This case study demonstrates the following skills:

• I first understand the goals clearly. In this case, the founder saw that the platform they're running on has a limited market potential, and so wanted to expand the same product to different platforms. We're often in a rush so we start executing without clarity on goals, but that's like getting in your car and driving without knowing where you're going.

• I'm able to begin with a vague requirement like this and bring clarity over the course of the engagement.

• I generate multiple options and filter them according to various criteria like development time, UX, product, and business risk. This results in a better outcome than blindly executing the first idea one happens to come up with. Go broad, then filter, then go deep.

• I work in a collaborative manner, considering the founder's own idea as one of the options. When I rejected it, I gave him a reason and got buy-in from him to discard his idea.

• I'm able to think outside the problem as defined, which was to port the same product to different platforms, and ask if the founder is open to building a completely different product that nevertheless achieves the same goal. I brought this up because this was the only possibility that worked on one of the given platforms.

• Once the list of options was filtered down to two, which the client agreed on, I was able to build a proof of concept in a day, to bring confidence to everyone.

• After that, I was able to execute with high productivity, building a launchable version in a fortnight. The founder decided to launch a full-featured version instead, but I still prefer to give him the choice on whether to launch early.

• After that, I built a full-featured version on one platform in one month. The original version of the app before we came in took the startup a better part of the year to build.

• In a short while, the startup was able to explore the market and conclude that the new platform we expanded to has limited potential. The first goal of a startup is validated learning: learning that something doesn't work quickly and cheaply is a great outcome.

• Remember that we selected two platforms, and built the app on one? The startup wanted to build the other one in-house, so we transferred knowledge and disengaged. I'm able to engage with clients in different ways depending on what works best for them.

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This flowchart tells you how I executed this project at a high level, followed by a detailed flowchart:

Step 1: Understand goals and non-goals

Step 2: Generate platform options

Step 3: Execute, and Results