Inside by Schoolab

When I first joined Schoolab, the product was just a tiny prototype that only handled user accounts, meeting room administration, and a basic booking page. The actual daily room reservations were still being managed on a simple Google Sheet. Developed internally, Inside was built from the ground up to act as a central hub for the spaces' operations.

From a Google Sheet to a structured platform

My first priority was to establish a solid foundation, releasing a first version that included a robust room management system, an intuitive booking page, and a personalized homepage to track reservations.

As the platform's adoption grew within our community, we expanded its scope. We introduced a new module to announce upcoming events, followed shortly by a "Teams" feature to officially group our residents and startups together.

The first limits of a free for all

Regulating room usage quickly became a challenge. To ensure fair access across the coworking space, we introduced a statistics dashboard and implemented strict limits on the number of booking hours allowed per team.

To improve the user experience alongside these limits, we upgraded the booking system to include a daily visual timeline. This allowed users to easily see which rooms were available at any given time of the day and book them directly from the timeline.

A UX overhaul focused on administration

As features piled up and the platform grew, the managers were confused by the admin permission structures. To solve this, we designed and added a dedicated admin panel.

This major UX overhaul clarified the permission architecture, creating clear, role-specific environments that separated community member views from space management tools.

Managing multiple locations

Because Schoolab opened several new locations, we had to adapt the platform's architecture. We introduced Locations and Spaces to strictly separate what residents could see depending on their building.

Spaces and specific programs were attached directly to these locations, which in turn hosted their own dedicated teams and events. Alongside this, we also rolled out a fully functional event registration system.

Acceleration programs & the birth of Inject

Started during v1 but officially released in v2, we integrated the management of Schoolab's acceleration programs. Teams were now assigned to specific programs: this new hierarchy allowed us to continuously refine and manage the increasingly complex booking quotas and rights.

During this phase, we also attempted to add project management features to teams. However, it quickly became apparent that this made the platform too complex. To keep Inside focused on building and community management, we decided to separate the use cases entirely, which ultimately led to the creation and launch of Inject.

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Bridging design and code together

To move forward efficiently, we needed a seamless integration between design and development. By working on both the UX/UI and the front-end code, I was able to implement the mockups directly.

Handling both aspects simply allowed me to ensure the final product stayed completely true to the designs while maintaining a structured, reusable component base.

Outcomes & sunset

After successfully equipping and running Schoolab's spaces for several years, the COVID-19 pandemic completely disrupted the use of physical workspaces. As a result, the product was eventually sunsetted. Once closed, the project was fully retired, and I did not continue to develop or maintain the application in a sandbox environment.

Despite its closure, designing Inside was a pivotal product milestone. It laid the architectural foundation and core components that later allowed us to develop and scale our main platform, Inject, to an entirely new level.