The Challenge
Most small and mid-sized businesses know they need cybersecurity but lack the time, expertise, or budget to implement it properly. The market is dominated by either expensive managed security service providers (MSSPs) or complex DIY tools that overwhelm business owners. The founding team believed there was an opportunity for a simple, affordable, self-serve cybersecurity product. The ask: Design and build a cybersecurity platform from scratch, validate their market and product hypotheses, and iterate based on the findings, even if that meant fundamentally changing the underlying business model.
The Approach
We partnered with Lockwell as their full product development team for a 2-year engagement, handling everything from early user research through multi-platform product development and ongoing optimization. While foundational research supported the need for an enterprise self-serve cybersecurity product, usage data and interviews from a closed MVP launch uncovered a key behavioral insight: SMBs may say they want to do it themselves, but in practice they actually wanted to outsource security altogether but couldn’t afford to. This discovery drove a strategic pivot: bundle the self-serve product with full-service response and compliance at a disruptive price point. Rather than competing with expensive MSSPs or DIY tools, Lockwell would offer both.
Lockwell has been our biggest project to-date, We built desktop apps (Mac/Windows), a web admin dashboard, mobile apps (iOS/Android), a custom password manager, and integrated multiple security services, including dark web scanning, email firewall, automated backups, VPN, and real-time threat monitoring. All of these features were bundled together in a simple, user-friendly interface, demystifying some of the most complex enterprise workflows out there.
The Outcome
ARR
Retention rate
H1 2025 growth
Product Strategy
SMB market research & competitive analysis
Business model validation and pivot strategy
Ongoing roadmap planning and feature prioritization
Customer feedback analysis and strategic optimization
Branding & Marketing
Brand identity & visual system
Marketing website design and development
Sales collateral and customer onboarding materials
Product Design
UI/UX design across 50+ screens (web, desktop, mobile)
Multi-platform design system & component library
Interface design for complex security concepts with simplicity as core principle
User flows for both business owners and employees
Iconography and illustration system
User Research & Testing
Exploratory interviews with SMB owners and cybersecurity professionals
Interactive prototype testing with target users
Beta program coordination and user testing
Quantitative analytics (Amplitude) and qualitative interview analysis
Ongoing customer feedback loops throughout 2-year engagement
Development
Desktop applications: Native macOS (Swift) and Windows (Electron) apps with system-level security integrations
Web application: Admin dashboard with real-time monitoring (React, Node.js, PostgreSQL)
Mobile applications: iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin) native apps with background security monitoring
Custom password manager: Secure vault with encryption, auto-fill, and breach monitoring
Integrated security services
Backend infrastructure: AWS cloud architecture (EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda)
Analytics instrumentation
Launch Support
App Store submission & approval
Post-launch monitoring & optimization
User feedback analysis




