Papermill: When Good Design Meets Wrong Market.
My role
Product design, research
Team
Timeline
The goal was to de-risk the investment. I needed to prove the business model was viable before we spent months building it - even if that meant scrapping the original idea for a better one
I joined Papermill at the idea stage, when it was conceived as a B2C tool to help students write academic reports more efficiently. But after running validation tests, my research proved the student market wasn't viable. I guided the team to pivot toward B2B agencies instead, resulting in a completely new product direction that secured our first paying clients.
10
B2B clients in first 2 months
50+
reports generated via the product
1
UK Innovative Grant awarded
My contribution:
Led the foundational research that informed the pivot from B2C to B2B.
Designed, prototyped, and validated two distinct product directions.
Built the design system and branding to support rapid experimentation.
Managed the user community to gather continuous feedback.
01
The Challenge
Papermill began as a solution for university students. We identified that formatting academic papers was a major headache from broken citations to layout errors and set out to fix it with an automated writing assistant.
02
Research & Design Approach
Overall scope:
Built a 50+ member Discord community by recruiting through university channels and student forums, creating ongoing access for rapid testing. Used JTBD interview structure to separate genuine pain from polite enthusiasm.
12
in-depth interviews
24
user-tests
2
A/B tests
Key insight from initial research:
Interviews revealed that the problem was real, but the market wasn't. Students were too cost-conscious to pay for software, preferring to struggle with MS Word simply because it was free and familiar.
03
The Solution
What I Designed
Built a document editor focused on:
Clean, distraction-free interface
Smart referencing system (library + inline insertion)
Style templates based on university guidelines
Academic features (math, code, word counting)
Visual Direction
Tested two approaches with users. Students preferred the Formal direction—clean, trustworthy, professional.
04
Testing & Iterations
First iteration:
Second iteration:
Down to 1 bug, 4/5 users completed tasks successfully, much improved usability
05
The Discovery
Here's where it got interesting. While usability improved, user feedback revealed something unexpected:
Students:
"I personally haven't had any problems with assignments... I just turn [grammar checking] off and do manual proofreading."
They liked it. They wouldn't pay for it. I proposed testing with other segments. Ran the same prototype with B2B agencies:
Agencies:
"Everything is a bit of a battle to get into format... Our 35-page wildlife survey reports take 10 days to create."
06
The Insight
Through designing and testing, I'd built a product with:
✅ Good usability (80% task success)
✅ Professional interface
✅ Features solving real problems
❌ Users who wouldn't pay
The problem wasn't the design. It was the market.
Students tolerated manual work because time was cheaper than money. Agencies couldn't tolerate it because time was money.
07
Impact
For the business:
Identified market mismatch after 6 months, before 18+ months of heavy development
Redirected strategy toward B2B (now foundation of current API business)
Research contributed to UK innovation grant
For my practice:
Learned that good usability doesn't equal product-market fit
Practiced testing for willingness to pay, not just task completion
Proved the value of testing broadly, not just validating assumptions
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