PLEIA

All-in-one skincare guidance!

We are proudly graduated from the ESMT SEP & B2B Entrepreneurship Program.

Ideation

Pleia's ideation started over coffee chats. My co-founder and I initially considered building an app that would connect wellness centers. After further discussion (our second cappuccinos were nearly finished at this point, meaning about two hours of intense ideation), we realized the real need was a simple way to improve skin health. This led to the evolution of Pleia into a personalized skincare platform. At some point during our conversation, we jumped into FigJam to organize and explore our ideas in a more fun and visual way.

We had too many ideas! We had to first of all filter to continue our discussion. Here are some ideas we dropped early on:

We questioned whether to prioritize sustainability in skincare products, but:

• It was hard to define clearly
• Too time-consuming to validate
• No strong market demand observed

Considered refillable bottles, but realized:

• Users don't usually return products
• EDEKA and Rossmann had similar systems that failed

We also considered focusing exclusively on “face-scan for B2B” and reached out to many brands. Later on, only The Ordinary responded; the rest either declined or said, “We do not want to collaborate.” → and so we decided to focus on B2C first.

Ideation Benchmarking Part I

I started with looking at some competitors on “skin-care” topic. It was a broad topic but I already gained valuable insights with the first ideation benchmarking, and simultaneously started an online survey

My benchmarking didn't stop there, but my first assumptions were already forming with the first benchmarking I was doing & thanks to the first online survey results.

1. I had a general idea of what kinds of questions we could ask users. For example, menstrual cycles are important to consider when evaluating skin health. This let to the first important realization.

Biggest realization: We need to work with a dermatologist. We can't identify skin conditions on our own; we need someone who can be the face of the app and also teach us how to properly recognize skin concerns.

2. Another big realization: there are already a few apps that use facial recognition to detect skin conditions, but they consistently receive bad reviews. Why? Because they mainly operate B2B and promote the skincare products of the brands they're partnered with; they're brand-biased.

So at this stage, our next task is to find out

Are features “Good Opportunities #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5” actual user needs, considering the main goal: “I want to know whether a product is good for me or not”?

and we need to find the face of our app, a reliable Dermatologist.

Competitive Benchmarking Part II - Continuous Benchmarking

Throughout the benchmarking I identified many competitors, but some competitors stand out the most with their similarities to our ideas. Here is one of them:

Ideation Research

What are we trying to find out?

We aim to understand the shopping experience of users, specifically in the context of skincare products.

…and many more areas that may emerge as we dive deeper into user behavior and motivation.

After collecting the interview questions, I created initial personas based on the opportunity areas we had previously identified. Each persona represents a different motivation and starting point for why someone wants to purchase a product in the first place. They also prioritize different features during their decision-making process. After discussions with our product coaches, we decided to move forward with the first persona.

Personas for Ideation

First User Journey → Draft

Some volunteers and I from various UX WhatsApp groups in Berlin collaboratively created the first draft of the user journey. Later, we realized it was not the best approach because none of us had prior experience with how an AI app journey works. Nevertheless, it became a valuable learning experience.

First Ideation Mid Fid Wireframes with “Free Text” + several UI variations

Our main challenge was this: How can we design the shopping experience of a user within an AI-driven marketplace?

Such a marketplace does not currently exist in the market. At the time we were exploring this idea, even major brands like Amazon had not integrated AI into their apps in this way, so we had no examples to refer to.

At this stage, the only design influence we had came from the Mobbin app, where we explored available screens and user journeys in search of anything that could resemble an AI-driven marketplace.

Fast Iterations

What did I do? After collecting all feedback, I once again went out and spoke to people on the street to understand their real and immediate pain points. I collected their input, mapped the data in Figma, and detailed the first persona Elena Müller and renamed her to Kate Müller. Kate is not only based on offline interviews which I have conducted, but also based on online google survey results. With Kate, I then started defining the initial draft of the user flow. I started from the decision-making stage and followed the flow through to the purchase step, highlighting users' pain points throughout the product shopping journey. This was important step before the next design.

Conclusion: Skincare is a Holistic Journey

What we learned throughout this process is that skincare is not a linear problem to solve,i it's a holistic experience. Every user we spoke to had different pain points, and addressing only one of them in isolation doesn't provide real value.

For example, users from South America often had access to dermatologists (sometimes even via WhatsApp), so identifying their skin type or condition wasn't the issue. Instead, their main struggle was finding European equivalents of the products they were already using back home.

Meanwhile, others prioritized having a routine builder, something that could help them check if a new product would fit into their current routine, if it would cause allergic reactions, or interact negatively with their existing products.

Another group had difficulties identifying their skin problems in the first place, they didn't know where to start or what their skin really needed.

Others trusted influencers for recommendations but struggled with finding reliable product reviews to validate whether the suggested items actually worked, especially for their skin type.

The User Journey

At Pleia, we built the questions database in close collaboration with our trusted dermatologist Sally, to ensure medical accuracy and relevance. This helped us define what should be asked based on professional skincare criteria.

As a next step we had to start thinking about user needs. We conducted user testing to uncover how people make skincare decisions and what pain points they face. These insights shaped the user journey, helping us understand how, when, and why users should be asked certain questions, then we discussed validity of those questions with our dermatologist and reshaped them according to user needs.

For the “product browsing” screen, we have only considered the user needs, and only worked with our dermatologist for the survey questions and survey results.

Product Market Fit Research

As we documented our early thoughts with our Dermatologist in Google Docs, it organically led us to define the core questions database. This step became the backbone for shaping both the information architecture and the user journey; two elements that needed to evolve side-by-side due to their interdependence.

As a next step we had to start thinking about user needs.

Webpage in parallel

As next step, I joined more UX channels and collected a group of UX designers and researchers who doesn't have any knowledge of the app, and created a workshop

Workshop goals:

To creating the “test results” screen that is both valuable for the user but doesn't give too much information that they decide not to subscribe. Goal is to find the perfect balance.

Second Ideation Mid Fid Wireframes with information Architecture for AI

We concluded the final results screens and decided to start implementing the technology, before joining the Dubai EXPO for investors. Here we were both working with software engineers and also developing the screens simultaneously.

Branding Considerations

Overall Feedbacks From UX Perspective

Challenge

We had a wide range of functionalities to consider. So far, we selected the first user journey. In the first persona's case, the journey begins with the user looking in the mirror and realizing that something might be wrong with their skin.

This turned out to be the most complex user journey among the three we had outlined. If we had selected the third persona instead, we could have skipped several early steps such as identifying a skin problem, searching for solutions online, reading countless reviews, and experiencing confusion.

With this first persona, we are not solving a single issue. We are addressing multiple, layered needs. In the other personas, the scope was narrower and more straightforward.

What did we do wrong

At the time, we did not fully realize how technically demanding this journey would become. While creating the user journey map was manageable, building it into a working product proved far more complex than expected.

Most importantly, we underestimated a key limitation. Finding developers who would be willing to implement such a detailed and demanding flow without compensation turned out to be unrealistic.

What did we do well

Skincare becomes truly meaningful for users only when approached holistically. If we had chosen the third persona, we might have addressed a single need and launched quickly. However, we would not have touched the deeper, more essential concerns of our users. That is why, even against all accusations, we continued with the complex journey, to make the product truly meaningful for the user.

By selecting this complex journey, we were able to uncover pain points at every step. This process gave us a much clearer view of the emotional and functional triggers that shape user behavior.

This level of understanding will be highly valuable when we speak with investors. It shows that our approach is based on deep, research-driven insights. It also helps us lay the foundation for a more thoughtful and realistic product roadmap.

Marketing & Sales Cold Outreach

Finance Plan