On one hand, our product serves anyone who wants to learn something new and has access to the internet. Although we expect people of all ages to use our product, a statistic from 2016 from the statistical office of the European Union shows that the participation of younger individuals (aged 25–34) in non formal learning activities in the EU was more than 20 percentage points higher than that of older ones (aged 55–64).

On the other hand, we can also make partnerships with universities and companies, offering them a better deal for a large group of students/employees.

Personal experience: During our undergraduate years, we noticed that almost everytime we study for an exam or do our assignments, we end-up with 20+ opened browser tabs, not remembering where we had seen a piece of information we had to read again and searching through our browsing history for that one essential webpage we had found after one hour of researching, but closed it by mistake. These obstacles are time-consumming and distract us while trying to learn something, therefore we considered that there is room for improvement.

Validation from others: We got the confirmation that others have the same issues from casual conversations with our friends and classmates.

For the problem validation we thought a bigger group of people will offer better insights, which is why we created a Google Form. To make sure the form yields as much information as possible we went back and modified the questions after receiving feedback, after that we distributed it on social media and to friends and family.
For the solution validation we wanted to get closer to our potential customers, so we decided to conduct some interviews with people who had as little knowledge as possible about our idea. We took this approach because interviews allow us to come with questions on the spot, to understand better what would work and what would not work, but also what we have to focus on for the first iteration of the product.

What browser are you using?
Google Chrome is the general choice. 1 out of 5 people use Microsoft Edge. Firefox is also used sometimes, when Chrome drains a lot of resources.

How often do you use browser extensions?
1 out of 5 people does not use browser extensions. The rest of the interviewees use AdBlocker and rarely use other browser extentsions.

What resources and tools do you use when you are learning?
Platforms that interviewees use when searching for information: Google Scholar, scientific articles, videos, tutorials, complete courses, Coursera, edX, Udemy, geeksforgeeks, StackOverflow and tehnical documentation. Tools that interviewees use: Mendeley, EndNotes, Notepad, Google Keep, Google Docs, Bookmarks, Microsoft Office, Microsoft ToDo, Microsoft Calendar.

What problems have you encounterned when learning from the Internet?
Contradictory or incomplete information, difficulties in finding how useful or advanced a resource is, difficulties in organizing information, not using the right keywords when searching for information, a lot of resources are not free and you cannot access them as a student.

How do you organize your information?
Besides using the tools mentioned, 2 out of 5 people prefer to take notes using pen and paper. 1 out of 5 people has difficulties in structuring information.

How likely is it that you would use a browser extensions for learning recommendations?
Interviewees found our solution useful and stated that it could save a lot of time, but they would use it only if it has a lot of users and good reviews.