Turning an idea into a product

The Union was an early-stage venture involving several organisations working together to create a service that gave consumers greater visibility and control over their digital footprint.

When I joined the project, the founders had a compelling vision.

They wanted to help people understand what information was being shared about them online and give them greater control over who could access it. Looking back, many of the ideas feel surprisingly close to conversations we’re now having around AI, digital identity and personal data.

The challenge was turning that vision into something a team could actually build.

Working with stakeholders from several organisations, I ran a series of workshops to explore the different ideas, priorities and assumptions that had emerged. Each organisation brought its own perspective on what the product could become.

My role was to bring those together into a coherent product architecture, interaction model and specification for the team’s MVP.

Much of the work happened long before anyone started writing code.

The product had started as a collection of ideas spread across several organisations. By the end of the project, it had become a single product that everyone could see.

Curious how experiences like this have shaped my approach?

Many of the principles on my Approach page were shaped by projects like this, where spending time understanding the product often made building it much easier.