TOConnect Social App

Challenge

TOconnect was founded after I arrived in Toronto myself as a new immigrant and personally faced with multiple challenges of establishing new social connections. I worked with a cross-functional team of 11 to launch the mobile app from concept to production.

The key challenge was launching a functional product from scratch with limited resources, ambiguous requirements, and leading designers, engineers together to deliver results.

With limited budget and resources, I had to pivot quickly while wearing multiple hats including acting as both product owner and scrum master working with 5 engineers directly. Figma prototyping and Github version management, feature prioritization, sprint planning and reviews. Despite the challenges, I embraced the opportunity to experiment, build, and grow my interest in product management.

Key Results

• Launched MVP within 8 months on both iOS and Android from concept to production, and sold the product in 2 years.

• Improved development efficiency, accelerating the software lifecycle by 30%.

• Increased early adoption and user satisfaction through UX redesign and feature iteration based on real user feedback.

• Established a scalable product foundation for future feature development.

What I did

1. Defined MVP Scope, Product Roadmap, Prototype in Figma

I translated the product vision into a clear MVP roadmap, prioritizing essential features that enabled core user value, and communicate the product and design requirements with a designer for the first Figma prototype with the following Key MVP Features:

• User onboarding and profile creation

• Event discovery and hosting

• RSVP and participation tracking

2. Led Cross-Functional Team Execution

I managed collaboration across a team of 11 engineering, design, and QA teams, ensuring consistent delivery progress and launch the MVP on both iOS and Android.

• Running sprint planning and backlog grooming sessions

• Translating product requirements into clear user stories

• Defining acceptance criteria for feature releases

• Maintaining communication between stakeholders and developers

This structured workflow enabled smoother development cycles and minimized delays.

3. Conducted 100 Beta User Research and Iterated on UX

After launching the beta version, I led 100 customer research initiatives to validate product usability and value including 80 surveys with 30 in depth one -on-one interviews.

Key Insights Identified:

• The darker theme was not very appealing to users especially female.

• Users wanted simpler onboarding

• Messaging flow required usability improvements

Based on these insights, I self-taught myself with Figma and revised the UX to the 2nd version with yellow and white theme. reprioritized backlog features and released targeted feature improvement. This iterative feedback loop significantly improved early user adoption and engagement.

4. Improved Development Efficiency Through Technical Collaboration

To accelerate delivery speed, I took a hands-on role in technical workflows.These actions reduced ambiguity during development and improved release quality.

• Conducted REST API testing using Postman to help engineers debugging issues

• Supported debugging and validation of endpoints

• Improved version control practices on Github

• Clarified acceptance criteria for developers such as using less packages if possible