Here is our Pitch deck for LinguaLeap:
PDF: LinguaLeap First Pitch Deck (4)
Canva: Canva Presentation
Reflections:
Over the course of this project, we covered a lot ranging from market research, competitor analysis, user interviews, risk assessment, and a full pitch deck. But looking back, what most surprises me is how aligned we eventually were in our product direction and the evidence behind this decision.
I’m proud of how thorough our research ended up being and how much it evolved through our user interviews. We learned a lot about our different users and how limited university students’ options are when it comes to real conversational practice. That insight shaped a lot of our decisions later on and helped us move from something abstract to something that felt actually needed. It also made us realize that even though there are hundreds of language apps out there, very few genuinely focus on speaking confidence or interaction within an academic setting, which became one of the strongest angles for our final proposal.
Another thing I found really valuable was how our conversations with mentors helped us think differently about research ranging from not just what questions to ask, but how to approach interviews in the first place. Understanding whether to go top-down or bottom-up completely changed how we thought about user discovery and how we might market and position the product later on. It gave us a more realistic view of how different stakeholders think and how that impacts adoption.
Overall, what I took from the project was how much depth you can get from just listening carefully and asking the right questions. The final product felt like a reflection of that process which was built on insight rather than assumption, and shaped by curiosity about the people we were designing for.
Ishita:
Working on the LinguaLi project has been a really interesting experience. Learning about product management has been especially valuable because I’ve been able to put on both my business and computer science hats at the same time. I really enjoyed the exercise where we had to challenge our assumptions — it pushed me to think in two directions. On one hand, there were the technical assumptions: can this actually be built, and what kinds of challenges might arise when trying to build it from an engineering, time, and cost perspective? On the other hand, there were the business assumptions: even if we can build the perfect system, will people actually enjoy using it, and will they be willing to pay for it? And can it be completed within the timeline we’ve set?
There are so many different axes to think about when approaching a problem — design, user experience, and even ethics. Just because something can be built and people want it doesn’t necessarily mean it should be built. That’s something I’ve thought about a lot. It’s been especially meaningful to work on an educational project because I feel like the problems I’m being asked to solve are making the world a little better, not worse. I think it would be much harder for me to work on something like social media or film, because I’m realizing I’m a very principled person. If I feel that something is ethically or morally off, my brain almost shuts down that line of thinking.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed working with the team. I’ve appreciated the brainstorming sessions, the collaborative nature of the work, and the opportunity to create slides, present, and receive feedback. It’s been an enriching and learning-filled project, and I’m really grateful for the experience.
Working on the LinguaLeap project has been an insightful experience in understanding the complexities of scaling an early-stage EdTech startup. At first glance, LinguaLeap appeared to have achieved product-market fit with steady growth and strong university partnerships. However, diving deeper into the data revealed that retention and differentiation were the real barriers to sustainable success. This project challenged us to look beyond surface-level metrics and focus on the deeper issues affecting user engagement and LinguaLeap’s competitiveness.
I found it particularly insightful to explore how product design, user psychology, and business strategy intersect. Analyzing why students dropped off after six months or why universities hesitated to renew contracts forced me to think critically about the importance of continuous engagement and perceived value. Crafting potential solutions—like conversation-based AI features and ELO-based matching—as a team helped me appreciate how targeted innovation can directly address retention while aligning with institutional needs.
Overall, this project strengthened my ability to synthesize research, evaluate trade-offs under real constraints, and propose data-driven strategies. It taught me that in startups, focus and clarity often matter more than chasing multiple growth opportunities. LinguaLeap’s situation highlighted how a well-defined, retention-focused strategy can sometimes be the most powerful growth path.
Working on LinguaLeap has been one of the most rewarding and energizing projects I’ve been part of. When our team was first assigned an AI-driven language-learning platform, I was fascinated by how technology could make conversation—not rote vocabulary drills—the center of language mastery. As we dug deeper, we realized that the “conversation gap” in most existing apps wasn’t just a teaching issue but a psychological one: students often lacked a safe, low-pressure space to actually speak and make mistakes.
During the project, I took the lead on the Next Steps section and also helped with early user interviews. Talking with college students reminded me how quickly fluency fades when there’s no real conversational practice outside class. Many felt anxious about speaking or didn’t know how to track their progress, which reinforced our decision to focus on ELO-based matching and AI-powered feedback. My role was to turn those insights into a concrete five-month roadmap—balancing ambition with our limited five-month runway. That meant prioritizing hiring engineers and designers, finalizing AI integration, launching retention-driven features, and expanding pilot programs with universities to show traction before raising our Series B. Translating user pain points into actionable, time-bound milestones was both challenging and deeply satisfying.
What I valued most was our team’s openness to new ideas. Every discussion pushed us to test assumptions—about retention, pricing, or user experience—and our final pitch deck reflected that blend of creativity and discipline. Seeing the project come together, from user personas to financial projections, reminded me that great products are built not just on data, but on empathy and storytelling. LinguaLeap taught me how AI, education, and human connection can work together to create something both scalable and genuinely meaningful.
I have thoroughly enjoyed working on LinguaLeap so far. I have taken several previous classes that involved customer interviews, the business model canvas, market research analysis, etc. so I very much feel at home working on business strategy. In addition, the product direction that LinguaLeap focuses on is language learning, which is a domain that I have been passionate about for years.
To be frank, I think most of the decisions made by the previous fictitious executive team at LinguaLeap are highly questionable and if I were seriously working on a company in this space, I would try to make better-informed choices earlier on to avoid placing my company in such a precarious financial position. The problems raised by our case study document are challenging to address without additional context, but part of the fun is coming up with creative solutions to turn a crisis around, which will almost inevitably occur if you work in a real start-up environment. Forcing me to consider how to 1) differentiate in a crowded space, 2) mitigate declining user retention, 3) reverse slowing growth and increase acquisition of new clients, and 4) address the feasibility of a novel technology, are skills that are incredibly valuable in real life.
In doing our need-finding and solution drafting, our company has settled on continuing to focus on B2B partnerships with universities and drive growth via direct product refinement and pivoting a bit on the value proposition we provide. Previously, there was no clear direction for our app, but we have currently decided to focus on spoken language conversation assisted with AI-based speech analysis and ELO-based matchmaking to partner up users of similar skill levels and enhance their oral conversation skills.
I think one of the more useful things that I have practiced so far, and a core part of what helped drive us to coalesce on a direction, is refining my user interviewing skills. I thrive in 1-1 conversation—being able to hear interesting perspectives from the users that we talk to and encapsulate their thoughts into concrete pain points is one of the most rewarding parts of developing a business. I am sure we will work on validation and other core skills necessary to address our problem, but this is what has stood out to me so far.
Finally, one of my favorite parts of the class has been working with my team. We are composed of seven people total from different backgrounds but almost all of us speak at least one language other than English, so we have direct experiences in this space, and I have found that our respective personalities and strengths complement each other very well. Our conversations both in and out of class have been delightful.
Overall, I am looking forward to what the second half of this quarter brings!
Over the past couple of weeks, I have learned so much from working on LinguaLeap. This project gave me a deeper understanding of how to connect product strategy with real business needs. I learned a lot about market sizing, identifying which opportunities are worth pursuing, and how to communicate those findings clearly in a pitch deck.
One of the most rewarding parts was getting feedback from the judges. Hearing their thoughts on our presentation and how they appreciated our product idea made me realize how much potential LinguaLeap has. It was also a reminder of how important it is to show both the vision and the evidence behind it.
I really enjoyed conducting user interviews and talking with my teammates about their interviews because there were a lot of similarities in the profiles of the users that we chose. It was so interesting to see the different insights everyone gathered and how each perspective shaped our final direction. Working together to think through each team member’s strengths and how we could use them to make our pitch stronger taught me a lot about collaboration and leadership. I enjoyed working on the market sizing and formalizing what makes the members of our team good for this project because it made it feel more real.
I also enjoyed spending time defining our value proposition and comparing it with competitors because it helped me understand what truly makes a product stand out. This project gave me a better appreciation for how design, storytelling, and strategy come together to create something meaningful and impactful.
So far, I have felt very out of my element in this class. While certain aspects, such as user interviews and technical solution brainstorming, are things I’m very comfortable with, examining these topics through a business lens is new to me. Being a CS major, solutions are usually judged on their optimization and numerical data. Despite feeling technically well-versed, diving into the PM world has revealed that there is a lot of new technical jargon that has left me, at times, feeling lost. Through a lot of trial and error, and many Google searches, I feel like I’ve come a long way.
Through working on LinguaLeap, I’ve gained an intense appreciation for thinking beyond the technical viability of a solution. Diving deeper into how a solution will impact a user, business, and investor has given me a greater appreciation for the design process as a whole. After taking 377U and 147, the design process is so much wider in scope than these classes have led me to believe.
This project has thrown me in the deep end. It’s revealed the “jack of all trades” nature of being a PM, and the amount of work left to do to understand how to take my solutions from surface-level implementations to real-world viable products.
