Helge.App — building and scaling a digital product
Helge.App, Estonia (2019–present). Co-founder, tech and business lead.
The problem
Estonian schools had no reliable, low-friction way to measure student and staff wellbeing. Paper surveys were slow, uncomparable across schools, and rarely acted on. Support specialists spent most of their time detecting problems rather than resolving them.
The approach
As co-founder and technical lead I designed the product architecture, validated the wellbeing scales academically, and built the go-to-market motion. Native iOS/Android apps for students; a SaaS dashboard for support staff and school leadership; automated flagging and cohort comparison. Rolled out one municipality at a time with in-classroom research.
The result
From zero to 32 Estonian schools and ~5,500 students in five years. Independent evaluation quantified 23.4 support-specialist months freed and €59.8k of verified added value — before counting improved wellbeing outcomes themselves.
What I learned
An edtech product only survives if the daily user (student) and the buyer (school leadership) both get something they cannot get elsewhere. Academic validation of the underlying instrument is what separated us from a wellness app.