AI That Teaches and Guides: Goethe University’s Finance Platform
Executive Summary
Project at a Glance
Goethe University aimed to build Seasn, a platform combining financial education with asset tracking, planning, simulations, and analytics. Early development stalled due to missed MVP deadlines, technical inefficiencies, and a lack of a scalable, compliant foundation.
VOLO identified improvement areas, then became a full-cycle development partner, delivering secure, AI-powered mobile and web applications aligned with academic goals. We also provided technical training for long-term capability building. In its first month, Seasn attracted over 5,000 users, surpassing its adoption target.
Built on a modular, compliant architecture, the platform is now a trusted resource for financial education and planning in Germany, with plans to scale across Europe.
downloads in first 4 weeks
pre-launch milestones delivered on time
features live, 3 in development
secure infrastructure
About the Client
Goethe University Frankfurt is one of Europe’s leading public research institutions, serving over 40,000 students across a wide range of disciplines. Founded in 1914, it is known for its strong emphasis on academic freedom, social responsibility, and applied research with public impact.
In line with its commitment to civic engagement and financial inclusion, the university launched the Seasn initiative, an effort to advance financial literacy through accessible, research-informed digital tools. The project reflects the university’s broader mission: to translate academic insight into practical solutions that benefit society at large.
As a public institution operating at the intersection of education, policy, and innovation, Goethe University sought a technology partner capable of supporting that mission at scale.
The Challenge
Seasn began as an ambitious effort to improve financial literacy across Germany through personalized, research-backed digital tools. However, despite strong institutional support, the project quickly encountered delivery issues.
Before VOLO’s involvement, the project encountered several common challenges in early-stage product development. Timelines slipped, and technical decisions raised concerns about scalability and compliance.
Delivery processes also lacked the structure needed to sustain progress. While the vision for the platform remained strong, growing stakeholder expectations signaled the need for a more strategic and reliable delivery approach.
Key Challenges
- Team misalignment and skill gaps resulting in inconsistent execution
- Missed MVP deadlines, weakening stakeholder trust
- No scalable architecture, limiting future growth
- Compliance risks, arising from regulatory gaps in financial data handling
- Limited visibility into progress, making oversight difficult
To move forward, the university needed a partner who could restore structure, stabilize delivery, and bring its vision to reality.
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We began with a two-week consulting engagement to assess the root causes of delivery delays.
Rather than restarting the project, we worked closely with the client to restructure and strengthen the team. We retrained one internal developer to match the current tech stack and, at a later stage, replaced the external design vendor with a single, highly skilled full-stack designer.
VOLO then took full ownership of development, rebuilding the Seasn mobile app and developing a modular, GDPR-compliant admin panel to manage content and logic. The system was built
for long-term scalability, institutional alignment, and compliance.
Custom Mobile and Admin Platform
VOLO built Seasn’s mobile app from the ground up and developed a modular admin panel to manage content, business logic, and financial workflows. The platform delivers real-time analytics, simulations, and forecasting tools while supporting asset tracking via manual input, OCR, and API integrations. Backend-driven feature management allows faster updates, reduces frontend complexity, and ensures operational agility. The system was built with GDPR-compliant infrastructure and strong data protection, successfully passing third-party security testing by a certified European firm. VOLO’s specialized delivery team with fintech, compliance, and design expertise enabled these advanced features and ensured smooth iteration during development.
AI-Driven Personalization and Support
As part of the roadmap, Seasn introduced AI features to enhance personalization, optimize data interpretation, and improve user support. VOLO collaborated on design and implementation, ensuring transparency, compliance, and usability. Live features include free-text input processing, an automated support assistant, and OCR-based document parsing, all powered by GPT-4 combined with internal logic to maintain explainability and meet regulatory standards.
Continuous Innovation
VOLO continues to support the creation of a real-time financial advisor, recommendation engine, and multimodal voice-enabled search. These solutions combine GPT-4 with backend logic to deliver intelligent, explainable insights while maintaining regulatory compliance. Backend-managed execution ensures complex AI processing does not overload the frontend, keeping the user experience simple and intuitive. VOLO’s ongoing strategic support and dedicated fintech expertise ensure these features evolve safely and efficiently over time.
The Impact
Since VOLO’s engagement, Seasn has evolved from a stalled project into a fully operational digital platform supporting Goethe University’s public education mission. Both the mobile and web apps are now live, serving as the foundation for long-term digital outreach and engagement.
Key outcomes from the project include over 5,000 app downloads within the first month, surpassing initial adoption targets, the on-time delivery of all key milestones and releases, with multiple subprojects successfully completed, and this year (2026), Seasn ranking among the top 3 mobile educational apps in Germany.
The platform organized onboarding and profile creation, leveraging insights from UX research and user testing, while its GDPR-compliant, modular infrastructure was built to support scalability and cross-border compliance. AI-powered features and backend automation reduced manual input and support workload, and ongoing product development led by VOLO ensures secure feature rollouts and continued integration of advanced AI capabilities. Seasn now serves as a user-facing tool and a strategic platform for digital financial education across Germany and beyond.
Key Takeaways
Vision needs agile execution
Seasn had a strong goal, but progress depended on a partner who could align strategy with delivery.
Backend-first builds accelerate progress
Logic-heavy features were implemented server-side, enabling faster updates with less friction.
Scalability and compliance are baseline
With modular infrastructure and GDPR alignment, Seasn is ready to expand.
Lean teams deliver better
Replacing seven designers with one full-stack expert improved speed and quality.
AI must be explainable
Every AI feature was built with transparency, compliance, and user trust in mind.
Product decisions must be data-driven
Feature development was guided by analytics and continuous user feedback, shaped through multiple rounds of UX research initiated by the VOLO team.
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