Case Study: Turning a Great Product into a Scalable Business

Venture Partner: Tom Minor, Product and Growth Advisor

Founder and Company: (Confidential) Two early stage founders building a teacher-focused EdTech platform

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The Challenge

A bright pair of founders had created a time-saving product for teachers, a tool with the potential to meaningfully reduce classroom admin and give educators valuable time back. But while initial feedback on the product was positive, website traffic was not converting into sign ups or sales.

The founders faced a common early stage problem: how to communicate the value of a great product to incredibly busy customers, in this case, teachers and school leaders, and design a customer journey that aligned with how time-poor these users really are.

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How We Worked Together

Drawing on my experience as both a classroom teacher and founder, I partnered closely with the team to help them rebuild the customer journey and messaging from the ground up. Together we focused on:

Clarifying and mapping the existing customer journey to identify the leaps of faith the founders were unknowingly asking users to take, and where the value proposition was not clear enough.

Applying the principle of "show, don’t tell", we restructured their website and onboarding experience to give teachers an immediate sense of how the product worked and why it mattered, reducing friction and amplifying perceived value.

Designing small, low commitment entry points such as demos and sneak peeks that allowed teachers to engage without feeling overwhelmed, knowing that time is their scarcest resource.

Running usability tests with individual teachers to gather real-world feedback on what worked and what did not, a simple but often overlooked step that provided essential insight.

Equipping the founders with tools for ongoing improvement including GA4 set up properly to track real behaviour and Hotjar for heatmaps and user session recording, helping them move into continuous optimisation mode.

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What Happened as a Result

Within a few months, the customer journey was transformed, making it intuitive and low barrier for teachers to engage and see the product’s value quickly

• The company began generating a steady stream of warm leads, moving from low conversions to a growing pipeline of engaged educators.

• The founders gained clarity on how to communicate with teachers, shifting from a product-first mindset to a customer-first one, an essential shift for any EdTech company.

• With new analytics in place, they could track the full user journey and iterate based on real behaviour, enabling data-led decisions rather than guesswork.

  
  

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The Outcome

Today, the company is in a strong position to scale with a validated customer journey and a clear understanding of how to convert interest into action. They are now moving into the next stage of growth, armed with real insight into their users and a more compelling way of telling their story.

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Key Reflection

Supporting these founders reminded me that product quality is not always enough, especially in sectors like education where users are incredibly time-poor and need to see immediate and obvious value. The way you communicate and design your customer journey can be as critical as the product itself.

At If Capital we love working with founders facing these kinds of growth challenges, especially when a great product just needs the right pathway to reach its audience. If you are in a similar position, let’s have a conversation.