Mandry

Mandry was more than a project. It was our own startup — a mobile-first tourism product built from scratch.

Built at the intersection of tourism, local business, and mobile tech, Mandry was designed to help people explore cities through engaging digital and physical tours. We started with deep customer development (interviewing real users to uncover their pains, habits, and unmet needs), shaped the value proposition canvas (a strategic tool to align user pains and gains with our solutions), and iterated toward product-market fit.

From sketching the first screens to launching a full-featured mobile app, everything was driven by lean startup principles: validate, learn, iterate.

How do you build a tech product for tourists — fast, lean, and user-first?

Instead of starting with an expensive and time-consuming mobile app, we launched a simple landing page where users could register to test Mandry. This helped us:

• Validate demand before writing a single line of code
• Collect early users for interviews and feedback
• Get a direct signal from the market

We later optimized this landing page based on user behavior, feedback, and analytics — making it our first lightweight MVP (minimum viable product — a simple version of the product built to test key assumptions).

To clearly explain how the app works, we also produced a promo video (we had a very tight budget and timeline, so the video may not be Hollywood quality, but it did its job) tailored to our early MVP. It helped potential users grasp the core value of the platform and boosted our conversion rates.

From insights to execution — and back again.

Our journey was hands-on, fast-paced, and experimental:

• Conducted over 10+ user interviews (customer development)
• Created multiple versions of the app prototype (Figma, then code)
• Defined the business model (with revenue streams from B2C tickets and B2B ad integrations)
• Validated pain points of local businesses and tourism departments
• Developed partnerships with the city of Truskavets
• Wrote and structured the first full tour scenario in collaboration with local historians
• Produced content and ran social media campaigns to engage early adopters and tourists
• Launched paid ad campaigns with Google Ads and Meta Ads (PPC — pay-per-click advertising)
• Filmed and edited promotional and social video content to drive awareness and downloads
• Developed a pitch deck to present to potential investors and partners

We were not just designers or devs — we were founders, product managers, growth hackers.

Going live — and going all in.

Once we validated the core idea and knew what our users truly needed, we built the full version of the platform:

• A second website, now fully functional, allowed users to purchase digital or physical tours
• A full-featured Android and iOS app with gamification, tour booking, QR code check-ins, and map-based experiences
• The iOS version was also completed, but we paused its release after strategic evaluation

Mandry launched publicly and attracted early adopters. We gained invaluable real-world data — but also made a bold decision: to pause the startup.

Why? The war in Ukraine disrupted our ability to scale Mandry effectively, and we needed more resources, market stability, and a longer runway. However, we’re not giving up. We’re now expanding into other countries to continue the project’s development and make it a success on a global scale. It was a difficult but necessary decision in the face of current circumstances.