MY WORK
Contact

Case Study: 0 →1 MVP

Transforming At-Home Oral Health

Transforming oral wellness through accessible, intelligent testing that brings clinical-grade insights directly to consumers—bridging the gap between reactive dental care and proactive health management.

THE CHALLENGE

Translating a Founder’s Mission into a Trusted Mobile Experience

A DTC oral-wellness startup set out to deliver an at-home saliva test with instant results—improving access in "dental deserts" and shifting oral care from reactive to proactive health management.

They needed a digital companion that would guide testing, interpret results clearly, and stand up a rapid pilot to validate their approach with real users and clinical partners.

Project Objective

Transform founder's vision into pilot-ready mobile product

Business Impact

Accelerate investor confidence and clinical validation

User Value

Democratize access to oral health insights in underserved areas

how i led

Role, Team, & Constraints

Balance speed with quality by de-risking technical decisions early, creating shared understanding across disciplines, and maintaining unwavering focus on user needs throughout the product development lifecycle.

1

Product & Experience Lead

Drove product vision, multi-persona experience design, MVP scope definition, and cross-functional delivery. Served as executive point for stakeholder alignment and fundraising demonstrations.

2

Team Composition

Led a lean, focused team: 1 PM/tech lead, 2 designers, 4 engineers. Partnered directly with the founder and clinical advisors to ensure medical accuracy and business viability.

3

Key Constraints

Aggressive pilot deadline, first-time CV/ML result interpretation, multi-persona workflows (consumer/clinician/admin), and investor-ready demos without compromising clinical rigor.

WHAT WE DID

Setting the North Star

We took a human-centric approach from the start, facilitating a 2-day workshop to build shared understanding across stakeholders on product north star and market entry strategy, harness collective intelligence of the group to ideate the future state, and define MVP features that would drive pilot success.


Product Vision

Collectively constructed the product vision, and brainstormed target customer segments, potential early adopters, and market engagement channels

Persona Mapping

Explored different user types, and mapped critical user journeys for consumer and clinician personas to uncover areas of greatest importance and challenges.

Scope Definition

Defined MVP versus fast-follows through stakeholder prioritization workshops, maximizing customer value while meeting an aggressive pilot timeline and budget constraints.

The workshop energized business and clinical stakeholders with a unified the product vision, and transformed conceptual ideas into concrete, actionable features.

"This is how I want to brainstorm – it work so well!"

“Love it! I welcome doing this again!”

"We all know what we want conceptually but to really taking a moment to break down each component into action items will be really helpful for execution."

From Ideation to MVP

Throughout the design process, our design and engineering team partnered closely with the founder as we created wireframes, user flows, and high-fidelity clickable prototypes to visualize and iterate on the solution. By leveraging React Native UI and prototype-driven specifications with weekly design/dev syncs, we accelerated design-to-build, reduced rework, and maintained design quality during development.

Visualized End-to-End Experience

Created comprehensive user flows and wireframes to turn abstract requirements into concrete design decisions, ensuring alignment with the founder's vision and user needs at every touchpoint.

Iterated Designs with Hi-Fi Prototypes

Built clickable, high-fidelity prototypes that became the single source of truth for design intent—and powerful credibility tools for investor demonstrations and stakeholder buy-in.







Technical Foundation

  • React Native for cross-platform consistency
  • Expo for rapid iteration and deployment
  • Computer vision integration for saliva analysis
  • AWS serverless architecture for scalability

Design Deliverables

  • User personas & journey maps
  • Complete wireframe system
  • Interactive hi-fi prototypes
  • Component specifications for developers
Success

Outcomes & Impact

01

Pilot Platform Delivered (iOS & Android)

User-friendly app to conduct clinical pilots for end-to-end experience: kit registration, guided photo capture, on-device analysis, and personalized wellness reporting.

02

Investor Readiness

Clickable demos clarified the vision; the team presented at the American Dental Association, leading to funding and partnership momentum.

03

Development Blueprint

Clear MVP specifications through flows, wireframes, and hi-fi prototypes enabled faster development cycles with fewer ambiguities and reduced technical debt.

04

Scalable Foundation

AWS serverless stack established for secure, consistent deployments across environments, positioning the platform for rapid growth and clinical expansion.

Key Takeaways

This project demonstrated how strategic product leadership, collaborative design thinking, and technical pragmatism can transform an ambitious healthcare vision into a market-ready product.

By maintaining focus on user needs while balancing clinical rigor, business goals, and technical constraints, we created a foundation for sustainable growth and meaningful health impact.

Let's Create Something Exceptional Together!


Doris Mao Lin | Los Angeles, CA | 310-497-2949 | dorismaolin@icloud.com | linkedin.com/in/dorisl/ | dorismaolin.me