A simple tool for a revolutionary daycare platform solution
Service
UI/UX Design, Webdesign, Branding
Year
2022 - 2024
Website
www.deinekita.de
Client
deinekita.de
Tools
Figma, Photoshop, Google Analytics, StoryBlok
The Challenge (why)
The problem of the daycare place chaos:
The current process of allocating daycare places in Germany is fragmented and often inefficient. Parents find it difficult to find available places, registrations are confusing and there is no way to track the status of a registration. In addition, daycare centers suffer from staff shortages, waiting lists that are not updated and often contain inactive registrations.
My goal as the founder of the platform was to simplify and improve the registration process and matchmaking between parents and daycare centers in order to make the search for a daycare spot more efficient and digital.
An additional challenge was that I had no knowledge of the childcare sector and therefore had to familiarize myself deeply with the topic.
My Process (how)
Strategic user research
In the first research phase (November 2022 - February 2023), I conducted 30 qualitative interviews (remote & face-to-face) with various stakeholders and documented them in Miro, including daycare providers, daycare managers, educators, parents and parents-to-be.
Through qualitative interviews with daycare centers and parents, several Appinio surveys and the application of the Value Proposition Canvas, I was able to better understand the main needs and difficulties of both user groups.
However, it was very chaotic, with frequent changes of direction and setbacks. Daycare centers often rejected us, digitalization is new territory here and our concept was hardly convincing.
With the help of test cards, I drew up hypotheses, prioritized and validated them in small steps, classified them in an impact-effort matrix and assumption mapping before we built the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Tools such as Miro A.I. and Figjam helped us to quickly create user flows and personas, recognize patterns and thus efficiently classify the feedback.
Prototyping and testing
After building the first prototype in Figma, I carried out repeated user tests, including fake door tests, to check the interest - mainly from daycare centers - in certain features. I used Google Sheets to document all important insights and used Slack to ensure that these could be shared quickly within the team.
The Solution (what)
The result? The startup deinekita.de - founded in 2023 - my two co-founders and I, who want to put an end to the daycare chaos with a disruptive digital platform that makes the entire daycare registration process much simpler and more transparent for parents and daycare centers.
The platform enables parents to search, filter, compare and directly register for available daycare places and track the status of their registration. At the same time, it offers daycare centers an efficient solution to combat staff shortages with job ads, actively advertise available daycare spots, automate their waiting list and maintain their website for free.
After going live, however, we encountered new problems and challenges. How do we make money with it in detail? How do we solve the “cold start problem” without sales expertise? How can we measure successfully placed childcare places? More on this in a blog post soon.
My Learnings
Building a team, launching a digital product from scratch and disrupting an analog, outdated market with deinekita.de has been my biggest learning in entrepreneurship so far. Specifically:
Consistent communication is key: through regular interviews and feedback sessions, we were able to ensure that the platform really meets the needs of the users.
Market knowledge: The market for early childhood care is complex and highly fragmented: Federal states have their own rules and regional allocation portals. You need staying power, a lot of patience and motivation to change the future with a team and product in the long term.
Funding & running costs: Funding and networking events are necessary for a social impact startup. Thanks to our Google Cloud Startup and Pioneer Lab funding, we were able to keep running server costs low early on and learn from accelerator programs and experts.