Media & Entertainment | Product Design | B2C | AI Innovation
Laila : AI-Powered Storytelling for Families
Client
Morfeu (Co-founded startup)
Timeline
16 months
Role
Chief Product Officer, Co-Founder
Overview & Challenge
I co-founded Morfeu and led the product vision, design, and prompt engineering for Laila — an AI platform enabling parents and children to create personalised video stories from simple prompts.
In under a year, we launched a beautiful, usable product with a strong brand and modular AI engine, despite limited funding, part-time resources, and rapidly evolving AI technology.
Key Challenges
• Creating a consumer product with early-stage funding and a part-time, distributed team
• Navigating AI models that evolved monthly and required constant adaptation
• Balancing ambitious vision with technical constraints
• Finding product–market fit in a crowded kids’ content space
• Market timing: parents enjoyed the product but were hesitant to pay when free kids’ content is abundant
My Approach & Contribution
As CPO and co-founder, I wore multiple hats - from researcher to designer to prompt engineer. My unique systems thinking background helped me orchestrate complex technical components while staying focused on the family experience.
What I did
1. Led product vision, UX design, and prompt engineering across narration, imagery, and video
3. Designed how we move to agentic AI models, created agent-specific prompts, and conceptualised how they interact with each other — then manually tested the flow
5. Facilitated branding and roadmap workshops to align co-founders and guide development
2. Ran research with parents to understand storytelling needs, values, and screen-time concerns
4. Tried and tested multiple language, image, video, voice, and music models — iteratively improving combinations to achieve the best balance of quality, consistency, and cost
Results & Impact
01
Product launch
Delivered Laila in under 12 months from concept to MVP
03
Technology
Built a flexible AI engine adaptable to emerging models
05
Expertise
Developed deep skills in prompt engineering and human–AI co-creation
02
Brand & UI
Created a consistent, research-informed, and accessible interface
04
Recognition
Secured a place in a competitive accelerator programme
Key Learnings
Start with conversational interfaces sooner
Set up robust testing and feedback loops earlier
Build go-to-market alongside product development
Balance speed with design quality from the outset
Prioritise early alignment on product vision and team processes
Afterword
After launch, the team shifted focus to building a more complex “Studio” version for creators — a promising direction requiring new research, audience insights, and marketing. With no budget left for marketing Laila, a thin commercialisation window, and a shift in working style away from research-led design, I chose to step away for both strategic and financial reasons. The team continues to build on the platform’s modular foundation.