Cybersmarties case study — Ryan Mahato, Product Manager

1 The problem

A social and monitoring platform for school children has two very different groups to serve. Students want a place that is fun and safe to talk and share. Teachers need to understand what is happening and act on it. A product that served one group at the expense of the other would not last, and every decision had to work for both.

2 What I learned about users

I ran market research and studied how students really used the platform: what kept them engaged, and where safety and wellbeing features needed to sit so they helped rather than got in the way.
Teachers did not need more raw activity. They needed a clear, individual picture of each student they were responsible for.
Management needed to know what growth would cost before committing to it, in numbers they could plan around.

3 What I built or changed

Adapted the application to the needs of both groups, turning behaviour insights into new features and improvements focused on engagement, safety and wellbeing.
Built reporting that generated an individual report for every student and every teacher.
Built core product features, including a real-time chat service, scalable APIs and a React Native mobile app.
Ran load and stress testing and presented the cost per user per month to management, so scaling and spending decisions rested on real figures.
Worked directly with management on product direction across several projects, explaining options, trade-offs and timelines.
Delivered in Agile/Scrum sprints using Jira and Slack, with automated testing and CI/CD.

4 The result

Six years of steady product evolution, each change grounded in how students and teachers used the platform. Every student and teacher had their own report, and management could plan growth from measured cost per user rather than estimates.

React Native
Node.js
Real-time chat
Scalable APIs
Load testing
Jira
CI/CD