Skip to content
All case studies
Chain Lightning Company CTO & Co-founder November 2021–May 2024

Generative AI Product Pivots

A sequence of grounded generative-AI product pivots across legal work, document automation, and travel planning, built on reusable production capabilities.

Primary outcome

Expanded into legal tech, document AI, and travel tech; an eight-person team launched the Tripmate MVP in two weeks.

The problem

Find viable AI-native product directions while operating a small startup team and reusing a production platform originally built for EV charging and mobility.

Constraints

  • A small team had to validate multiple domains without fragmenting the core platform.
  • Generated answers needed grounding in domain documents or actual place data.
  • Each pivot required a credible user workflow, not a standalone AI demo.

Approach and key decisions

  1. 01

    Reframed domain workflows into focused products: D.PILOT for legal work, Documate for document automation, and Tripmate for AI travel planning and companionship.

  2. 02

    Connected Azure OpenAI function calling with real place-search results and multi-provider map data.

  3. 03

    Used rapid prototypes and user-validation flows to test product direction before deep platform investment.

  4. 04

    Reused production capabilities across authentication, payments, files, chat, notifications, and deployment pipelines.

Outcomes

  • Developed D.PILOT and Documate workflows for legal and document work with professional review.
  • Launched a Tripmate MVP with AI itinerary planning, TravelGPT, place discovery, matching, and community features in two weeks with an eight-person team.
  • Secured selection for the Microsoft Launcher program with up to KRW 500M in Azure credits.

Technology and methods

Azure OpenAI GPT-4 Function Calling Google Places PostGIS Elasticsearch Flutter AWS ECS

Evidence and disclosure scope

This case is an owner-authored summary. Product names, program selection, team size, and launch timing come from the portfolio resume; confidential user and business metrics are omitted.

See the full resume context