Creating a brand and website for a startup

The Ohjaa platform provides local knowledge to Chinese-speaking travelers and helps them plan truly unique experiences in their destination. Ohjaa gives Chinese-speaking users an opportunity to connect and plan their travel together with a local Chinese-speaker through a video chat connection before and during their trip.

Founded in 2017 in Helsinki, Ohjaa engages a network of over 300 “hosts” across 16 cities in Europe, including Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Stockholm, Gothernburg, Oslo, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Tallinn, Moscow, St.Petersburg, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam and London.

We designed the Ohjaa brand identity with the Chinese market in mind. First and foremost, we focused on selling the destination with a focus Nordic experiences, then the service itself. This approach can be seen in how we use images and words throughout the website.

Ohjaa customers are young people willing to discover. The brand would have to capture that audience and show the Nordic roots of the business. China has the biggest percentage of mobile usage in the world. This meant that the logo would have to be really simple and scalable. It would have to work well both in online and offline, on small and big screens. These core elements came together in the stylish and clear brand identity of Ohjaa.

Finding suitable fonts was a challenge. One for Latina and one for Chinese, they should share the same brand image. Good readability on mobile was a must.

Introducing the hosts is at the core of the website. After all, the true stars of the service are the hosts. By talking with Ohjaa hosts living abroad, users are equipped with truly personalised advice and the most up-to-date information. Ohjaa hosts have diverse backgrounds from Engineers in ship manufacturing to Designers and even Movie Producers.

When it comes to the flow of the website, making it easy for users from the point of registering to making an actual call was crucial. We created a quick and intuitive registration and payment process to allow users to make a call to a local host after spending just a few minutes on the site.

The website was created on Drupal for stability and scalability. The site uses the latest payment APIs (Stripe) available for online businesses for truly unified user experiences. For payment method, we chose Alipay, a method that most Chinese consumers are accustomed with. 

The website also has features such as registration, onboarding and linking to app stores, destination introductions, and a contact form for becoming a host.

Our startup client appreciated our ability to create fast-to-market solutions in a truly agile manner, allowing a swift move to end-user testing with an MVP.

As for their solution, Ohjaa has collected enormous phrase and the company is only getting started. By the end of 2019, Ohjaa is planned to be expand to all major European cities with over 1,000 hosts.

The future is definitely bright for Ohjaa in the age of digital overload, and we are proud to be part of bringing humanity back to travel planning. Ohjaa is currently looking for partners, so if you feel that there could be synergy between you brand and Ohjaa, do not hesitate to contact Dailuge Inc. Oy. 

See the end result of our project at Ohjaa.com