Intoduction
Overview
Challenge
Problem
Key Insights
Design Principals
Trade off
Solution
Impact
Learnings
Designing an Ecosystem for Accessible School Education
TEAM
2 Designer
Stakeholders
3 Engineer
ROLE
User Research
Conceptualisation
Design
Dev Hand-Off
INDUSTRY
Finance
Enterprise B2B Platform
TIMELINE
3 Months
Project Snapshot
Education is one of the most important investments a family can make, yet for many middle-class families, rising school fees have made quality education increasingly difficult to access.
EFG (Ed Fin Grow) was founded with a simple but ambitious vision:
Make quality education more accessible by removing financial barriers.
The idea was to create an ecosystem where families could access education financing, investors could support educational opportunities, schools could participate in the verification process, and administrators could oversee the entire operation.
When I joined the project, there was no product, no workflows, and no validated user journeys. There was only a vision and a set of evolving business ideas.
My role was to help transform that vision into a development-ready product ecosystem.
Project Highlights
Designed a 0 → 1 education financing platform
Connected 4 primary stakeholder groups
Defined 20+ end-to-end workflows (adjust if needed)
Studied 10+ fintech and insurance products (adjust if needed)
Collaborated across founders, design, and engineering teams
Created an MVP-ready product foundation
Business Context
The cost of quality education continues to rise, making admissions to many Tier-1 and Tier-2 schools increasingly difficult for middle-class families.
The founders of EFG saw an opportunity to bridge this gap through education financing.
Their vision extended beyond simply offering loans.
They wanted to build an ecosystem where:
Families could apply for educational financing.
Schools could participate in verification and approval processes.
Investors could contribute to educational opportunities.
Administrators could manage and monitor the entire operation.
While the vision was clear, the path to building it was not.
Challenge
At first, the problem seemed straightforward:
Help families finance their children's education.
However, as I began exploring the space, I realized the challenge was much larger than a loan application.
The platform needed to support multiple stakeholders, each with different goals, responsibilities, and expectations.
Families wanted a process that felt simple and trustworthy.
Schools needed confidence in verification and documentation workflows.
Investors wanted transparency into opportunities and progress.
Administrators required operational oversight across the entire ecosystem.
At the same time, we had to account for:
Loan eligibility requirements
KYC processes
Credit score considerations
Documentation requirements
Approval workflows
Business and operational constraints
The challenge quickly evolved from designing screens to defining how an entire ecosystem should function.
Understanding the Problem
Before designing a single screen, I needed to understand a domain I had never worked in before.
Education financing involved far more than forms and applications.
There were eligibility requirements, credit considerations, KYC regulations, verification processes, and documentation workflows that directly influenced the user experience.
To build that understanding, I:
Researched education financing models
Studied loan qualification requirements
Explored KYC and verification processes
Analyzed fintech and insurance products
Reviewed onboarding experiences from platforms such as PolicyBazaar
Worked closely with founders to understand operational realities
As our understanding grew, one thing became clear:
The complexity of financing wasn't the biggest problem.
The experience of navigating that complexity was.
Key Insights
Insight 1: Complexity creates hesitation
Families were expected to navigate multiple requirements, documents, and verification steps.
When everything was presented at once, the process became overwhelming.
Insight 2: Trust is as important as financing
Education is an emotional decision. Users needed confidence not only in the financing itself but also in the people and institutions involved in the process.
nsight 3: Schools are a critical part of the ecosystem
Schools already possessed much of the information needed for verification.
Rather than treating them as an external stakeholder, we identified an opportunity to make them an active participant in the workflow.
nsight 4: Every stakeholder sees the same journey differently
Families, investors, schools, and administrators all interacted with the same financing lifecycle, but each required different information and responsibilities. This meant the experience needed to be connected while remaining role-specific.
Design Principles
Break complexity into manageable steps
Large processes should feel approachable.
Build trust through transparency
Users should always understand what is happening and what comes next.
Use schools as trusted partners
Verification should leverage existing relationships wherever possible.
Create one ecosystem, not four separate products
Every stakeholder should feel connected to the same financing journey.
Exploration and Tradeoffs
One of the most challenging aspects of the project was balancing competing stakeholder needs.
Simplifying the application process for families often introduced additional work for schools.
Increasing transparency for investors created new operational requirements for administrators.
At times, the founders envisioned a comprehensive platform that addressed every scenario from day one.
However, building everything at once would have increased complexity for both users and engineering teams.
Instead, we focused on defining the core financing journey and prioritizing the workflows required for an MVP.
Another important decision was how much information to expose upfront.
Rather than presenting the entire financing process at once, we chose a staged approach that revealed information progressively as users moved through the journey.
This reduced cognitive load while maintaining transparency.
Final Solution
A Structured Education Financing Journey
Instead of presenting financing as a single overwhelming process, we divided it into manageable stages.
This allowed users to focus on one step at a time while maintaining visibility into their overall progress.
School-Led Verification Workflow
Schools became a trusted layer within the ecosystem.
They could validate information, support verification workflows, and help create confidence across stakeholders.
nvestor Transparency Experience
Investors gained visibility into financing opportunities and funding progress.
This helped create trust and accountability within the ecosystem.
Administrative Operations Hub
Administrators received a centralized view of applications, approvals, stakeholders, and operational activity.
This created a single source of truth for managing the ecosystem.
End-to-End Visibility
Every stakeholder could understand:
Current status
Pending actions
Required documentation
Next steps
This improved transparency across the financing lifecycle.
Impact
While EFG was still in its early stages, the project successfully transformed an abstract business idea into a structured, development-ready product ecosystem.
Product Impact
Defined the first end-to-end education financing experience.
Established workflows across 4 stakeholder groups.
Created a scalable foundation for future product growth.
Business Impact
Aligned founders and stakeholders around a shared product vision.
Helped validate operational workflows before development.
Increased confidence in the feasibility of the business model.
Operational Impact
Clarified stakeholder responsibilities.
Standardized financing and verification workflows.
Reduced ambiguity around ecosystem interactions.
Social Impact
Most importantly, the platform was designed to support EFG's mission:
Making quality education more accessible by reducing financial barriers for families.
Reflections and Learnings
This project taught me that designing financial products is rarely about the transaction itself.
The real challenge lies in creating trust, clarity, and alignment across multiple stakeholders.
Working on EFG strengthened my ability to:
Design in highly ambiguous environments
Learn complex domains quickly
Translate business ideas into product experiences
Balance user, business, and operational needs
Build systems rather than isolated interfaces
More than anything, it showed me how product design can contribute to meaningful social impact when technology is used to make opportunities more accessible.
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