Lucie Krulichova - Motionshift

Unlocking AI-powered video & animation

Motionshift helps marketers, social media managers, designers & creators make video content in a simple way by leveraging the power of AI, making an editable library of video templates while also making it easier to collaborate across marketing teams.

Project Context

Motionshift was a startup I co-founded and worked on for 1 year and 3 months. It began from a shared frustration with complex 3D and video editing tools, evolving into a mission to build an easy-to-use video creation platform with 3D capabilities. We validated the need through creators, marketers, and designers who struggled with tools like After Effects or the high cost of professional video. The journey was full of pivots, lessons, wins, and setbacks. After raising a pre-seed round from Antler and nearing new soft funding, I had to pause the project when my co-founders left and we ran out of funds. Still, I gained invaluable hands-on experience across product and project management, strategy, marketing, video, design, and UI/UX.

User Research

User Analysis

Branding & Strategy

Product Management

Product Design

Beta Testing

Website Design

Fundraising & Pitch Deck

Project involvement

I co-founded the company and led product design and product strategy from day one. Starting from zero—with no product, users, or funding—I grew our team from 3 to 6, built a waitlist of 2,500+ users in 3 months, secured 10 signed letters of intent, launched 6 pilot projects, and onboarded 50 beta users. I led our fundraising efforts, raising $125K in pre-seed capital to accelerate product development and market entry.

www.motionshift.io

User Research

User interviews

I believe that product managers and founders should talk to customers at least once or twice per week. It's crucial because it helps steer you in the right direction and truly understand their problems and needs on an ongoing basis. Below is a synthesis of some of our findings from user interviews categorized by topics.

Assumption mapping

Next, I took some time to reconsider some of the assumptions I was making about my project, which I would have to validate or disprove through primary research. For example, we believed that our users and companies wanted to use motion and videos because they are more engaging than static images, and that currently companies find it hard to create engaging videos. We also knew that assumptions needed to be testable. Through assumption mapping, we tested these assumptions and aimed to discover what exactly companies liked about motion and videos. The outcome also involved analyzing which assumptions were important for the MVP.

User Analysis

Customer segmentation

We kept on going in circles in terms of who our ideal customer is. Initially, we aimed at designers and motion designers, but soon we realized that it was too hard to start with them because they had really high expectations of the tool's capability. In addition, our goal was to democratize motion and 3D video creation, so we decided that marketers and small business owners were the best initial target audience. Below, we mapped out all the stakeholders and how they are interconnected to have a better overview of who influences whom.

Primary persona

After the segmentation and with the project focus narrowed down, I then created a primary persona to distill my research findings into a succinct representation of the potential user.

Branding & Strategy

Brand direction

I began by brainstorming adjectives that embodied the brand: Co-operative, Energetic, Expressive, Digital, Inspiring, Positive, Social, Fun, Modern, Futuristic

App name & logo

The name "Motionshift" was carefully chosen to reflect the tool's primary goal of “shifting” motion graphics and video to the next level. The concept of the logo was explored through sketches and digital iterations. The idea for the logo originated from a sine wave, which was deemed appropriate for a video creation tool as sine curves are commonly associated with harmonic motion.

Product Management

Dual track agile & overall roadmap

We worked in dual track agile with continuous learning and adaptation, with regular feedback loops between the discovery and delivery tracks. This approach enable us to work on research and product development in parallel which aligned with our user-centric approach where user research continuously informed product development. For larger milestones we had a roadmap.

Product Design

Design process

The initial starting point was focused on creating an easy-to-use motion design tool with the capability to create 3D motion graphics content and publish anywhere. We began by developing a relatively complex editor interface while still striving to make it as intuitive as possible. However, we underestimated the complexity of this task. Our vision was to simplify motion design in a way similar to how Figma simplified UX/UI creation or Canva simplified graphic design.

Pivot towards an AI video editing tool

Beta testing and user research were among our biggest challenges. Crafting effective questionnaires, validating assumptions, and encouraging user participation took significant effort. Using Maze, we ran live tests and created various scenarios to identify user pain points and highlight what they enjoyed. Below are some examples.

Beta Testing

Pivot towards an AI video editing tool

Website Design

Website optimized for product clarity

The goal of this website was to maximize conversions and create a understanding of the digital product