StudyStake: Data-Driven Study Abroad Guidance
StudyStake is an EdTech startup project where I joined as the Product Lead and one of the 3 founding team members. We started from scratch with a shared vision: to help students make smarter international study decisions.
The Problem to Solve
Many Vietnamese students feel overwhelmed when thinking about studying abroad:
Unsure which field of study truly matches their interests and skills
Unclear about the career path after graduating in a foreign country
Overwhelmed by thousands of courses and unsure which choice leads to success
StudyStake was born to solve these exact concerns, turning complex choices into simple, confident decisions.
Our Solution: A New Approach
Instead of starting with searching for universities, we started by understanding the user, a personalized approach. The first MVP of StudyStake was a web app where students could:
1. Discover Yourself: First, you take a short RIASEC career assessment quiz to discover your strengths and interests.
2. Get Tailored Recommendations: Based on the quiz results, the system suggests the most suitable careers and courses for you in Australia, complete with a clear, quantified “Matching Score.” You can easily filter and search for courses based on various criteria.
3. Connect with Real Opportunities: We don’t just suggest courses; we also show you the big picture of job opportunities after graduation, including salary ranges and the growth potential for each career field.
StudyStake’s goal is to create a seamless journey, supporting students from the initial exploration phase all the way to graduation and employment, ensuring that every choice is well-founded and leads to a secure future.
My Role as Product Lead: Building from Zero
As the founding team, my core responsibility was to build the product and the team that would bring it to life. I led the recruitment for our initial product and tech team, successfully hiring a Product Designer, a Business Analyst, a Full Stack Developer, and a Back-end Developer. The main challenge was to quickly onboard and unite these new members to meet our aggressive milestones.
I worked in constant sync with my two co-founders (handling partnerships and sales) to shape the product roadmap, ensuring our MVP delivered immediate, tangible value to students while staying true to our long-term vision.
The MVP’s “Secret Sauce”
I was primarily responsible for designing the core user journey to solve our users’ main JTBD: finding the right study path with confidence.
The flow was straightforward:
A student shares their needs through a simple onboarding process >> our system leverages a large database to recommend suitable courses.
The key differentiator was our quantified “Matching Score”, which gave users a clear, data-driven reason for each recommendation.
After validating the course-matching module, we developed the second key feature: connecting each course to its corresponding career opportunities and integrating the Holland Career Test directly into the app to ensure the suggested path aligned with the student’s personality and interests.
To gain initial insights for the MVP design, we conducted online interviews with two key user groups: students preparing to study abroad and those already living in foreign country.
On the design front, while I guided our Product Designer, I personally designed the core system flows and several of the most critical screens to ensure the vision was executed correctly.
Learnings from a Failed Project
The project ultimately failed after more than a year. The primary reasons were a lack of alignment on operational and go-to-market strategies among the founding team, and consistent delays from the tech team, which caused us to miss critical university admission cycles.
I chose to include this project in my portfolio because it was an invaluable experience in ownership, leadership, and team guidance within a fast-paced, cost-sensitive startup environment. It taught me crucial lessons about the importance of founder alignment and realistic delivery planning, lessons that I carry with me in every project I undertake.
UI Showcase
