Overview

AskIzzy is a Community Services website connecting approximately 600,000 Australians each year: roughly half community services workers, half people actively seeking help. Despite brilliant early discovery work that identified six clear opportunity areas, the team had stalled. They had the insight but lacked the commercial structure and product management discipline to act on it.

I was brought in to build exactly that. Within three months of launching the first major feature, there were 16,494 lists created and 3,957 informal referrals shared with help-seeker clients.

The Challenge

People in need across Australia are largely dependent on face-to-face expert guidance that’s concentrated in cities. AskIzzy had the reach to change that, but it was a not-for-profit operating without a viable commercial model, and its discovery work had identified opportunity areas it couldn’t prioritise or fund. The team had vision but needed a strategy to execute.

My task was to turn that potential into a sustainable, commercially viable product operation.

My Role

I was responsible for end-to-end Product Management: building the business case, establishing the delivery framework, overseeing feature development and launch, and putting the commercial and operational foundations in place for long-term growth.

What I Did

Built the commercial foundation. I developed a comprehensive business case that demonstrated AskIzzy could reach break-even by acquiring approximately 6.6% of its obtainable market, around 6,728 paying customers. With seed funding of $2.2 million to cover Year 1 operating costs, the modelling showed a path to commercial sustainability within two years of launch.

Established product management rigour. I moved the team from informal tracking to a structured JIRA and Confluence environment, implemented a Product Management framework, and introduced analytics and tracking so decisions could be grounded in data.

Built a CRM from scratch. I developed a CRM of active Service Provider users: over 1,400 business contacts registered in the first three months.

Delivered the ‘My Lists’ feature. Using AWS SNS push notifications, this feature enabled community services workers to build, save and share resource lists with clients, generating 16,494 lists and 3,957 informal referrals in the first three months post-launch.

Operational Improvements Delivered

• Comprehensive commercial business case with market segmentation and opportunity sizing
• Migration to JIRA for tracking and Confluence for documentation
• Product Management framework implementation
• Analytics and tracking infrastructure
• CRM of active Service Provider organisations

Result

This project is a clear demonstration of what it actually takes to innovate inside a resource-constrained organisation. Brilliant discovery work means nothing without the strategic and operational scaffolding to act on it. Setting the right foundations, a coherent commercial strategy, and a framework that empowers a team to deliver: that’s what made the difference here. The transition from not-for-profit to a commercially sustainable model was always going to be a significant cultural shift. Getting the strategy right from the start was what made it viable.