The Smart Lane

Are you stuck with building a product or service?

Henning von Vogelsang

17 Mar 2025 — 5 min read

Are you stuck with building a product or service?

Maybe you’ve spent hours on brainstorming, trying to figure out where to start and what to focus on. Or you’ve encountered questions, issues, or unknown factors that are holding you back.

You don’t have the budget for a big consulting firm, and you don’t want to commit to a longwinded process. You just need clarity and a solid direction.

The Smart Lane offers a smart shortcut to clarity and momentum when you need a fresh perspective or a sparring partner for your challenging questions and issues with your product or service. After a 15-minute briefing, I spend two hours looking at your questions, researching, and developing answers and ideas before we dive into a focused, one-hour strategy consultation. For $/€ 60, you get three hours of expert thinking tailored to your needs. You’ll be smarter in no time.

Here are two examples:

The money app

Lisa and Jason, two business and economics students, have an idea for an app that excites them. They call it The Money App. It’s designed for everyone, ordinary people who want to get better at managing their finances. Their vision is clear: it should be engaging, making money management easier, helping users find smart investment strategies, and breaking down the barriers that keep people from taking control of their finances.

They start with a big whiteboard covered in ideas. One section is titled Super Easy, filled with sketches of how the app might look and work. Another says Crypto. Jason is a big fan of cryptocurrencies and loves using Robinhood. Then there’s Banks?, surrounded by sticky notes with question marks. How will they deal with banks and their slow, outdated processes?

For two weeks, they brainstorm intensively, jumping between topics, trying to prioritise ideas. But something doesn’t feel right. What if they’re making the wrong call? Which of their 50 or so ideas actually have potential? What would a first version of the app look like? And more importantly: who would use it, and why?

Lisa and Jason know they should probably hire someone, perhaps an IT firm, a product designer or someone with product and marketing experience. But they cannot afford to spend a lot of money. They just need a push in the right direction.

It’s a Case For The Smart Lane

In a short 15 to 20-minute call, they explain their idea, their vision, and the issues they keep running into.
I spend two hours reviewing everything they came up with, analysing their ideas, and identifying which ones have the highest potential. I consider user behaviour, current market trends, and product feasibility, making sure the ideas aren’t just exciting, but actually worth pursuing.
I analyse the market for consumer finance apps, finding the right spot for The Money App to fit in. Instead of chasing trends, I focus on real user needs—the gaps that similar apps don’t cover and the problems that people genuinely want solved.
I explore different business models, evaluate the value proposition, and map out a clear path to a product that isn’t just interesting, but sustainable.
In a one-hour, workshop-like video call, I walk Lisa and Jason through my findings. I take them through the reasoning behind each finding and suggestion, showing them how different decisions shape the outcome and what those choices could mean for their app’s future.

By the end of the call, Lisa and Jason feel re-energised. They finally see a clear direction and know how to get started, which steps to take and how to test a prototype with real users. Now, they’re no longer stuck in brainstorm mode, they can start building The Money App people will actually want to use.

Claire’s clarity

Claire is a psychologist with a passion to help people. She’s begun working as a therapist, but her work often feels overwhelming and exhausting, and she’s been thinking if there are better ways how she could reach more people. A repeating pattern seems to be the anxiety people experience.

She knows this is a growing issue in society. The market for therapy is crowded, and people are seeking help with books, in TikTok videos, or they keep searching for the right therapist. Clare wants to cut through that noise and create a service that truly helps people, but she isn’t sure what form it should take.

Her notebook quickly fills up with ideas and sketches. Maybe it’s an app with guided exercises? A self-paced course? A book or podcast? Or should she simply start with traditional consultations and build ideas from there? Every path seems viable, but she can’t figure out the best way. What would make her service stand out? And how can she offer real value to people who don’t even know where to start?

For weeks, Claire wrestles with these questions, sketching out different approaches, looking at competitors, and trying to balance what she wants to do with what might actually work. But once she thinks she’s onto something, she doesn’t know if it will actually work. Tthe options seem endless, and she doesn’t have the budget to hire a marketing agency or a strategy consultant.

Claire doesn’t know what form or shape her product or offer will take. She first needs clarity.

A Great Case For The Smart Lane

In a short 15 to 20-minute call, she explains her vision to me, her struggles, and the decisions that are holding her back.
I spend two hours reviewing her ideas, mapping out overlaps and potentials, and identifying which approaches hold the strongest possibility of success. I don’t just tell her what could work, I show her why, by looking at behaviour patterns of her audience, the competitive landscape, and the psychology of how people seek help for anxiety.
I explore different service business models, helping her understand whether a structured course, an app, or one-on-one consultations over video would best serve her target audience.
I break down what makes a niche service stand out, where Claire could position herself, and how to make sure her offer is both valuable and sustainable.
In a one-hour video call, I walk Claire through the possibilities. Together, we look at real-world examples, examine each direction, and we draft a first vision of her service.
I’m narrowing down viable options, empowering Claire, helping her shape a clear path forward.

By the end of the call, Claire has a defined direction, a clear starting point, and a way to test her concept before committing to a full-scale launch. Now, instead of jumping between ideas, she’s ready to build something real: a focused service that’s attractive, engaging and rewarding for everyone looking for help with anxiety.