Employee Engagement & Surveys Platform

Context

Leena AI had established product-market fit with its HR virtual assistant but needed a second growth vector. Employee engagement and pulse surveys represented a $2B+ market with incumbent players like Culture Amp and Glint, but none were integrated with an AI assistant that could act on survey insights in real-time.

The Problem

Organizations invested heavily in annual engagement surveys but struggled to translate results into action. Survey fatigue was high (30-40% response rates), insights arrived months late, and there was no closed-loop system to address individual employee concerns. The market opportunity was clear: an engagement platform that combined real-time pulse surveys with AI-driven action recommendations.

Discovery & Research

I led the 0→1 initiative: customer discovery interviews with 20+ CHROs, competitive teardowns of 6 incumbents, and collaboration with data science to prototype an NLP-based attrition prediction model. The unique differentiator: integrating survey insights directly into the virtual assistant, so employees could surface concerns conversationally, and HR teams could see aggregated sentiment in real-time.

• ·20+ CHRO interviews across industries
• ·Competitive teardown of Culture Amp, Glint, Peakon, Lattice, 15Five, Officevibe
• ·Prototyped NLP-based attrition prediction with 2 Fortune 500 clients
• ·Defined 3-phase roadmap: Launch → Grow → Differentiate

Solution

I defined the product vision, authored the roadmap, and managed execution across engineering, design, and go-to-market teams. The platform featured customizable pulse surveys, real-time sentiment dashboards, manager action plans, and integration with the existing virtual assistant for conversational check-ins. I personally led the sales engineering process for the first 10 enterprise deals.

Results & Impact

The platform reached $2M ARR within 10 months of launch, adopted by 90+ enterprises. Response rates averaged 72% — nearly double the industry benchmark — driven by the conversational survey format via the virtual assistant.

Key Learnings

The fastest path to PMF for a second product is leveraging distribution from the first. Our existing virtual assistant install base gave us warm leads and a unique integration story that pure-play engagement tools couldn't match.

• ·Second products win when they leverage first-product distribution
• ·Conversational survey format was the key differentiator, not analytics depth
• ·Sales engineering involvement in first 10 deals built critical feedback loop