In early 2020, I launched Get Psyched, a bootstrapped startup with zero funding. What started as a tutoring service with a small team, was gaining huge traction with organic referrals. But rapid success brought its own growing pains: Manual operations were becoming unsustainable fast as customer demand grew (we went from 1 to 90 customers within 6 months). I faced a clear choice: either limit growth or transform the business through automation and systems. With no technical background, I embarked on an ambitious project to build a fully automated self-service tutoring marketplace that could scale without daily operational maintenance.

Fast forward to 2025 and Get Psyched is still turning revenue with minimal maintenance, despite me working full time. The results speak to the power of designing self-service products that solve the right problems.

This case study reflects over 5 years of product development:

• Self-service marketplace for students and tutors (2021)
• Online courses (2023)
• AI integrated tools (2025)

This case study only highlights the prominent user experience design decisions made over 5 years. Some design elements have changed since creating this case study as the company needs have evolved.

DESIGN BY NECESSITY

Imagine this. You’re working full time and working long hours before and after your day job to manage daily operations for a fast-growing B2C tutoring service, handling manual processes in Monday.com, Gmail and a Facebook page. And the business was hitting its manual limits:

• Customer acquisition was growing but unsustainable
• Revenue was constrained by operational capacity
• Operations were entirely manual
• Scaling meant increasing workload proportionally

The Challenge

SCALE WITHOUT BREAKING