Lahdaa
A Founder Lesson in Focus, Prioritisation and Product Discipline
2020
A Founder Lesson in Focus, Prioritisation and Product Discipline
Overview
Lahdaa was my first attempt as a founder, built during my master’s in 2020.
The idea was a learning platform for entrepreneurs, aspiring founders, and people who wanted to build income-generating skills. The platform was designed to adapt to how each individual learns, creating personalised learning journeys based on their goals, progress, preferences, and learning style.
I never got Lahdaa to market, but the experience shaped how I think and lead as a product manager today.
The Problem
Many online learning platforms feel generic. Learners often struggle to know what to learn next, how it connects to their goals, or how to turn learning into real progress.
For entrepreneurs and aspiring founders, learning needs to feel practical, focused, and connected to real outcomes.
My Role
I led the product as the founder.
I carried out customer research, shaped the product vision, designed the user flows and high-fidelity UI, and worked with the engineering team to explore how the platform could be built.
I worked across the landing page, learner dashboard, instructor dashboard, onboarding, learning paths, course discovery, UX copy, and product structure.
What I Built
I designed a product experience centred around personalised learning, including:
A landing page explaining the value proposition
A learner dashboard focused on goals, progress, and next steps
An instructor dashboard for managing content and learner engagement
Onboarding and learning path flows
Course discovery and recommendation journeys
The goal was to create a learning experience that felt supportive, adaptive, and easy to follow.
Why It Did Not Launch
Lahdaa failed not because I lacked product knowledge, I already had product experience and knew what I should have done.
It failed because I did not take my own advice.
I became too emotionally attached to the product and too close to the idea to stay objective. Instead of applying the same discipline I would advise as a product manager, ship early, test quickly, and learn from users, I kept chasing perfection.
I spent too much time refining, polishing, and expanding the product instead of narrowing it down to the simplest version I could validate. I hid behind polish when I should have been learning from the market.
What I Learned
Lahdaa taught me one of the most important lessons of my product career: knowing what to do and actually doing it are not always the same, especially when you are emotionally invested.
A product does not need to be perfect to be useful, but it does need to reach users.
The experience made me a better product manager because it taught me to prioritise more ruthlessly, test earlier, reduce scope, and separate personal attachment from product judgement.
It also gave me a deeper understanding of the founder mindset. I now understand how easy it is to lose objectivity when you care deeply about something you are building, and I use that lesson to bring more focus, honesty, and discipline to the teams and founders I work with.
What This Shows
Lahdaa did not become a live product, but it became a turning point in how I lead.
It shows my ability to take an idea from research to product strategy, design, and technical collaboration. More importantly, it shows that I can learn from failure, challenge my own assumptions, and become a stronger product leader because of it.
