Capturing Immersive
Digital Memoirs for Families
Virgil is a digital memoir software and service that preserves your loved one’s life story -- in their own voice.
Role
Product Designer
UX Researcher
Duration
March - June 2024
10 weeks
Team
Jack Strauss
Joel Johnson
Sehaj Kaur
Nicole Lee
Rafi Holtzman
Tools
Figma
Setting the Scene
In Stanford’s Lean Launchpad course, led by Steve Blank and Steve Weinstein, I had the opportunity to step into the exciting world of startups. As the team's product designer, I built our web platform MVP and iterated rapidly based on real customer feedback. Each week, we spoke with 10-15 potential customers to help refine our product features and pivot our strategy.
The Challenge
Families fear losing cherished memories of their loved ones after they pass away. While they deeply want to preserve these stories, many don’t know how.
“It only takes three generations to lose a piece of family history”
Our Solution: The Virgil Vault
A home for your loved one’s memories
Don’t read their story, hear them tell it.
Your loved one’s voice is the center of the Virgil Vault — so you can preserve their authentic personality forever.
Easily jump to specific
chapters of their life.
The Virgil Vault organizes your loved one’s story into distinct chapters, each capturing a unique phase of their life.
Family members contribute their own photos and videos.
Upload photos and home videos to add context and richness to your loved one’s story.
The process that led us here
Understanding Our Users
Who we talked to
64
Family members
What do family members want from this experience?
29
Potential customers
What inspires people to buy our solution?
10
Older subjects
Will older loved ones actually talk to us?
Here's what we learned
Families want feelings,
not facts.
“I was more excited to capture my dad’s wisdom and personality than the factual events.”
Families may feel guilty for paying for a service.
“After trying to do this ourselves, I’ve realized how incredibly hard it is. My willingness to pay has gone way up.”
Families want professional support to capture these memories and stories.
“I need someone else to run though the process because my life is too crazy to run it myself.”
Families want connection now, not just future rememberance.
“I knew that anything that helped spend more time with them while they were alive would be money well spent.”
Our team reflected on these findings
Competitive Analysis
Our Solution: The Virgil Vault
01 Memoir Home Page
02 Detailed Life Chapter View
03 MVP Website & Marketing Landing Page
The Results
Customers love the MVP!
Surveyed (n=30) potential customers and users
“Like the chapter layout a lot. Very easy to visualize a long life in this format”
“I immediately understood what your product achieves”
“The interface is beautiful”
Like the emotion behind what lives on (laughter, jokes, wisdom)”
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Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) = $112.
Target Audience: 35-65 year olds living in big cities
Demo Video
Reflection & Takeaways
Validate assumptions quickly
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Clearly define what’s known versus what’s assumed.
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Iterate fast with the runway you have. Always center decisions on user feedback
Don’t be afraid to take initiative and reach out.
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No one will care about your product as much as you do.
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Be prepared to advocate for it and don’t shy away from potential rejection.
Team culture fuels success
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I was lucky to be part of an awesome team that made even the dreaded Monday 8 a.m. meetings something to look forward to.
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Good vibes = better work (and more coffee)!
