Hawi

In Syria, medical students preparing for exams relied on a system that hadn't evolved.

They would wake up, study, then head to libraries to request printed question banks. They waited for copies, paid high prices, and carried stacks of paper that were difficult to navigate, impossible to update, and inefficient to use.

Every existing solution had trade-offs.
Nothing was complete. Nothing was built properly.

We saw an opportunity to build something much better, and much cheaper.

Hawi was created as an independent platform targeting medical students in years 2–5 across two universities.

The goal wasn't incremental improvement.

To build the most advanced and ambitious platform for helping medical students.

This meant rethinking everything:

• •how content is delivered
• •how students interact with material
• •how fast and reliable the experience feels

The entire product was built from scratch.

• 4 weeks for ideation and strategy
• 3 weeks for branding and development
• 1 week for launch

Within this timeframe, we built:

• •a mobile app
• •a web platform
• •a full brand identity
• •a content pipeline (question banks & flashcards)
• •marketing systems
• •internal workflows and hiring

All handled by a team of three:

• •a developer (product & iteration)
• •a designer (branding & marketing)
• •an HR lead (contractors & content validation)

Responsibilities were fluid.
Execution was fast.
Decisions were immediate.

The traditional experience was slow, physical, and fragmented.

Hawi replaced it with something radically simpler:

• •browse question banks instantly
• •purchase and access them immediately
• •download content for offline use
• •filter by lecture or exam year
• •save questions and add notes
• •access everything across mobile and web

No waiting.
No physical limitations.
No friction.

One insight shaped the entire product:

Speed is everything.

Students lose focus easily.
Existing apps were slow, buggy, and frustrating.

Hawi was built to be fast at every level:

• •fast loading
• •fast navigation
• •fast access to content

Every decision was made to reduce friction between the student and their material.

Initially, we considered building a platform where external medical teams could publish their own content.

We dropped it.

It introduced too many problems, like quality control, operational complexity, and dependency on others.

Instead, we built and controlled the entire content ecosystem ourselves.

The timeline wasn't optional.

The next semester was approaching, and if we missed the exam season, we missed the opportunity to provide value.

Key constraints:

• •extremely limited time
• •limited budget
• •difficulty identifying high-quality contributors

At one point, we fell behind on content.

The only way forward was execution under pressure, multiple all-nighters to ensure students had enough material at launch.

Early growth didn't go as expected.

• •Students needed repeated exposure to trust a new platform
• •Discovering Hawi right before exams wasn't enough
• •Some Telegram groups restricted promotion

We adapted.

Growth came from:

• •recruiting students to promote Hawi in university Telegram groups
• •collaborating with well-known students to publish free content under Hawi

This built credibility.

Then the product took over.

Marketing got users in.
Quality made them stay, and spread it further.

• •1,800+ users
• •700+ Telegram subscribers
• •overwhelmingly positive feedback
• •zero complaints about the experience

Users described the product as something they didn't know was possible in their space.

The reality behind the product was far from polished.

• •critical bugs were fixed live, with users contacted directly to update
• •data was inserted manually using raw SQL due to lack of internal tools
• •customer support was handled alongside development and content creation

Everything was built and maintained in parallel.

Competitors failed in three key areas:

• •weak technical execution (slow, unstable apps)
• •inefficient business models (physical distribution, high costs)
• •poor team structures and low-quality output

Hawi approached it differently:

• •strong product execution
• •full control over content
• •fair contributor compensation
• •relentless focus on quality

Quality was never compromised.

Before Hawi:

• •students waited
• •paid more
• •carried physical material
• •struggled to navigate content

After Hawi:

• •everything is instant
• •everything is portable
• •everything is searchable and flexible

Students can focus on studying, not logistics.

Hawi is more than a product.

The goal is to become:

• •the primary source of support for medical students
• •a complete ecosystem for learning
• •a community of high-performing students improving education together

This project proved one thing clearly:

With the right execution, even markets dominated by outdated systems can be redefined quickly.

8 weeks was enough.