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Eigenmind started as a company hackathon project
Design Manager / Lead UX: I led design strategy, coordinated cross-functional teams, and shaped product vision while mentoring a designer and aligning with stakeholders.
Eigenmind.ai was born out of a company hackathon with the aim of solving a pervasive issue in SMEs: knowledge silos. Many small and medium enterprises struggle to effectively share knowledge across departments, which can lead to inefficiencies, poor decision-making, and missed opportunities. The goal was to create a solution that could break down these silos and improve collaboration and knowledge-sharing within organisations.
To inform the design of the product, we conducted comprehensive user research, focusing on two key stakeholder groups:
Knowledge managers: Individuals responsible for overseeing how knowledge is created, shared, and retained within an organization.
IT professionals: Experts tasked with managing infrastructure, security, and compliance, which are critical for adopting new technologies in enterprise environments.
Through interviews, we wanted to understand the pain points, workflows, and unmet needs of both groups. Knowledge managers emphasized the difficulty in maintaining a single source of truth for internal data and expertise, often citing challenges in outdated systems, unstructured information, and siloed teams. IT professionals, on the other hand, stressed the need for robust security, scalability, and compliance with GDPR and other regulations.
What We Built: Key MVP Features
Armed with research findings, we proceeded to design and build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with a clear focus on solving the core problem: enabling seamless knowledge sharing across teams within SMEs. Key features included:
What We Learned from Early Pilots
Overfitting for early adopters: While our first users were enthusiastic about the product, they represented a niche segment of the market. We tailored too many features to meet their specific needs, which limited our ability to design for broader applicability. This narrow focus became a hindrance when trying to expand beyond the pilot phase.
IT and security roadblocks: Enterprise customers often had long review processes for any new software. Complying with IT infrastructure and security standards, particularly regarding data privacy and GDPR, introduced more delays. We underestimated the complexity of getting through these procurement hurdles.
The MVP validated that users found value in the unified search + workspace concept, with early adopters confirming improvement in information access and team collaboration. We also surfaced major enterprise constraints like data governance, security, and compliance earlier than typical, which helped inform product refinement.