Diabetes App & Platform

ROLE

Product Designer / Co-founder

ORG

Glurry

TIMELINE

2024 Nov -

Glurry Official Website

Building a healthcare product under real-world constraints, balancing medical safety, business viability, and product focus.

OWNERSHIP

As a co-founder, I led the product direction by defining what the product should be, which features to include, and how the system should work.

While working with engineers, I was responsible for:

  • shaping the product scope

  • making trade-offs across medical, business, and user needs

  • defining the system logic and interaction mode

CONTEXT

Starting point: a research-driven concept without a defined product

The project originated from a research collaboration between Tallinn University and Tallinn Children’s Hospital, but the product was not defined upfront and was later redefined from scratch to address real-world constraints.

KEY PRODUCT DECISIONS

Product direction was shaped through continuous validation across users, medical stakeholders, and business programs.

01

Reframing automation under medical constraints

Automation increased regulatory complexity and medical risk

We initially believed we could outperform existing products by making the experience more automated, such as calculating insulin dosage from food input or integrating with insulin pumps.
However, these directions introduced significant regulatory and implementation constraints:

  • The product would fall under MDR IIb classification

  • Integration with insulin pump systems is highly restricted

  • Medical risk exceeded what an early-stage startup could reasonably support

Shifted away from automation-heavy features and removed direct medical intervention capabilities

02

Designing transparent AI-assisted workflows

AI outputs needed to remain explainable and clinically traceable

We explored AI-assisted recommendations and automated goal-setting workflows.

However, ongoing validation revealed that healthcare workflows required:

  • doctor oversight for medical decisions

  • access to underlying raw data

  • recommendations grounded in traceable medical guidelines

AI was repositioned as a support layer rather than an autonomous decision-maker.
The system generated structured summaries for doctors, while recommendations shown to users remained grounded in verifiable guideline-based information with traceable sources.

03

Narrowing the product scope for scalability

Market realities reshaped both the target users and product focus.

The original concept focused on Type 1 diabetes children and included several lifestyle and automation-related ideas. However, ongoing validation revealed challenges around market size, implementation complexity, and long-term scalability. Features were therefore prioritized based on validated user needs, business viability, and product focus.

Reframing the product direction

Early Direction

  • Type 1 diabetes children

  • Insulin calculation

  • Parent-child workflow

  • Automation-focused interactions

Redefined Product Direction

  • Type 2 & prediabetes users

  • Meal behavior & prevention

  • Doctor-supported workflows

  • Reduced medical-risk automation

Product decisions were shaped through ongoing conversations with healthcare founders, doctors, accelerators, and business programs.

Pivoted toward Type 2 and prediabetes users, focusing on meal behavior, prevention, and long-term habit support.

04

Accelerating validation through interactive prototyping

Faster feedback loops improved decision-making

Interactive prototypes and AI-assisted prototyping tools such as Figma Make were used to communicate concepts with doctors and stakeholders more effectively.

This enabled faster iteration and more realistic validation before implementation.

The platform was build without developers envolvment as a tool to validate with doctors

OUTCOME

Establishing a viable and validated product direction

  • Increased partner interest and collaboration opportunities

  • Selected as Top 12 in Germany Medical Innovations Incubator (4C Accelerator)

  • Selected by Health Founders Estonia & Prototron to pitch at Latitude59

The product continues to evolve, shaped by ongoing validation across medical, business, and user perspectives.