Saima from Arisbe Education reduced management cost by 66% while increasing workshop frequency by 200% through custom LMS

How a New Jersey nonprofit replaced a failed LMS engagement with a scalable custom learning platform in six months.

Industry: Education
Type: Nonprofit
Client: Arisbe Education Foundation
Technology: Web
Location: USA

Context

Education · Custom LMS

Saima, founder of Arisbe Education Foundation, a nonprofit startup based out of New Jersey, had hired a software development company to develop their custom Learning Management System (LMS). She had hoped that LMS would help to run their training workshops more frequently and would simultaneously take the management burden off of her.

The Problem

After a costly false start, the LMS still could not support the nonprofit's workshops:

Needed custom Learning Management System (LMS)
Her team was careless, uncommunicative, and irresponsible generalist software development team inept in design & development of end-to-end software
She was frustrated at constantly being unheard, and at significant sum of money wasted

After thousands of dollars spent and 14 months wasted, the software still didn't achieve the outcomes it was designed for.

Transformation

Before

After thousands of dollars spent, and 14 months wasted, software didn't achieve the outcomes it was designed for
Software was missing agreed upon scope
Software interface left users confused on how to use it
LMS configurability was very low due to inflexible engineering

After

LMS ready in 6 months; achieving every desired outcome
3x speed gained in managing workshops
$9k & 180 hours saved every month due to decreased overhead
2x increase in workshops frequency

This was not a salvage job.

It was a rebuild for outcomes the nonprofit actually needed.

The Approach

We applied our Visibility-First Product Execution approach to reduce uncertainty early.

Execution Steps

1Act as CTO and devise product plan
2Redesign user-experience (UX) to bring clarity to confusing and broken flows
3Give app visual identity through User-Interface design
4Build scalable cloud architecture, frontend and backend

From there, execution scaled steadily over 6 months.

Outcome Stats

With CARTE BLANCHE

66% Decrease in Management Overhead

Achieved by replacing a failed LMS with workflows tailored to workshop operations.

200% Increase in Workshop Frequency

Achieved once scheduling, registration, and student management stopped being manual bottlenecks.

300% Faster Workshop Management

Achieved through clear UX and a configurable class/student management system.

$9k Saved Every Month

Achieved by cutting 180 hours of monthly overhead after the LMS went live.

Deliverables

User-Experience (UX) DesignUser-Interface (UI) DesignWeb AppCloud ArchitectureFrontend and Backend of AppTesting/QA

“They exceeded my expectations in every way! From start to finish, they were professional, responsive, and incredibly skillful at what they do. Their design and engineering skills were absolutely first-rate; the automation in end product has transformed how we run workshops.”