Strategic Product Discovery at Bildungsurlauber.de
Bildungsurlauber.de is Germany's leading platform for statutory educational leave. I led a small dedicated discovery team to explore a new B2B business branch: a corporate benefit program designed to help employers facilitate educational leave for their employees.
Timeline
04/2023 - 12/2023
Disciplines
Product Management, UX Research & Design
Software
Figma, Miro, Amplitude, Hotjar
What was the challenge?
We wanted to find a way to lower the barrier for companies to offer "Bildungsurlaub" (statutory educational leave) as a strategic benefit. The goal was to determine if HR departments understood the legal concept, if they were willing to integrate a dedicated benefit program, and if the perceived value was high enough to sustain a new product line for the company.
Research & Insights
I conducted a large-scale survey with over 400 employees and deep-dive interviews with 20 HR decision-makers. To measure actual engagement, I built simple landing pages and mid-fi mockup graphics.
The research revealed a major psychological barrier: companies feared that broad communication of the benefit would lead to excessive employee absences and unmanageable compensation efforts. While the concept was liked in theory, many decision-makers in conservative or rigid corporate structures couldn't see a clear economic benefit that outweighed the perceived risk of a "mass rollout." This disconnect showed that the market was not yet ready for a full-scale B2B integration.
Solution & Impact
By identifying this lack of market readiness early through mockups and interviews, I made the strategic recommendation to put the B2B project on hold. This "fail fast" approach saved the company months of development effort and a significant portion of the budget.
Even without a product launch, the discovery process provided a deeper understanding of the corporate landscape, which helped sharpen our core B2C strategy. Additionally, the framework I developed for testing this idea now serves as the internal blueprint for how the company validates new features and business ideas before any code is written.
