Briklo
Enabling App Owners to Build, Grow, and Manage Their Business
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Overview
Briklo is a personal development platform that I co-founded, designed to support mind, body, and spirit growth. It empowers coaches, trainers, nutritionists, and educators to create, manage, and sell programs, challenges, and courses.
Briklo was born from my experience at The Beeprint, an agency where half of our clients were frustrated by “DIY” platforms like Wix. Recognizing a gap in user-friendly, purpose-built platforms, we set out to build a tool that not only allowed creation but also helped users run and scale their businesses.
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My role
As Co-Founder and Product Designer, I wore multiple hats—designing, managing, researching, and collaborating across departments. My responsibilities included leading design, conducting research, overseeing competitive analysis, managing product ownership tasks, and co-directing product strategy.
I also shaped our roadmap and prioritized features to ensure our platform was cohesive and strategically aligned with our vision. My multifaceted role required balancing day-to-day tasks with a high-level focus on Briklo’s overall growth.
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Challenges
Our target audience of educators, trainers, and coaches had diverse needs and varying technical abilities, which required us to strike a careful balance in our design. Finding the right terminology and creating a consistent flow was challenging, especially as many users were new to entrepreneurship and unfamiliar with technical jargon.
We needed to design an intuitive creation process that resonated with all experienced professionals and beginners alike. This meant avoiding complex terms, providing clear guidance, and refining the flow to accommodate users with different levels of comfort and expertise.
Research and Discovery
I conducted a competitive analysis, scoping out direct and indirect competitors to identify gaps and common user pain points. We also built apps using competing platforms to better understand their limitations, and Reddit reviews confirmed that complex interfaces caused user frustration.
To ensure our features aligned with user needs, I initiated a qualification analysis to screen participants for usability studies.
I conducted many user interviews including my first customer interviews, validating proposition.
Editor designs
I designed Briklo’s key modules to provide maximum flexibility and usability for our users:
Course Module
Created for flexible learning, allowing both self-paced and scheduled courses. Design choices focused on visual clarity and step-by-step flow to maintain user engagement, resulting in an 85% course completion rate during testing.
We had to update the description for “public” vs “private” since most participants had private 1:1/groups rather than public scalable modules, but loved the idea of “public.”
Program and Challenge Modules
Enabled users to create personalized programs with structured schedules for content, workouts, and meal plans.
During usability testing, first-time entrepreneurs were unfamiliar with the term “Build a Program” despite frequently expressing the need to 'build programs' in interviews.
To bridge this vocabulary gap, I introduced familiar terms like 'Life Coaching Programs' and 'Fitness Programs,' which led to a 95% task success rate in testing.
5% still faced challenges, particularly those whose needs fell between our primary cohorts. To be continued…
Scheduling
I incorporated day labeling with the flexibility of day names or numbers, based on user preference. Future plans include integrating a calendar view based on participant feedback.
Participants expressed a need for calendar date functionality, which, although not yet implemented, was validated as a priority on our roadmap.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Domain)
We used the Squarespace Domain API integration to streamline the process of connecting existing domains or purchasing new ones, providing a step-by-step setup experience with enhanced support tailored to each client’s specific DNS provider.
End User Views
To support our customers’ clients, I designed seamless experiences across PWA web, desktop, mobile, and native app views. We focused on usability to ensure clients could easily access their content, as our customers’ revenue directly impacts ours.
Forms
Managing with another designer, I optimized forms for faster reviews and easy updates based on user responses, specifically aiding coaches and trainers who rely on client check-ins.
Our integrated forms feature gave back an estimated 7 hours per week to our users, allowing them to either take a break or serve more clients.
Outcomes and Reflections
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Usability Testing and Iteration
I conducted usability testing sessions to validate our designs, with an impressive 85% task completion and high user satisfaction. During testing, users frequently noted how easy it was to find information that they had struggled with on other platforms, even commenting that Briklo’s features saved them time.
Early testing identified issues with feature names; for example, “Build a Program” was confusing to some users, so I introduced cohort-specific labels like “Life Coaching Programs” and “Fitness Programs” as a temporary solution.
Biggest take away: Feature heavy doesn’t mean optimized.
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Impact
Our integrated forms feature gave back an estimated 7 hours per week to our users.
By consolidating commonly used features, simplifying navigation, and aligning terminology with user expectations, we created a platform that empowered our customers to focus on growth rather than admin tasks.
User feedback emphasized that Briklo saved them time and made their work easier. One user shared, “This is exactly what I needed to streamline my work—I can finally focus on growth rather than admin tasks.” These outcomes validated our goal of providing meaningful, measurable value to our users.
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Reflections and Learnings
I learned valuable lessons about balancing a founder’s vision with user-driven design. While I was excited to implement new ideas, usability testing reinforced the importance of prioritizing clear, intuitive experiences that align with users’ needs.
Collaborating with our target audience from the ground up also showed me the significance of adaptability, both in terminology and design, to serve diverse user segments effectively.
Additionally, managing without a dedicated Product Owner role strengthened my skills in coordinating product strategy and design, bridging gaps across teams to deliver a cohesive, user-centered product.