Wichtelkompass.

Wichtelkompass is a digital platform connecting families, childcare providers and public institutions through a shared ecosystem. Finding and managing childcare in Austria still involves long lists, phone calls and analog processes. The product's goal is to make that ecosystem easier to navigate for everyone involved, not just for parents.

Childcare is a three-sided problem. Families need transparent information and simple ways to apply. Providers manage capacity, waitlists and communication with limited time. Cities and public institutions need oversight without forcing everyone onto the same rigid process.

Most existing tools solve one side of this triangle. The challenge was to design a platform where all three sides share the same foundation, without adding bureaucracy for the people who have the least time for it.

One shared ecosystem instead of isolated tools: providers publish capacity once, families find and apply through one entry point, institutions keep their oversight. The product succeeds when the administrative work around childcare shrinks, on every side.

As co-founder I carry the product end to end: product strategy, UX/UI design, product development and platform architecture. That spans discovery with providers and families, the design system, the data model behind a multi-sided platform, and the technical decisions that keep the product maintainable for a small team.

The design reduces complexity before it adds features. Parents get a search experience that explains availability and requirements instead of burying them in PDFs. Providers get workflows that map to how they already organise their day. Institutions get structure without forcing a uniform process on everyone.

The platform is built on Next.js, React and TypeScript, with Supabase as the data and infrastructure layer: Postgres for relational data, built-in auth and storage. TypeScript end to end keeps a multi-sided domain explicit and refactorable, which matters when product understanding is still evolving.

• Start with one relational foundation instead of premature microservices: the ecosystem is complex, the team is small.
• Type-safe data flow from database schema to UI, so domain rules are enforced where they belong.
• Design system before feature velocity, so the product can grow without accumulating interface debt.

Wichtelkompass is an active product in operation. Concrete results and metrics will be added here once verified. This case study deliberately avoids unconfirmed numbers.

Multi-sided platforms live or die with the least motivated user group. Designing for providers with five minutes of time per day shaped the product more than any feature list. And in a domain this regulated, talking to public institutions early prevents months of rework.