VIWELL | Building a Wellbeing Ecosystem from Scratch

Introduction: Where the Story Begins

When I joined VIWELL, nothing existed yet, no product, no experience, no roadmap, and no defined vision. The idea was simple: ‍

help companies improve employee wellbeing.

But the execution required building an entire ecosystem from the ground up.

Over two years, I transformed that blank canvas into a full B2B2C wellbeing platform used across the region. This is the story of how we built VIWELL; starting from the market problems all the way to launching a product that measured wellbeing and improved lives.

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Understanding the Challenge

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To understand what VIWELL needed to become, I began by mapping out the real-world challenges faced by both employees and organizations. This wasn’t just a list of issues, it was the foundation for shaping a product vision that addressed the root causes, not just the symptoms.

The diagram below captures the three-layer problem structure that guided our early decisions:

1. Employee Pain

Employees were experiencing widespread burnout, stress, and a general lack of wellbeing awareness. Many didn’t understand why they felt off balance or how to improve their daily routines. Wellbeing wasn’t measurable, structured, or guided, it was guesswork.

2. Business Impact

These individual problems created organizational consequences:

• Sick leaves increased
• Productivity dropped
• Employee turnover rose
• Engagement levels fell
• Companies were losing measurable value because their teams weren’t supported through a sustainable wellbeing framework.
  

3. Product Need

This gap created a clear opportunity — and responsibility — for the product.

Organizations didn’t just need another content app or fitness tracker.

They needed:

• A system to measure wellbeing
• A guided experience that adapts to different user types
• A personalized improvement plan that drives behavior change
• A data layer that connects employee wellbeing to business outcomes
  

This clarity became the north star of the product strategy and shaped every feature, flow, and journey that followed.

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Shaping the Product Vision

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Shaping VIWELL’s product vision meant designing more than a wellbeing app, it required building a complete wellbeing ecosystem around the real needs of employees and employers. From the earliest days, I mapped out how every part of the experience should work together to support awareness, guidance, action, and measurable improvement.

The vision centered around creating a holistic and interconnected wellbeing journey, starting from the moment an employee joins the platform. It begins with understanding the individual, their wellbeing profile, behaviors, habits, and motivation level, then guiding them through a personalized journey supported by daily routines, tools, content, and meaningful touchpoints.

To bring this vision to life, I structured VIWELL into a set of eight strategic pillars, each playing a distinct role in the transformation experience. Together, these pillars create a seamless flow: users discover their wellbeing baseline, receive individualized recommendations, access rich educational content, join events, track progress, engage in physical and mental tools, and stay motivated through rewards, while companies track team wellbeing trends and run targeted initiatives through the HR portal.

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This ecosystem approach ensured that VIWELL wasn’t just a wellness product, but a continuous support system that blends education, action, motivation, and organizational insight. By designing the product vision this way, we created a platform capable of adapting to different user types, evolving with every interaction, and driving real cultural change inside workplaces.

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Understanding Our Users: Building Personas That Shape the Experience

To build a wellbeing platform that truly resonates, I needed to deeply understand who we were designing for. Wellbeing is personal, different people are motivated by different things. Some seek knowledge, others crave activity, and many live in between. Creating one generic journey would never produce long-term engagement or meaningful behavior change.

So, I led a full user research process: interviews, focus groups, shadowing sessions, and behavioral mapping, to uncover the real motivations behind how people engage with wellbeing. Through this work, three distinct personas emerged, each representing a core behavioral pattern found across organizations.

These personas weren’t just documentation. They became the architectural backbone for how the entire experience would work: how the app personalizes routines, how the content adapts, how the wellbeing journey progresses, and how the platform motivates action. They influenced everything from onboarding to engagement loops to the tone of our wellbeing nudges.

Most importantly, they ensured that VIWELL remained human-centered, not feature-centered. Because when you understand who people are, you can design a system that guides them, supports them, and grows with them.
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Content Chris: The Knowledge Seeker

Chris represents the employees who learn, reflect, and improve through information. They are naturally curious, analytical, and enjoy consuming content, articles, videos, explanations, frameworks, more than engaging in physical activity.

Key Behaviors:

• Reads and watches educational content consistently
• Prefers structured, informational guidance over physical tasks
• Responds well to expert advice, insights, and reflective activities
  

What They Need:

• A rich library of content to explore
• Personalized recommendations based on their interests
• Routines that start with light, achievable actions
• Guidance that builds awareness before pushing activity
  

How They Shaped the Product:

Chris influenced the design of the Wellbeing Library, the content recommendation engine, and the early-stage routines for users who need awareness before action. Their motivations ensured the product didn’t become fitness-only but remained balanced and educational.

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Fitness Fiona: The High-Activity Achiever

Fiona represents the physically active users who love movement, challenges, and seeing measurable progress. They are disciplined, goal-oriented, and feel energized by physical engagement.

Key Behaviors:

• Prefers workouts, trackers, and high-energy routines
• Engages regularly with physical challenges
• Less interested in long-form content
• Motivated by performance, milestones, and visible progress
  

What They Need:

• Advanced routines and workout challenges
• Fitness-focused tools and activity trackers
• Real-time progress updates
• Short-form, practical content
  

How They Shaped the Product:

Fiona influenced the creation of workout challenges, fitness tools, streak systems, and progress-focused UI elements. Their presence ensured that VIWELL offered depth for high-activity users, not just casual participants.

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Hybrid Harry: The Balanced Improver

Harry represents the majority of users: those who engage in a bit of everything. They enjoy learning but also appreciate small, doable physical activities. They’re motivated by progress and variety rather than intensity.

Key Behaviors:

• Alternates between content and light physical routines
• Needs structure but not rigid programs
• Enjoys challenges but prefers flexibility
• Motivated by visible progress and simple wins
  

What They Need:

• A balanced wellbeing journey combining knowledge & action
• Gentle routines that scale over time
• Reminders, nudges, and light gamification
• Weekly cycles instead of daily demands
  

How They Shaped the Product:

Harry drove the design of the adaptive wellbeing journey, challenge cycles, and progress tracking dashboards. The product’s balanced content–activity rhythm was built largely around this persona, ensuring inclusivity for most employees.

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Crafting the User Journeys: Designing Experiences That Adapt to People

Once the personas were established, the next step was to design journeys that felt natural, supportive, and engaging for each type of user. A wellbeing product can only create real behavior change when the experience adapts to the user’s motivation, habits, and preferred way of interacting with content or physical activity. That is why the journeys in VIWELL were not linear, they were personalized pathways, each shaped by the user’s unique starting point.

To build these journeys, I combined psychological behavior models, habit-building methodologies, and our own user research insights. The goal wasn’t to push users into predefined routines, it was to guide them into their best version of wellbeing, at their pace, through the methods that resonated most with them.

Below is a deeper look at how these journeys were crafted, each aligned with one of our core personas.

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Content Chris: A Journey That Begins With Awareness

Chris's journey starts with understanding rather than doing. Their path opens with curated content: insights, videos, explainers, and reflective materials that make wellbeing feel approachable.

Once awareness is built, the app gradually transitions them into light routines, micro-actions, and short habit loops. This creates an experience that respects their learning style while nudging them toward healthier behavior, step by step.

Journey Essence: Awareness → Reflection → Light Action → Daily Habits → Consistent Progress

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Hybrid Harry: A Journey That Balances Mind & Body

Harry’s journey blends content and activity in a fluid weekly rhythm. Their experience includes cycles of learning, gentle activity, check-ins, and small challenges.

The journey adapts continuously based on what they respond to, if they engage more with content, it adjusts; if they lean into activity, it expands the physical routines. This makes the experience feel dynamic rather than prescriptive.

Journey Essence: Balanced Rhythm → Adaptive Routines → Measurable Progress → Steady Growth

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Fitness Fiona: A Journey Driven by Momentum & Achievement

Fiona's journey starts where others might end with action. They are immediately presented with challenges, workouts, performance tools, and goal-driven experiences.

Their content is short, practical, and tied to improving performance. Their dashboard focuses on metrics, milestones, streaks, and physical achievements. Their entire experience is designed to fuel their momentum and celebrate their discipline.

Journey Essence: High Activity → Challenge Cycles → Performance Tracking → Achievement Loop

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Leading the Product Execution: Turning Vision Into a Living Ecosystem

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Building VIWELL was not just a product challenge, it was an organizational transformation. With no product, no blueprint, and no defined structure in place, I stepped in to architect not only the experience but the entire execution engine behind it. From assembling the team to aligning stakeholders, I led the full product lifecycle with the clarity and discipline needed to build a complex, multi-layered wellbeing ecosystem from scratch.

To bring the vision to life, I created a structured execution strategy that connected research, design, engineering, and content into a unified workflow. Each step was intentional: define the value proposition, map the journeys, shape the features, validate assumptions, iterate through design, and orchestrate development across multiple functional teams.

But the core of this work wasn’t only tactical, it was leadership. I built and led a cross-functional team consisting of product managers, designers, engineers, QA, content specialists, and stakeholders across marketing and operations. I aligned everyone around a shared goal: to deliver a wellbeing platform that measurably improves people’s lives.

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This alignment fueled faster development cycles, high-quality releases, and a culture where every member understood how their work contributed to the broader mission. Through continuous communication, weekly planning, and structured Agile practices, we transformed an idea into a platform that supported thousands of employees and delivered tangible value to organizations.

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The Solution: A Connected Wellbeing Ecosystem Built for Impact

From the beginning, the goal wasn’t to create another wellness app — it was to build a complete wellbeing ecosystem that supports employees and empowers organizations. The final solution integrated multiple layers of measurement, engagement, content, tools, and insights, all working together to drive long-term behavior change.

At its core, VIWELL became a B2B2C wellbeing platform consisting of two interconnected pillars:

1. A personalized mobile experience for employees, guiding them through their wellbeing journey
2. A powerful admin portal for organizations, giving HR teams visibility, control, and measurable ROI
   

Together, they formed a living ecosystem that adapts to users, supports different personas, and connects wellbeing outcomes to real business value.

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The Employee Mobile App: Personalized, Adaptive, Human

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The mobile app is where employees experience their wellbeing journey. Every user sees a different experience based on their persona type, wellbeing scores, interests, and behavior patterns.

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Core elements include:

• Personalized Wellbeing Score across six pillars
• Actionable daily routines adapted to their behavior (content, hybrid, or fitness preferences)
• Wellbeing tools like meditation, breathwork, and micro-habits
• A rich library of articles, videos, and expert content
• Challenge cycles for engagement and motivation
• Behavior tracking to visualize improvements over time
• Gamification & rewards to reinforce consistent progress

This creates a journey that feels personal, supportive, and achievable, no matter where the user starts.

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The HR Portal: Turning Wellbeing Into Organizational Insight

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The admin portal transforms individual progress into organizational intelligence. Companies use it to understand workforce wellbeing, identify risk areas, and run targeted initiatives that improve team performance and culture.

Key capabilities include:

• Company-level wellbeing dashboards
• Team and department breakdowns
• Engagement & participation insights
• Program & event management tools
• Reports connecting wellbeing to performance indicators

This gives HR teams the tools they need to make data-driven decisions, increase productivity, and reduce hidden costs tied to burnout and disengagement.

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The Ecosystem: Everything Working Together

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The power of VIWELL lies in its interconnectedness.

The wellbeing engine, content engine, analytics layer, persona-driven guidance, and HR insights all work seamlessly to form a living, adaptive system.

Every action a user takes influences the guidance they receive.

Every trend in the workforce informs HR strategy.

Every interaction builds stronger personal wellbeing and stronger organizational culture.

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This is what makes VIWELL more than an app, it’s a continuous wellbeing improvement system.

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Results: Turning Wellbeing Into Measurable Impact

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The success of VIWELL wasn’t defined only by launching the product, but by the measurable change it created for both employees and organizations. Through the full ecosystem we built, from personalized journeys to analytics and engagement loops, the platform delivered meaningful improvements across usage, satisfaction, and operational efficiency.

While exact numbers are confidential, here are the impact metrics expressed in ranges and percentages:

📈 Platform Performance & User Success

• 18% increase in user satisfaction, driven by persona-based journeys and continuous UX refinement
• Steady improvement in wellbeing scores across the six pillars for active users
• Higher engagement consistency due to personalized routines and challenge cycles
  

⚙️ Product & Engineering Efficiency

• 60% faster development cycles, enabled by structured Agile processes and clear product leadership
• 10% reduction in user-reported issues through ongoing iteration and quality improvements
• Achieved 99.9% uptime, ensuring stability and reliability for enterprise deployments
  

🏢 Organizational & Market Impact

• Increase in enterprise adoption, supported by analytics dashboards that proved clear business value
• 20% growth in market awareness, achieved through strong product-marketing alignment and feature clarity
• Strengthened employer wellbeing culture across multiple organizations using the platform
  

The result was a fully operational, scalable wellbeing ecosystem that transformed wellbeing from an abstract concept into a measurable, continuous growth journey for both employees and the companies they work for.

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