Leeo Ping Platform

Helping a smart nightlight company become a mission driven SAAS business

Leeo 1.0
A beautiful product but a narrow opportunity

People loved our Smart Alert but costs were high and "smart home" was becoming commoditized. Leeo needed recurring revenue to survive and our investors wanted us to solve a bigger problem with 10x potential. The founders departed to pursue other passions but the board of directors was interested in what else we might do.

Leeo 2.0
A platform to know when things are ok… and get help when they're not.

Our big idea: create a platform to connect people, devices and services to help everyone stay safe. We envisioned applying it to real estate, insurance, health and safety but first we focused on a problem dear to our hearts: How do we know our aging parents are ok? I led the effort to develop the idea and then pitched it to the board of directors. They were excited…

Getting to know our desired customers

We connected with dozens of professional caregivers, seniors and their family members to better understand their day to day needs. I led the effort to distill the findings into empathy maps, personas and user journeys for the team to gain a common understanding of our customers.

The early protoype ( well received, but flawed )

We developed a concept prototype based on research findings and business opportunities and used the prototype to quickly communicate ideas to execs, engineering and potential customers. While the ideas were well received, engineers worried the scope was too large and potential customers didn’t trust a new service that offered so much.

Mutual Aid Network

Assistance

Monitoring & Safety

Breaking down the big idea into actionable experiments

This allowed us to evaluate experiments independently and execute serially if needed. Later, each experiment could be integrated into the larger service if they were successful.

Evaluating the experiments

I lead working sessions to help understand gaps and set priorities as well as tested multiple protoypes with users. I developed a product evaluation worksheet that allowed us to map initiatives and features based on strategic business value, technical complexity and time to market. The results were displayed as a heat map to allow us to quickly target high value initiatives that could be brought to market quickly.

Parts of experiment 1 and 3 graduated to an mvp

We focused on a small number of important use cases to meet key needs while leveraging existing infrastructure whenever possible. I created a set of design principles to guide the product experience.

Use Cases

  • Are they up and about today?
  • Is their home comfortable and no alarms?
  • Did they arrive home safely?
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Design Principles

  • Respect the individual
  • Do not require behavior change
  • Provide value to both senior & caregiver
  • Mutuality and universal design

Hacking simple device integrations

We integrated HealthKit and IFTTT to quickly gained access to a wide range of sensor options. This allowed us to run pilots without waiting for our new hardware.

Collecting data early to bootstrap machine learning.

I worked with engineering and analytics to create a high level data structure to accommodate incoming data and anticipate future needs. How can we maximize protection while minimizing false alarms?

Universal design for all ages

The app featured high contrast graphics, ultra-legible typography and a color blind friendly UI. After initial setup, Tech averse customers did not need to use the app at all. Everything ran in the background and required no app engagement or behavior change.

Planning for the future with a system based UI

We created Sketch libraries of reusable components to make designing the UI faster and more consistent. Invision protoypes were created to communicate flow then embedded into Confluence for detailed specification and then shared as epics and stories in Jira.  

New branding to inspire young and old alike

Beautiful new hardware design & functional prototypes

I enlisted the incredible talent at Ammunition to design a new form factor worthy of our mission. The new Smart Alert detected motion, sound and climate in order to understand activity and environment. We developed functional prototypes in-house and deployed them in pilot environments. 

Learning from pilot customers

Pilots were designed for success, I created a simple "getting started" guide and weekly tasks and surveys to gather structured feedback. We decreased account creation falloff by over 40% by identifying and removing roadblocks. Our beta customers rated us an average of 4.5 stars. The pilot configuration was designed for flexibility supporting fully instrumented smart homes or anyone with just an iPhone (and everything in between).
We decreased account creation falloff by over 40% by identifying and removing roadblocks.
Our beta customers rated us an average of 4.5 stars.

Getting some great recognition

We were honored at CES 2019 in the innovation awards center and recognized in several publications as a promising new service to help seniors and their families stay safe.

Some issues never resolved, funding ran out.

We had a hard working team of talented people all pushing toward a common mission but we continued to struggle with investment due to legacy company structure, key team member turnover and a split board of directors. Some team members continue to discuss ways to move the effort forward.

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Smart Alert Nightlight

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