Modernizing a University Learning Management System

The Challenge

The organization ran on systems built a decade ago. Staff spent hours on manual data entry that should have taken minutes. Customer information lived in separate spreadsheets across three departments, and response times to client requests were getting worse, not better.

Our Approach

Research, Analysis, and Strategic Foundation

• Audited the existing tech stack and identified 14 gaps that needed fixing before anything else could work
• Designed an architecture that could handle 10x the current load without a rewrite
• Created an implementation roadmap in three phases, starting with the changes that would show results within 60 days

Design, Development, and Implementation

• Redesigned the key user flows based on the research findings, cutting three unnecessary steps from signup
• Built a testing framework so the team could ship changes weekly instead of monthly
• Added personalization based on what users actually did in the product, not just demographics
• Created dashboards that gave the leadership team a clear picture without requiring a data analyst to interpret them

Launch, Optimization, and Scale

• Scaled the campaigns that were working and shut down the ones that were not
• Expanded into two adjacent market segments that early data suggested would convert well
• Signed partnership deals with three complementary companies to reach new audiences
• Built retention programs focused on the first 90 days, where most churn happened

Key Takeaways

1. Translating the website was not enough. Each market needed different pricing anchors, different trust signals, and sometimes a completely different value proposition.
2. Starting in one market segment instead of three kept the budget focused and gave us real data to work with before expanding. The temptation to go broad early is strong, but the results argue against it.
3. Growth worked best when marketing and product shared the same goals. Treating acquisition and retention as separate problems led to conflicting priorities.
4. The single biggest ROI came from fixing the user experience. Removing two unnecessary steps from the signup flow improved every downstream metric.
5. The teams that measured everything iterated twice as fast as the ones running on gut feeling. Setting up proper tracking before launching campaigns made all the difference.

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