Week 2 at the European Innovation Academy (EIA) in Porto – From Idea to First Validation

Starting Early – The Weekend Before

The second week of EIA effectively started before Monday.
Over the weekend, I took our newly defined concept and turned it into something people could see and connect with.

We named it ExamKoala – a learning app designed to make studying mathematics more effective and relevant.
It combines spaced repetition for long-term retention with the computational power of WolframAlpha to:

Solve problems with high precision
Explain every step in detail
Adapt examples to the learner’s personal interests and real-world context

The goal: make math easier to understand and harder to forget.

Over the weekend, I built a landing page for early sign-ups and designed our mascot, giving the brand a friendly, approachable identity right from the start.

Division of Work

While the other three team members focused entirely on marketing concepts,
I dedicated the entire week to improving the ExamKoala prototype.

My challenge was twofold:

Ensure the app could solve math problems correctly and reliably.
Make the explanations clear, adaptable, and engaging for different user types.

By the end of the week, the prototype could:

Accept a math problem as input and process it end-to-end
Solve it correctly with step-by-step reasoning
Dynamically generate new example problems based on the user’s interests
Verify each generated example through WolframAlpha to ensure accuracy

Insights from This Week’s Mentors

From the week’s keynote sessions, several ideas directly influenced our approach:

1. Build Brand Trust Early (Patrícia Costa)

Patrícia emphasised that brand trust is built through consistency — in design, tone, and delivery.
This reinforced our decision to create ExamKoala’s mascot and consistent visual identity early, even before the full product was ready.

2. Data Before Decisions (André Florido)

One of André’s core messages was that data should guide marketing and product choices.
We applied this by making our landing page form collect not just emails, but also optional data on users’ learning styles and math challenges.

3. Story Hooks Matter (David Gallacher)

David’s talk on presentation strategy highlighted the power of an opening hook that instantly connects with the audience’s experience.
We reworked our Expo pitch to start with a relatable question:
“Ever spent hours on a math problem, only to still feel lost?”

4. Focus on the “Why” (Gabriela Martínez)

Gabriela stressed that audiences care less about how your product works than why it exists.
This pushed us to refine ExamKoala’s one-line description to focus on the outcome:
“Making math easier to understand and harder to forget.”

First Public Reactions – The EIA Expo

At the EIA Expo, we presented ExamKoala for the first time.
The feedback was immediate and remarkably consistent:

“I wish I had this during my studies.”
“This would be perfect for my tutoring sessions or my classes.”

Hearing this confirmed that the problem we’re solving resonates — and that even an early prototype can create strong interest when it’s relevant and functional.

Takeaways from Week 2

A working product beats any pitch deck – people need to see it to believe it.
Marketing starts with listening – early conversations reveal more than assumptions ever will.
Consistency builds trust – every interaction shapes how your product is perceived.
A clear ‘why’ inspires action – features matter less than the reason your product exists.

If Week 1 was about identifying the right problem, Week 2 proved that our solution could work — and that people genuinely wanted it.