From Vision to Market: How Systems Thinking and Partnering with End-to-End Helped Paletter Scale

At End-to-End Innovation Consulting, we believe the strength of innovation comes from systems thinking—seeing the big picture, connecting the dots, and guiding teams through complexity. One of our most meaningful partnerships was with Paletter, Inc., a B2B AI-powered hiring platform expanding into the U.S. market. To tell this story fully, we spoke with Masahiko Inoue (Masa), Founder & CEO of Paletter, Inc. What follows is his reflection on working side by side with Jolly Pradhan, CEO & Founder of End-to-End Innovation Consulting.

 Masahiko Inoue (Masa), Founder & CEO of Paletter, Inc.

Getting Started: The Search for Voice of Customers

When Paletter needed Voice of Customers (VoC) insights to position their AI-driven soft skills assessment tool, they knew it couldn’t be generic. They had already worked with other consultants, but the output lacked depth, felt impersonal, and failed to generate actionable customer insights.

“What stood out about Jolly was her professionalism and her ability to connect with people. Even without an HR network already in place, she went out and built those connections for us. That extra effort made all the difference.”

Jolly sourced U.S.-based recruiters and HR leaders, conducted VoC interviews, and delivered valuable customer and market insights. For startups and innovative companies alike, entering a new market, this work was critical for understanding the evolving market and translating customer insights and business needs into technical requirements.

Leading Critical Customer Projects

Jolly took ownership of high-profile projects, including Chick-fil-A’s Hiring Initiative. The stakes were high: Paletter needed to quickly assess applicants’ soft skills at scale to prove its value in the U.S. market but lacked someone who could bridge the gap—someone who could align customers, the technical team, sales, and leadership, while also translating a complex AI build into clear steps for designing, training, and launching the new AI model.

“Jolly led that project with the HR Director of Chick-fil-A. She explained our technology at a high-level, made sure collaborators understood their roles, and kept communication flowing.”

She worked closely with the HR Director at Chick-fil-A—who also served as a recruiter—on training the initial AI model. The challenge was that training the model was technically complex and difficult to explain to customers. Jolly played a key role not only in translating this high-level process but also in helping build the early AI model itself—ensuring recruiters understood how it worked, what data mattered, and what actions they needed to take to create the AI Model. 

Once the AI model was developed, it went through a trial period where the customers used the Paletter AI platform while manually verifying each candidate’s soft skills. This side-by-side process not only improved the model but also built the trust needed for customer adoption.

The project rapidly expanded—scaling from one role to four and adding new language capabilities—laying the foundation for broader adoption. Its success led to Paletter’s AI model being adopted and expanded across restaurants and hospitality groups nationwide.

Systems Thinking & Strategic Prioritization 

Startups aren’t alone in this—innovative companies of every size can find themselves chasing too many opportunities at once. Paletter was no exception. Masa recalled how Jolly guided the team through tough decisions about which projects to prioritize.

Using a systems-thinking approach, she translated customer and market insights into clear system requirements and priorities. She also helped the team evaluate system architecture options against time-to-market, technical complexity, compliance, and scalability.

Within a week, she brought the team into alignment on the two to three initiatives that mattered most. That process not only saved Paletter months of wasted effort and money—it also gave them a clear, prioritized roadmap, ensuring development resources were focused on the highest-priority work at the right time - critical at that stage of their growth.

QA Testing & Launch 

Quality assurance was another area where Jolly’s leadership proved invaluable. Paletter’s product had been developed in Japan, but scaling it for the U.S. market required a different approach.

The technical team lacked QA experience in this new context—so Jolly stepped in. Drawing on her semiconductor and systems engineering background, she built a structured QA process that caught errors early and minimized any disruptions to customers’ business operations - critical in B2B, where even small interruptions can mean lost time and lost revenue.

“The QA systems Jolly built are still being used today. For us, that was huge. Startups don’t have manuals. Everything is new, and mistakes can be costly. Jolly gave us structure when we needed it most.”

Becoming Part-of-the-Team

From there, Jolly didn’t fade into the background—she became embedded in Paletter’s day-to-day operations as a true extension of the team. Over two years, she wore many hats: Strategist, Systems Thinker, Product Manager, and cross-functional leader—a bridge across engineering, product, and business.

Masa emphasized how vital this was: “Jolly didn’t just advise—she built our strategy, designed the testing framework, and worked side-by-side with the technical team while still keeping the bigger picture in focus.” 

Her approach gave Paletter something most startups lack: both structure and focus—allowing the team to execute with clarity while still moving fast.

The Impact of Jolly’s Approach

More than anything, Masa emphasized Jolly’s role as the critical bridge between cross-functional teams and customers.

“She connected engineering, product, and leadership. She listened, summarized, and always ended meetings with a clear plan. That clarity was everything. For a startup like ours, it didn’t feel outsourced — it felt like she was truly part of the team.”

Her ability to translate technical complexity into actionable strategy—while also accounting for diversity, bias, and AI regulations—gave Paletter both strength and credibility as it scaled.

Why Jolly Made the Difference

To Masa, what set Jolly apart wasn’t just her technical expertise — it was her ability to adapt, integrate, and lead with empathy.

“She’s organized, strategic, and able to break down what’s important. For a small team, that’s invaluable. She wore many hats — systems thinker, strategist, communicator — and every one of them made us better.”

Our Reflection

Jolly’s work with Paletter exemplifies what we believe at End-to-End: that true innovation is powered by systems thinking—and that it can take the most ambitious vision and turn it into scalable reality. 

By weaving together customer insights, hands-on technical development, and business needs, Jolly worked with the team to build an AI model from the ground up—responsibly, compliantly, and with scalability in mind—and led its launch and adoption with Paletter’s first customers. 

Her impact lives on not only in the systems still in place, but in a team equipped to compete in a demanding market—and to turn their innovation into sustainable business growth.