First Steps into Product Management at an EdTech Startup

Lessonpal was my first real dive into product management, and it couldn't have been more exciting. As a product intern at this early-stage startup, I was thrown into the deep end of building an online marketplace for one-on-one tutoring from scratch.

The beauty of working at such an early stage is that you get to touch every part of the product. I helped design and implement the tutor onboarding flow—figuring out how to verify credentials, set up profiles that would convert, and create a seamless experience that wouldn't scare away potential tutors. Then there was the payments system, a complex beast that needed to handle everything from session bookings to cancellations, refunds, and tutor payouts.

What made this experience special was the direct impact. Every feature we shipped, every bug we fixed, every UX improvement we made—all of it was immediately visible in how users interacted with the platform. The feedback loop was incredibly tight. We'd release something, watch users struggle with it, iterate, and try again, sometimes all within the same day.

I learned more about user psychology in those months than I had in years of studying it theoretically. Why do tutors abandon the signup process at certain points? What makes students more likely to book a second session? How do you build trust between strangers on the internet enough that they're willing to exchange money for knowledge?

The technical challenges were fascinating too. How do you build a scheduling system that works across time zones? How do you design a video conferencing integration that's reliable enough for educational purposes? How do you create a payment system that feels secure but isn't cumbersome?

Lessonpal taught me that product management is fundamentally about empathy—understanding the needs, fears, and desires of your users so deeply that you can build something that feels like it was made just for them. It's about balancing the ideal with the practical, the visionary with the immediately doable.

I left with a newfound appreciation for the craft of building digital products and the realization that the best products aren't just functional—they're thoughtful, considerate, and designed with a deep understanding of the humans who will use them.