Swurl came from a project that didn't work out. My partner and I realized something important through that failure - we, and many others like us, never felt quite at home on LinkedIn. As designers, we found ourselves cringing at the forced corporate positivity and endless self-promotion. We wanted a space that felt real, where people could be themselves without the pressure to maintain a polished professional facade.
The idea kept nagging at us: what if we created a place for authentic connections? A platform designed for visually-minded people who want genuine interactions and mentorship, without the marketing speak and networking games? That's how Swurl was born - from our own need for a more honest, human way to connect professionally.
Our research validated our core hypothesis: conducting 30 in-depth interviews and surveying 100 professionals revealed widespread frustration with current networking platforms. Users consistently cited pain points including AI-generated outreach, unresponsive recruiters, and inauthentic social content. This strong validation gave us confidence to push forward in the competitive professional networking space, knowing we were addressing real user needs rather than creating another source of digital noise.
Instead of building a product for everyone, we focused on two specific groups: vetted senior UX designers who had experience mentoring others and were looking for more meaningful ways to share their expertise, and talented individuals who felt stuck figuring out their career path. By understanding these two groups deeply, we could build features that actually solved their real problems, rather than creating something too general that wouldn't help anyone meaningfully
To build an effective professional community, we needed to understand all stakeholders in the hiring process. We conducted in-depth interviews with recruiters to understand their needs and pain points, while I attended industry conferences to gain direct insights from hiring managers. This research was crucial in ensuring our platform would not only facilitate meaningful connections but also lead to concrete career opportunities. The data helped us bridge the gap between authentic community building and practical career advancement.
Our interviews with coaches revealed a key opportunity: by streamlining their workflow and providing tools for group mentorship, we could make quality coaching more accessible to early-career professionals. We identified two core needs for coaches: a platform for public Q&A and knowledge sharing, and tools to manage cohort-based mentoring and goal tracking.Instead of just digitizing the traditional 1-on-1 coaching model, we reimagined it. By enabling coaches to mentor multiple professionals through structured group programs, we could significantly reduce the cost per mentee while maintaining quality guidance.
Looking ahead, we ideated a concept for the platform to eventually incorporate AI coaching capabilities that would leverage the coaches' expertise while preserving their intellectual property – allowing them to scale their impact without losing control of their unique methodologies.This approach addressed a crucial market gap: while executive coaching is well-established, emerging professionals who need career guidance the most often can't access it due to cost barriers.
We created a series of co-design sessions with our target users. Our goal was to understand what would motivate them to use our platform now. What were the minimum requirements for a useful MVP?
We began by mapping our core user's journey - from their first interaction with the platform through their evolution into becoming mentors themselves. Through collaborative design sessions in Figma, we identified four essential components: a personalized dashboard to track progress, an interface for mentor-mentee interactions, a space for creative portfolio sharing, and a curated inspiration feed. This structure emerged from carefully mapping each touchpoint in the user's growth journey.
Our iterative design phase spanned two months, with continuous user validation of our hypotheses. I led a collaborative design team including a senior and junior UX designer, while working closely with our researcher who gathered survey data to inform our decisions. I took an active role in both hands-on design work and design leadership, providing detailed feedback and critiques while also contributing directly to the design solutions. This balanced approach helped us maintain consistency and quality across all our iterations.
As we defined our MVP, I developed a parallel track execution plan for design, development, and testing. The challenge was coordinating a talented but part-time team. To maintain momentum, I took on initial design work while bringing in an exceptional UX designer and brand designer to elevate the product's quality. While my early designs served as foundational wireframes, I knew bringing in top design talent would be crucial for creating a truly compelling product.
We took a strategic approach to building our MVP, aiming to validate and refine as much as possible before seeking funding. This phase proved particularly challenging as we balanced speed with quality - each design decision carried more weight knowing it would soon move into development. Unlike the flexibility of Figma where iterations are seamless, development changes would require significant resources. This reality pushed us to be more thorough in our design decisions, validating each feature carefully before committing it to code.
The goal was to communicate to our audience about what we are doing and at the same time showcasing talented individuals within our network.
I initially hired a strategist and we talked through our goals and mission. I was very much inspired by Chris Do's talk about personal brand. So we worked on a social media that had a storytelling element.
The biggest challenge with this part of the project was finding the motivation to post constantly and also finding the right designer to execute the look and feel I was looking for. I missed the mark and brought a freelancer in who didn't completely know how to mirror the brand, so I ended up going to the original brand designer and hiring him to create our social media assets. It was a more expensive decision, but it was worthwhile because now I have a great template to use moving forward.
Having self-funded the project through its initial phases, we've successfully validated our concept, refined our design through user testing, and confirmed strong product-market fit. Working with a strategist, we've developed clear positioning for our upcoming Kickstarter campaign, ensuring our value proposition resonates with both our target users and potential backers. With a solid foundation in place - from user research to high-fidelity prototypes - we're now positioned to scale the platform and bring this solution to the many professionals who need it.