Dira is an AI-powered conversation intelligence platform tailored for Product Managers working in B2B SaaS companies. It helps them deeply understand customer needs, pain points, by turning existing customer conversations into actionable insights.
I built Dira entirely from the ground up, starting with the design phase in Figma, where I crafted the user experience and interface. From there, I developed the front end using React and Tailwind CSS, ensuring a clean, intuitive, and responsive interface. For the back end, I used Python to handle data processing and integrate the AI capabilities that make the platform intelligent and insightful.
The journey of building Dira was a defining experience that pushed my skills as both a product designer and a self-taught developer. I started out with a clear problem in mind—product managers often prioritize features without being confident about their impact on customers. From there, the challenge was to transform this problem into a meaningful, scalable solution that truly delivered value.
Being a product designer by trade, I relied heavily on my design skills to get started. I designed Dira's user experience in Figma, ensuring it felt intuitive and aligned with the needs of busy product managers. But what made this project unique for me was taking it from just an idea to a fully-functional product, writing code every step of the way. This meant diving into technologies like Next.js for the front end, Python for the backend processing, Tailwind CSS for a clean and modern user interface, and OpenAI APIs to integrate natural language understanding into the platform.
Throughout the development, I learned not just how to code—I learned how to build a product that people would actually want to use. I spent months validating the idea with clients through low-fidelity mockups, ensuring that the core concepts resonated with real user needs before writing a single line of code. I took a deep dive into market research, having conversations with product managers to understand their biggest challenges. This market research shaped Dira's features, such as its Top Themes summaries, business case generator, and conversational analytics tools that product managers could use to quickly dig into customer insights.
Learning to code was the first major hurdle, but it was also an incredibly empowering experience. I spent countless hours mastering JavaScript and Python, writing functional components, and managing data flow—skills that were brand new to me as a product designer. I found that understanding both the design and the development aspects allowed me to create a cohesive, impactful product experience.
Another challenge I faced was ensuring Dira's insights were genuinely useful for product managers. Early on, I realized that simply providing a summary of conversations wasn't enough; Dira needed to present insights in a way that was directly actionable. This led me to iterate heavily on the insight rollups and customer metrics adding ways for users to easily understand and apply the findings from customer conversations.
My work on Dira culminated in the platform becoming the second runner-up in a startup pitch competition at the Saskatchewan Incubator CoLaunch in 2024—a milestone that validated not only the product itself but also my ability to turn a concept into a working, value-driven solution. This experience helped me understand the value of combining technical skills with deep empathy for user needs.
In the end, building Dira wasn’t just about creating a product. It was about transforming myself from a designer to a builder—someone who can bring ideas to life and solve real problems by merging creativity with technology.
The themes page allows users to view new autogenerated themes based on processed customer calls. Filter functionality enables users to hone down to themes they care about.
Single theme page which is AI generated. Each theme brings together related insights gathered from multiple calls.
