenges:

Helping an early-stage team define market positioning in a crowded space.

Framing an abstract idea into a concrete, solvable problem.

Managing scope, priorities, and delivery without a formal project management structure.

By operating autonomously and maintaining close alignment with the founders, we were able to make informed decisions quickly while keeping the broader product vision intact.

Outcome

By the end of the agreed timeline, we successfully delivered designs for the prioritised user stories, giving Iris a focused, cohesive prototype ready to support investor discussions and next-stage development.

This collaboration laid a strong foundation for Iris, not just in terms of design output, but in clarity of purpose, product direction, and confidence in how to move forward.

The collaboration resulted in:

From a vague idea to a focused AI-powered personal development product